- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Teach Yourself Books (15 Jan 2004)
- Language English, Polish
- ISBN-10: 0340870893
- ISBN-13: 978-0340870891
- Product Dimensions: 22.2 x 16.6 x 5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
-
Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
563,146 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #15 in Books > Languages > By Language > Other European Languages > Polish > Audiovisual & Multimedia
- See Complete Table of Contents
| |||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
|
There is a newer edition of this item:
|
Product details |
Product Description
Product Description
Polish is the state language of the Polish Republic. It is a member of the western sub-group of the Slavonic languages, a family which includes Bulgarian, Russian, Ukranian and other languages. As well as nearly 40 million speakers in Poland itself, Polish is spoken by an estimated 10 million Poles abroad. This book is intended to help you progress quickly from the basics to understanding, speaking and writing Polish. Twenty thematic units increase in complexity, as they move from dealing with everyday situations to talking about the past and making plans. The emphasis is on communication throughout, with important language structures introduced through dialogues in each unit. These build up to give you a command of the essential phrases necessary for a trip to Poland. Exercises are included so that you can practice the language as it is introduced, and tips throughout should help with the grammar. Aspects of life in Poland are also detailed to give a context to the language.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Recommended, but audio is gappy,
By
This review is from: Complete Polish Book/CD Pack (Teach Yourself Languages) (Paperback)
Do not mistake this book for a crash-course for a complete beginner in languages. It is somewhere between an all-round language book and a guide: you can find only dialogues and accompanying grammar with practices in the lessons, i.e. without any continuous text to read and translate. Even the narrative texts in dialogues are in English!
Regarding the CD, it's not really useful. I bought this pack just because of the audio material and I'm not really happy with it. First, I suspect they made a rough transition from an original tape without ever considering the advantages of the CD format. Thus it's not structured into meaningful and easy-to-navigate parts: you can find each lesson on one separate track on its own, which means you have to forward/rewind it all the time as it were a mere tape. You have to sort this out for yourself. Plus, the audio material seems truncated as there is no audio for all the dialogues and relevant practices. Probably they cut them back for not to go over a 1 CD limit. As I'm Hungarian, this may sound subjective but a language book should offer more native texts and instructions in the long run, not just dialogues with English instructions around. Having studied a few languages, and having a mother tongue that is agglutinating in its nature like Polish (and unlike English), I do not really find it hard to learn the inflections as set out in the book. The book will give you help in the context. The only thing I find hard is that Slavonic languages are really keen on discriminating between genders, and the book sometimes orientates too much on the dialogues without exact info on the grammar (personal pronouns(!), inflections in simple present tense etc.). Good book nonetheless.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Awful. Do not buy this book.,
By Elephvant (UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Complete Polish Book/CD Pack (Teach Yourself Languages) (Paperback)
I bought this book/CD having had a good experience with another 'Teach Yourself' title (Teach Yourself Japanese). Unfortunately, it seems there is no guiding principle between the publications of these titles and this book has been nothing but an eternal disappointment.
The biggest problem is that the whole thing moves far too fast and lacks any sort of logical structure. For me the whole book can be summed up by a section from the third chapter (out of twenty). "Genitive forms are used...after negated verbs that take the accusative form (which you study later) when they are not negated" Now, if this were from a book whose stated intention was an in-depth look at grammar for those who already speak Polish I would understand. However, this quote comes from the same chapter in which the learner is introduced to cardinal numbers for the first time. I'm still struggling to count to ten and I'm being expected to negate the accusative for...or wait...not negate... At this stage you haven't even learned how to say anything more about yourself than your name! I am an english teacher and if I take a couple of minutes to think about the above quote i can pretty much understand it but, how the authors considered this as important in the third chapter(!) is simply beyond me. As if this wasn't enough, the CD is quite simply useless. Many of the dialogues ar not included and I would say at least two-thirds of it is taken up by a woman speaking in english. The first dialogue sets the tone. Using four full sentences the scene is set (in english) despite the fact that everything spoken is written down in the book anyway before we are treated to a whole...six words of Polish. Fantastic. Of course, later dialogues are longer but these merely introduce problems of their own. In this format of language book usually the 'new vocab' boxes after dialogues get shorter as the student becomes used to the common vocab being used. This is done deliberately so the student becomes familiar and confident with everyday terms and structures. Not so here. Instead 'new vocab' boxes often include 90% + of the words in the dialogue. This practice continues throughout the book leaving the learner feeling lost, overwhelmed and bewildered.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good, comprehensive guide,
By
This review is from: Complete Polish Book/CD Pack (Teach Yourself Languages) (Paperback)
I feel that the earlier reviews of this book are a little unfair. Admittedly, if you are looking for a quick-fix guide for going on holiday, this is probably not the book for you, but if you are actually looking to learn Polish then it is excellently structured.
The units may at first seem somewhat illogical or irrelevant, but their strong point is that they present grammatical points in context, rather than simply bombarding you with grammar and then expecting you to be able to apply it. Having studied French and Spanish at school, I remember being almightily confused as to why we were taught one variation on a word in one context, and another in another, so the structure of this book is quite good from that point of view! Polish friends of mine have told me that some of the language in this book is not particularly up-to-date, but I think this is a fault of any language textbook. Certainly, I feel that I have learnt a lot about the language in a very short space of time. However, the accompanying CD is not immensely helpful, except if you have no other source of pronunciation to assist you. As with any language, there can be no subsitute for practising with native speakers!
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
