Basic Polish: A Grammar and Workbook (Routledge Grammars)

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Customer Reviews:

A vital resource [Posted on 2004-08-21]
This book is the first I have encountered to delineate Polish grammar in any systematic fashion. It covers all parts of speech and their various nuances in exhaustive depth. However, do not expect to learn the language solely from this book. It is intended to grammatical supplement to a more comprehensive course, such as Berlitz or Pimsleur.

The only complaint I have against this work is its errors. They aren't plentiful enough for me to recommend a substitute (nor is there one!), but be on the lookout for inconsistencies. One example may be found at the top of page 21, where we are told that the default plural ending is -i, or -y following the letters g and k. In fact, it is the opposite, with -i proceeding those two exceptions. There are a handful of others, so read with skepticism.

poorly designed and not for beginners [Posted on 2005-11-13]
Although this book claims to "assume no previous knowledge of Polish," this is quite incorrect. The book begins logically with noun genders and adjectives, but it assumes you already have learned a decent level of Polish vocab, or else you'll be searching (as I was) for nearly every word in the dictionary, instead of concentrating on the grammar rule at hand. To illustrate my point, exercise 3 of unit 2 asks for the following phrases to be translated into Polish: "1. big hats, 2. Polish palaces, 3. colourful umbrellas, 4. comfortable hotels, 5. pretty countries, etc." Up to this point however, very few of these words are translated into Polish, and those few that were, only in passing. This might be permissable in a vocab-builder (provided it asks for translations of words it's already defined for you earlier), but in what is supposed to be a grammar book, it distracts and detracts greatly from my learning the grammar lesson, as I waste so much time finding the words. Had the book provided the translations (or even just the gender!), but un-declinated, etc., next to each entry, it would've helped greatly--the student would see the Polish words next to their English equivalents, while allowing him to stay focused on the grammar lesson at hand.

This book would be much better if it allowed the student to focus more on the grammar. Right from the beginning, it foists large numbers of Polish words on the student without defining them, which detracts from the learning of the grammar rules. A good grammar workbook should actually have very little vocabulary (or should provide a translation and gender for every new word right on the same page the first time it's mentioned), allowing the student to focus on the grammar rules and not definitions.

I would also like to correct the earlier reviewer. After looking at the entry on the page, I believe it's not really an error per se, just a poorly written sentence. In discussing the adjective endings modifying plural "men" nouns, the author writes that the default adjective ending in this case is "i" (trudny -> trudni), but becomes "'y' after k and g." This implies that you would see "gy" or "ky" at the end of these adjectives, right? But he says earlier that "y" never comes after a "k" or "g" in Polish. Is it a misprint? Well, what I think he means is that when you have an adjective whose last consonant is a "k" or "g," you change its final syllable, which ends in a "y." ie. drogi -> drogie -> drodzy. Here we have an adjective whose last consonant is a "g" and when modifying a plural "men" noun, it ends in "y," so what the author means to say is correct, but he states it very poorly--to the point of appearing contradictory to something he wrote just five pages earlier.

All in all, I don't believe this book is worth the expense. This is my first Polish grammar workbook (although I did see many grammar workbooks when I learned German, so I know what's effective, regardless of language), and I haven't seen what else is on the market, but the faults it has (pointless distractions from the grammar lesson at hand; poorly written or confusing explanations) mar its effectiveness greatly. I did learn the grammar lesson for each unit, but not without undo frustration caused by poor writing and superfluous vocabulary. However, with what appears to be a dearth of anything comparable on the market, you might just have to get this book and suffer through its frustrations in order to learn the grammar.

The author would've done well to have sat back, decided exactly what grammar point he wanted to get across to the student in each unit, and given exercises that kept driving at that point (or built upon the points from the earlier units), without forcing the student to learn huge amounts of new vocab at the same time.

Exactly what I wanted but not for everyone ... [Posted on 2006-12-07]
I agree very much with the previous poster's complaints about vocabulary and clearity. You have to memorize a good 300 words to get through all of the books exercises comfortably even though vocabulary is not its goal. Also, the choice of vocabulary tends to side with the obscure. The author is attempting to explain *all* the rules including the regular but not very high frequency exceptions. She includes a handful of examples for each pattern, easily out numbering the common case. This also takes a lot away from clearity, making the language seem much more complicated than it actually is. A better introduction would have focused on drilling all the high frequency rules and simply introducing the exceptions.

All of that said, this book was exactly what I wanted. I have been studying Russian for a number of years with only a little experience with Polish, and this book was better for me than any beginner's language textbook. I just wanted to quickly memorize the rules, and start experimenting with the language. As a person who is familiar with highly inflected languages (and Russian in particular which has very similar grammar), I really actually wanted all of the rules and not just the common case.

Its a great book, but if you are starting from nothing, it cannot be your only text. This is a much better book for the slightly more advanced Polish learner.

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