37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent place to start, March 21, 2005
This review is from: Polish, Comprehensive: Learn to Speak and Understand Polish with Pimsleur Language Programs (Audio CD)
I purchased this comprehensive Pimsleur after having little to no success with Teach yourself Polish book and CD and Colloquial Polish book, cd and cassettes. I found that the later two, while inexpensive, were too difficult for an absolute beginner, such as myself, with no idea of Polish pronunciation or how to read and say the written words.
The Pimsleur, while very expensive, will definately have you speaking and understanding the language. Each lesson consists of thirty minutes of audio to listen and repeat. By the end of the series of 30 lessons, I am able to communicate simple needs in Polish, such as where to find places, simple directions, paying for items; and to engage in simple conversations such as how many children do you have, where do you live, where do you work, what to eat, drink, etc. I'm also able to to communicate what time it is, and how to communicate when I don't understand what someone is saying in Polish.
The main thing missing from the Pimsleur program, in my opinion, is the lack of written materials. There is a small book included with the alphabet and pronunciation guide, but that is not enough to make the leap to actually reading or even recognizing the written form of the words you are speaking in Polish. The other drawback is that once you finish the Comprehensive Polish, there is no next level to go on to with Pimsleur. I am left at this place where I can converse somewhat, but I cannot read or write any Polish.
Overall, I would rate Pimsleur Comprehensive Polish I as excellent for developing basic pronunciation and conversation skills. Currently I'm searching for the next step. If anyone else out there knows any useful programs to follow Pimsleur maybe they can post them.
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33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Buy it, Use it, Sell it on., November 2, 2005
This review is from: Polish, Comprehensive: Learn to Speak and Understand Polish with Pimsleur Language Programs (Audio CD)
If what you’re looking for is a purely audio-based Polish course this is it. I used it to learn Polish while commuting to work in my car.
The course is both very fast and very slow. It’s very fast in that the Polish words, phrases and example conversations are spoken at full speed so you need sharp ears to keep up, and the expectation is for you to reply at full speed too. In practice, until you really get the words coming automatically, you will have to pause the CD to give yourself time to think, but that’s OK. The advantage is that it does get you used to hearing and talking at full speed. The exception is when a new word is introduced when it does get said slowly, syllable by syllable, but after that it’s at full tilt. Generally this works well, though I did find the Polish for ‘something to eat’ a big of a tongue twister and had to repeat that lesson before I got it.
However, the overall pace of the course is fairly slow, mainly because they do all the repetition for you, e.g. the first 10 minutes of each 30 minute lesson is a revision of the stuff from the previous lesson. This means that you won’t want to listen to each lesson more than once, or maybe twice (not if you value your sanity). However, all this does mean that you really do get the stuff drummed into you and find the words tripping off your tongue nicely. (I think the course is partly aimed at corporate customers. If you want your employee to learn Polish, you can get them to do the course, and after they’ve worked through the 32 lessons you can be fairly sure that they will have learnt the material).
Overall the course is well structured introducing useful words and phrases in a logical order. There’s no discussion of ‘grammar’ (cases declensions and that sort of stuff) but they do make sure you understand what all the words in each phrase mean so that you not just saying phrases parrot fashion, but learn to be able to construct you own sentences.
Given that Polish is such a difficult language to get started with (few familiar words, difficult to pronounce, highly inflected and irregular grammar) these CD’s give you a useful toehold. If you enjoy learning tables of declensions and conjugations and irregular endings then fine, but if your eyes glaze over at this sort of thing then this course if a good place to get started. Then if you want to seriously get to grips with Polish you can move on to something else. (There no Pimsleur Intermediate Polish course).
The net effect is that you get to learn a small amount of useful Polish very well, such that you feel confident about using it. The course is expensive, but you probably won’t want to listen to it again, so why not sell it on when you’ve finished with it and recoup some of the cost?
Gripes: There’s no written version of the materials. While learning aurally is fine, knowing how words are spelled gives you another handle on remembering them, and with Polish you need all the help you can get. Also there’s no good way of quickly revising the material since you wouldn’t want to have to listen through the whole lot all over again.
Having used the Michel Thomas Spanish course it was interesting to compare the two approaches. Michel Thomas also does pure audio courses, but not a Polish one (otherwise I would have bought it). Michel Thomas crams a lot more material onto each CD’s than Pimsleur so you do need to go over them several times to really learn the stuff, which is fine. Like Pimsleur he carefully builds up language constructs so you develop the ability to construct you own sentences. He does a lot more explaining of grammar (without resorting to declension tables etc.) and when if comes to pronunciation he tells you exactly which bits of the pronunciation really matter. Pimsleur relies on pure listen and repeat which is fine if you’ve got a good ear but might mean you’re getting some important detail consistently wrong. Overall Thomas feels more fun, while Pimsleur is a bit of a slog. I think the Pimsleur stuff has stuck better, but that maybe because the Pimsleur approach forces you to spend a lot of time on each bit of material, and if I’d spent the corresponding amount of time on the Thomas CD’s I’d have remembered it just as well.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding, May 3, 2006
This review is from: Polish, Comprehensive: Learn to Speak and Understand Polish with Pimsleur Language Programs (Audio CD)
An absolutely outstanding program for beginning Polish. Prof. Pimsleur has outdone himself. While it certainly will not make you a fluent speaker, completing the CD's before travelling to Poland allowed me to order in a restaurant, carry out transactions at my hotel, go sightseeing on my own, and interact with my business colleagues on a basic level. I already speak Spanish and Japanese and have a small understanding of Mandarin, French, and Croatian. I have discovered Polish to be the hardest language I have yet encountered. (Although similar to Croatian, Polish pronounciation is more difficult) I'm glad I started my studies with Pimsleur. Having dipped my feet into the language and having interacted with the Polish people, I've decided to continue my studies of this amazing language and culture. Thank you Pimsleur. 5 stars +++++++!!!
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