First Year Polish

by Oscar E. Swan

The first edition of this book met with instant success; the new edition has been completely rewritten, with much material added, and a wealth of photographs, graphic material, and songs have been added. First Year Polish is intended for use in both high school and college courses and for individualized instruction. The book is written for persons with little or no previous language-learning experience. Attention is paid to speaking, reading, writing, and listening. The language is based upon that of contemporary Poland; grammar is presented explicitly but is well spread throughout the book. Every effort is made to avoid grammar topics found to be easier for English-speaking learners are placed earlier. The thirty lessons vary between conversation and reading. Each lesson is generously supplied with pattern drills and sentences for translation. The book is richly illustrated. Most lessons can realistically be covered in a single week of non intensive classroom study.

Genres: Polish Literature, Linguistics, Language

354 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 1983

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the 1970s and 1980s, Slavica Publishers, an outlet for Slavists at American universities, began to put out new textbooks for Eastern European languages that offered a more modern pedagogical approach and more contemporary vocabulary and usage than those textbooks of the first half of the 20th century which had been standard. Of course, decades later these Slavica textbooks themselves can come across as dated when newer options have appeared.

Oscar E. Swan's First Year Polish, however, has actually held up quite well, at least the 1983 second edition which I am familiar with. Swan covers about the same ground as other introductory textbooks for Polish, i.e. basic noun, adjective, and verb morphology, numbers, telling time, etc., and ending just as the conditional mood and the imperfective/perfective aspect of verbs has been presented. The Polish taught here is quite modern, in some respects even better grounded in actual on-the-street idiomatic usage than some later textbooks. And in terms of vocabulary, Swan’s book appears to teach far more words than your Teach Yourself Polish or Colloquial Polish options, and it is all useful everyday vocabulary that will make you sound like a competent speaker.

This book was designed both for motivated self-learners and for classroom use. Each lesson consists of a short reading followed by a vocabulary section and then exercises in the form of substitution drills or sentences for translation. Someone who already knows a Slavic language or two could profitably use this book to pick up the basics of Polish, but the lack of any key to the exercises makes it unideal for independent study unless such readers know a Polish person who can check their work.

The biggest downside of this book is the bad typesetting. Slavica books of this era were set on an early computer typesetting machine that resulted in very dense page layout and little distinction between font styles. The book feels exhausting just to read, let alone go back through searching for that one little detail in an earlier chapter that you need to review.

[Brianna]

I recently finished an eight week course through the local Polish school using this book. Though I like the approach, it can be difficult to read with the formatting. The exercises have very simple instructions, but something about their wording often had me questioning what they were asking.

Now that I have a decent foundation, I plan to self-study moving forward. Without the ability to check my work (no answers to exercises included), it’s questionable this book will be suitable.

[Caitlin]

First year Polish by Oscar E. Swan (1983)

[Magila · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are much better options out there. Swan's second installment is much better than his first.