learning a foreign language...........advise pls?

Yes, I'm going to have a crack at learning Polish...as I work with 45 of them....

There is no real reason why I should...but if you can't beat them......

Any one now of any good on linelanguage courses??

Or any other idaes?





tia



D.

 

An excellent course for listening and learning is the Pimsleur course.
My wife is currently making great strides in Arabic with their course. It concentrates on the hearing and speaking side, rather than reading and writing. Downside is it can be a bit expensive. The complete course costs about $400 (in 3 parts) but you can try the first ten lessons for $20.
It can be bought and downloaded in mp3 format from Talking-book store

Avoid "Polish in Three Months" - a misnomer if ever I heard one!

HTH
Chris

 

two votes for pimsleur....interesting.

I can't find mega bucs but we'lll have a punt i think on the 10 lessons.

started a polish in three months...(i have no illusions about it)...its ok but I wouldn't say brill.

 

When I started to learn Czech I started with "Czech in 3 Months"! I now have about a dozen different courses; each have their strengths and weaknesses, and I found myself 'dipping into' different ones depending on what I wanted to learn at the time. It became "needs-driven" rather than structured progression!
When I found the Pimsleur course, I was already so far advanced that I found it uneconomic.

I wish you every success in learning Polish.

 

Thankyou.

Unfortuneatly I stiill have bad memories of French in school...







perhpts I'll ahve more luck now, 20/30 years on

 

if you work with a load of native polish speakers i'd say get them to speak to you in polish as much as possible - the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in it - i learned (texan) american very effectively that way

 

Yes fair enough comment, Julian.

When I was 17-20 I worked for a Welsh speaking family. By the end of my employment I reckoned I was understanding about half the conversations, without having made any real attempt to learn it (I know, I know..........I was 18......).

There has got to be some home work too, I think.

When they talk amonsgt themselves they talk very quickly (there complaint to me!).......and I think they are bit hacked off with expalining stuff to me D).......hence a bit of efort on my part!

 

My experience with czech people is that if they perceive you are making an effort to learn, they are very supportive. If otherwise, they can be a little difficult, speaking quickly and not very helpful!
I don't know if Poles share that trait.
A phrase I learned very quickly was Czech for: "Please speak slowly and simply."

 

good idea

 

yeah, I knew this german guy who was from hohen-westedt (near keel) and he was into linguistics in a big way -he was fluent in about 5 languages...he used to make me try and guess sentences by talking very slowly...good idea in theory expect he's say some real random shit...

 

Do what all normal English people do, speak English to them and expect them to understand what you mean, and get pissed off when they do not !

The bird is trying to teach me Spanish, but I must confess I am not finding it very easy.

 

Well, er.........thats currently the situation actually.

 

Some people seem to have a gift for languages (which I have certainly not got!). A Czech friend of mine can learn a new language in a year; speak, understand, read and write all fluently - and he acknowledges that it comes more easily to him than others, but still maintains that it takes hard work too.
He is fluent in Czech, English, French, German, Russian, Polish, Slovak, Greek, Spanish and Italian and has good knowledge of hebrew and other languages.
He would translate what i said in English to his Czech wife, and if I slipped in a Czech word or phrase he would reverse-translate it into English in mid flow!
We spent some good times exchanging English and Czech idioms, which he felt 'rounded out' his knowledge of the language.

 

Yes, I'm sure thats right, some people willhave a knack for it. Unfortunatley my experince is limited to making a complte hash of French when I was 13 (that teacher actually died in front of her class....nothing to do with me (not knowingly anyway!) but overall it was a far from +ve experince).

Anyway, some v. good advise coming at me just now so maybe things will be diff this time.

Often its not WHAT you know.......(or perhpts a bit of both)

 

OK david, tell us her name?

 

You don't know how near.....


...the suggestion WAS put by a markedly attractive young Polish women. How very perceptive

I'm actually not doing it for her though.

 

The point I was going to make to anyone else intersted in this is that there is a load of stuff on youtube....

Sometimes I think its just good to listen to bits from all angles.