Customer Reviews

Mastering Polish [With 2 CDs] (Hippocrene Master Series)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I'm trying to learn Polish, the language of my ancestors, and I was immediately drawn to this book (which comes with two audio CD's) because the conversations are not just about shopping, dining, arranging transportation and checking into hotels. Instead, there is a much more interesting range of scenarios, including visits to a forest preserve, a concert, a university, a relative's garden, an art gallery, an author's reading and more. Albert Juszczak has created a basic language course that has one discussing the science fiction of Stanislaw Lem and pianist Garrick Ohlsson's mastery of Chopin. The grammar exercises are equally high-minded and engagingly accessible. Generally in language instruction, I find I am bored by the lesson content while trying to grasp the linguistic form, but that is not the case here. Bravo, Dr. Juszczak!

This book is a bad bad investment. It has many drawbacks:
1.- Every lesson begins with a dialog that has no connection at all with the explanations inside the lesson.
2.- Dialogs are full of past tense, cases and many complicated forms that are not explained at all.
3.- Grammar is faulty and very short, with just a few (2 to 3) examples.
4.- Recordings are at very low speed, not good for learning.

This book/CD set didn't help me at all. I listened to this several times and followed along with the book, but didn't learn anything. The only thing this program consists of is listening to conversations in Polish and reading along in the book. Nothing is explained in the book, it's just chunks of dialog. It wasn't hands on at all and was actually quite dry.

I'm a hands on learner, though, so those who learn from being read to in a foreign language, have at it!

I started using this a while back to learn Polish. I used the book maybe two or three times for a couple weeks. The exercises didn't seem very effective at teaching me how to speak Polish. I had a native speaker helping me, but even she said the book became quite complicated, quite fast. I speak two languages other than English, (one fluent and one moderately well) so I'm no novice in language learning. There may be a better approach to learning. You could give this a try, but I'm warning you, you may find it difficult.

This book is handy because it covers grammar principals at the basic conversational level and includes English translations.