Great Polish Audio, Nonsense Language Learning Advice
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“First of all, I want to say that the material Piotr puts out himself is great audio practice when you’re learning Polish. He speaks slowly and clearly and puts together really interesting material, so it’s a win-win as far as the Polish side is concerned. However the advice on how to learn a language he hammers home at constantly is proven nonsense.
First of all, he says not to study grammar, just listen to the language and constantly cites this “comprehensible input” theory by some PhD or other as support. Do you really need a PhD to say that listening to comprehensible material is going to help? Piotr tries to provide support for the effectiveness of this method by having his listeners send him recordings of them speaking in Polish and he plays them at the beginning and end of his podcast so that he can open and close with positive success stories. The only problem is that the overwhelming majority of the people who send in recordings are speakers of other Slavic languages who are largely speaking their native language with some of the vocab and some of the pronunciation of Polish, but it is almost always obvious that the person is a Russian, Ukrainian or Belorussian native speaker, as the vast majority are (FYI all Slavic languages are closely related genetically and structurally, but particularly so in the case of East – like Ru, Uk, Br – and West – like Polish and Czech – Slavic). On the occassion that there is a non-Slavic speaker, they can either barely speak, or, if they have achieved some fluency, they did it with the help of grammar study.
The second major point he tries to push is that babies don’t study grammar and they learn the language, so just learn the language like a baby! (Do I really need to address the absurdity of such advice?) He conveniently ignores that mountains of literature long ago proving that first and second language acquisition are in no way the same thing. He also says talent doesn’t matter. This may seem like an encouraging message, but when you have seen the number of people that I have who cannot learn a second language, and you tell them “oh it’s got nothing to do with talent”, meanwhile their neighbor is barely awake in class and having no problem….how do you think that’s going to make the first person feel? Not very good I suspect. Lying to people and telling them that there is no talent involved is not doing anyone any favors – quite the opposite. Especially when there is loads of literature to back it up. If you’re still not convinced, go to some college classrooms where you get a nice range of students beyond the age of primary acquisition and you’ll find about 1 /15 has lost the ability to acquire language all but entirely.
While I feel very strongly about this, I do not want this to be a personal attack. Like I said, I really enjoy the stories themselves, but I feel bad for people listening to this, especially non-Slavic speakers, who think that this is a viable approach. Why try and listen to thousands of hours and hope you magically soak up the grammar (it’s not going to happen), when a qualified teacher can explain to you what’s going on in a few minutes? It is my conviction, that grammar gets a bad rap, because most language teachers in incompetent. I wish Piotr would stop blaming grammar, when the teachers are the problem. Listening to content like Piotr’s combined with consistent grammar study leads to rapid language acquisition. I have seen too many students succeed with that method and fail with the “learn it like a baby” nonsense to be of any other opinion. I don’t see why the two approaches need exclude one another, and yet Piotr, who is not a linguist (at least, not to my knowledge), harps on the uselessness of grammar study.
Finally, I’d encourage people to not take the advice of random, self-publish “authors” online. Myself included. While I’ll tell you I’m an English native speaker and linguist who has been teaching English speakers Slavic languages for the past five years, you have no way of proving that. Go do some reading on second language acquisition. But don’t waste your time listening endlessly and waiting for the language to be magically absorbed. Get a competent teacher who knows what they’ll talking about and the process will not only be a pleasure, but you’ll see results.”
clairemisba via Apple Podcasts ·
United States of America ·
07/02/23
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“I am enjoying Piotr's RealPolis.pl site. I have spent a lot of time trying to learn new word, making lists of words and memorising grammar, but have not made much progress. I think Piotr's method of learning by reading and listening in Polish is an excellent resource. ...”Read full review »
Donus12 via Apple Podcasts ·
Australia ·
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“Fantastic audio for those wanting to learn polish (some basic level required as the whole audio is in polish)”
dac2amw via Apple Podcasts ·
Australia ·
03/31/16
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“An incredible podcast, thank you your efforts and perfect job!
I found it so useful 🤩♥️”
queen_Akzh via Apple Podcasts ·
Poland ·
12/09/21
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