Question:
Rosetta stone, for polish?
anonymous
2009-10-12 14:49:43 UTC
Okay, so i'm thirteen years old and my whole family speaks fluent polish. Me on the other hand only speaks english with my sister and cousin, i really, really want to learn it. Will rosetta stone help me learn it easily? how long will it take? and is it worth the money? Also, i'm going to get my parents to start speaking to me in polish more often so i can learn more.
Six answers:
anonymous
2009-10-12 15:00:37 UTC
Truthfully, the best way to learn the language is from other people who speak the language. You're very lucky to live in a bi-lingual house. Ask your parents and relatives to only speak to you in Polish... you'll learn faster than you'd think AND it would be kind of fun to figure out what everyone is saying. As someone else suggested, try watching movies/TV and listening to music in Polish as well.



That's how kids learn to speak their native language, and that's the best way for older people to learn a second language.
Grumpy Old Man
2009-10-12 21:58:32 UTC
Rosetta stone costs about $400 and will probably not help. There are less expensive programs that will help you with pronunciation (The Learning Company). It says the word and you repeat it into a microphone and it compares how you say it with how it should sound and rates you. You can repeat the word until you get it correct. Having family that you can practice with is very good. Set aside a couple of hours out in public and speak only Polish like at a restaurant. Take a break and chat about what happened then do it some more. If you 'force' the language for short periods you will pick up what you need without getting too frustrated.
Glober
2009-10-12 23:50:30 UTC
Be very careful of the learning method you use. Linguists, and people with vast experience in learning languages will almost always agree on the fact that most language learning methods out there are 50-70 percent fluff! It's pretty easy to get away with telling you that you'll be able to speak a language when for example, someone says "hello", they're speaking English, and it doesn't mean they can actually communicate. Being semi-fluent means you have a functional comprehension of at least 65% in the conventional range of that language, while fluent would be anything greater than 80%. If you don't have the time to learn a language properly, and you're after something quick and easy, then you're probably headed towards disappointment. The best method to getting as far as you can get in the shortest period of time is called the “3 step”. The first step is to complete a FULL Pimsleur (MUST BE PIMSLEUR) course. Listen to each lesson at least 2 times, taking notes the first time with new vocabulary and studying before listening the second time. The 2nd step is to form a list of the 2,000 most common/frequently used words/vocabulary in English, to also include the most common/frequently used eight parts of speech in English (verbs, nouns, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections), which you can search the web for. Once you've formed the list, you need to find accurate generic-translations, which you can apply to most common case scenarios of Polish (definatley the most challenging part of all this). Once that's done, make flash cards or whichever method works best for you in memorizing vocabulary, but try to include each word in a sentence, on top of just the new word and it's meaning (basically, know how to use it as correctly as possible). In your sentence forming exercises try to use each word in 10 or more ways, and you'll actually notice yourself incrementally advancing every 500 words. Repetition is the key here, so this would also be a good time to solidify your pronunciation. After you've memorized all that, the 3rd step is to locate 4 movies that are preferably some kind of Disney movie, or anything of a slower pace. Childrens movies seem to work best for this. Watch ONLY these same 4 movies in Polish, with good, quality English subtitles, continuously, to the point where you know what's going to be said next. Try to plan completing each step in this order, exactly as described within a time-frame of about 10-12 months. When you're done, you should be somewhere in the range of “semi-fluency”, at the point where learning after the “3 step” is quick and easy, and being close to fluent after 2 years of using Polish everyday, and learning at least an additional 100 new vocabulary words a month during that time. The downside to the 3-step method, is that when you're finished, you still may not be grammatically up to par, but will know more than enough to get there easily, which is what makes this the best and most efficient “fast” method, but not necessarily a good substitute for formal education. Either way, it can't hurt to try! Good luck!
anonymous
2009-10-12 21:58:57 UTC
I learned Greek by using the "Teach Yourself" book series, which only cost me a little over $20 for the adio CD and book together, $15 if I just did the book. I learned Greek from that and it was affective. Long story short, Rosetta Stone is way over $400 for a language course and isn't worth it. "Teach Yourself" has a Polish book too, and about everyother language you can think of. There are other good one's too.



PS,

I'm Polish too. =3
anonymous
2009-10-12 21:54:05 UTC
No. 200 dollars just for Polish 1 level, that is too much!



www.livemocha.com is free, it will help you very much



then just have your parents and whoever speak polish to you, surround yourself in a polish environment. watch shows, listen to music, anything in polish. that will help a lot. :D



also Rosetta Stone teachers you words and phrases. To make it into the polish world (lol), you'd have to communicate and speak it, Rosetta stone doesn't teach you that. Not sure if you'd be able to start and continue a conversation with Rosetta Stone.. you'd just know every object in your house and many other things, but not the art of conversation.
miss.annthropic
2009-10-12 21:56:12 UTC
Rosetta Stone alone is terrible. It is good if you already have the basics and you want to practise. It's good for pronunciation and vocabulary but for grammar (especially a language with a difficult and very different grammar to English like Polish), unless you are a linguistic genius will be very difficult. Plus, it's quite boring. Use it as a supplement but a much better and cheaper resource will be an ordinary textbook.


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
Loading...