I’d like to talk about a topic I am often asked about—namely, how to learn the Polish language.
Do I think that you should learn Polish by doing grammar exercises in a textbook every day or by memorizing vocabulary lists? No, no, and again no. In my opinion, to learn a language you should take an example from the experts in this field. Who am I talking about? About small children, of course.
As children, we learn our native language effortlessly. Did I learn Polish from books when I was a child? No! As a young child I couldn’t speak, but that didn’t stop my parents from talking to me. I listened to them speak, I listened to the neighbors, to people on the street, in shops, on the radio, or on television.
I also got little storybooks—at first mostly with pictures and single words, and later with simple stories. My parents also read me bedtime stories. Over time, I started speaking Polish myself, without even knowing the alphabet. Sometimes as a little girl I couldn’t pronounce more difficult words or complicated names. Still, I didn’t get discouraged, and eventually I began speaking my native language fluently.
Of course, as adults, we don’t learn languages quite as easily, especially if we don’t live in the country where the language is spoken. But the learning process should look similar. You won’t learn a language if you don’t start listening, watching, reading, and then writing and speaking in that language.
How to improve listening skills in Polish?
Let’s start with listening. As you can guess, I’m a big fan of podcasts when it comes to language learning. As I said in the first or second episode of this podcast, I’m learning French myself, mainly by listening to podcasts. If you’re at a more advanced level, I think it’s easy for you to find interesting podcasts in Polish.
But if listening comprehension is very difficult for you, make use of podcasts that have transcripts. I always strongly encourage you to look at the transcripts of my episodes. Thanks to this, you can revisit vocabulary you might have missed and compare the written text with the intonation and melody of spoken language. You can also repeat certain expressions after me to get closer to a native Polish pronunciation.
Besides listening in Polish, I also encourage you to watch stuff in Polish. Watching can be easier than listening, because it’s easier to guess what is happening on the screen when you have both the audio and the visuals. I myself watch French series on Netflix in the original version—that is, in French—and when a series is particularly difficult, I turn on French subtitles.
If I want to make sure I understood a scene or an expression correctly, I rewind the scene to watch it again, and as a last resort I briefly turn on subtitles in Polish or English.
I encourage you to find movies or series in Polish. These days more and more series and films are being produced in my country, so you have a fairly wide selection.
How to improve reading skills in Polish?
Now let’s move on to reading in Polish. What should you read as a student of Polish? Famous Polish works such as Dziady by Adam Mickiewicz or Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz—works that even Poles sometimes have trouble understanding?
No. When learning French, I certainly don’t pick up Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. The very difficult vocabulary and old-fashioned, unfamiliar grammatical structures could completely discourage me from learning the beautiful French language.
So what should you read?
When I was a complete beginner, I looked for simplified books or stories created especially for language learners. I also reached for children’s fairy tales. The vocabulary was simple and the grammar uncomplicated.
Now that I’m at a more advanced level, the next step for me is to read contemporary French novels. But even here, I don’t jump into the deep end by choosing something that might be far too difficult. I started by reading the entire Harry Potter series in French.
I know the Harry Potter books well—I read them as a child in Polish, and I read the last part in middle school in English. So I’m familiar with the plot and I recognize the specific vocabulary used in the series related to the wizarding world. It is therefore easy for me to spot new words in a foreign language such as “wand,” “bat,” or “magic spell.”
Because I read the whole series and some vocabulary repeats in every book, I naturally remembered it. I didn’t have to memorize anything; my brain simply absorbed certain words and expressions thanks to the repetition.
For you as well, I recommend starting with simple stories or fairy tales that you know in your native language. Then move on to novels you know well. Only when you get used to reading in Polish should you tackle something new.
How to improve writing skills in Polish?
The next stage of learning Polish is writing. I know it can be a challenge. It’s much easier for us to acquire a language passively. At some point in learning a foreign language, we all realize that we understand a lot, but the moment we have to write or say something ourselves, we feel blocked and our mind goes blank.
Again, I encourage you to start slowly. You don’t need to begin with a long essay. Start engaging online. At the end of each episode, I always encourage you to leave a comment on Facebook or Instagram. I partly do this for my own pleasure—I like reading my listeners’ opinions. But I also do it to encourage you to practice writing in Polish. Even a single sentence written in Polish brings you closer to improving your skills.
Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. If I had been afraid of making mistakes in speaking or writing Polish as a child, would I have learned my native language faster? I think quite the opposite. If I had been afraid of failure, I might never have learned to speak or write in my own language! Fortunately, small children don’t have such problems. It’s the same as learning to walk.
A small child may fall many times before taking their first steps. But the falls don’t discourage them. Don’t let yourself get discouraged either!
How to improve speaking skills in Polish?
The next and probably most satisfying stage of language learning is speaking. This is a more difficult skill to master because it’s hard to learn it alone. After all, to have a conversation, you need another person. Yes, you can practice speaking in front of a mirror, but sooner or later you’ll want to use your skills in real interaction with another human being.
So while you can listen, watch, read, and write on your own, I encourage you to find a way to practice speaking with someone else. This could be a teacher—for example, during group or individual conversation classes—or another student or a group of students.
Check out my Polish language classes:
As I mentioned at the beginning, you’ll need perseverance and motivation to learn a language. I think a great source of motivation is learning in a group. I encourage you to look for language-learning groups, for example on Facebook. I know quite a lot of such groups exist.
I think joining such a group, exchanging knowledge, supporting each other, and motivating one another to keep learning is a recipe for success in mastering a foreign language.
I hope my post has motivated you to learn Polish. Remember that the most important thing is to enjoy the learning process. Find podcasts, books, or films on topics that interest you.