I know the apps (babbel, duolingo), but was wondering if there are any good graphic novels, kids books, or other good reads online that I could go through.
Also: there is just sooooo much great Polish cinema. I have a lot of classic movies, but for some the subtitles are pretty rough or just cut-out part-way through the movie. Any links to movies with good subs (in English) would be appreciated!
Dziękuję!
If you want, this polish government's site gives free learning materials for beginners
Do you speak Polish, even if it's at a beginner level? If so we'd love for you to create a Polish Practice Thread.
I've also really struggled on finding reading material with simple language that is still somewhat interesting. You can use chomikuj.pl to find tons of graphic novels and ebooks in Polish (it's a weird file-sharing website where you have to pay to download files. sounds sketchy and weird paying money for pirated content but it's popular in Poland and has the most content I've found. Although if you know any good Polish torrent sites lmk.) Edit: Oh and the anarchist library also has a decent collection, so you can find short articles that have been translated into Polish and then read them in English.
I'm still behind on Polish cinema, but I'd recommend Boże Ciało which you can probably find online. You can also watch Tylko Nie Mów Nikomu on YT although it's about catholic priests and pedophilia in Poland so it's a hard watch.
Powodzenia comrade. Polski jest naprawdę dużo pracy, więc uczmy się razem!
these resources (and in your other comment too) are so great!! Dziękuję bardzo for sharing, I really appreciate it! I'm desperate to get past the ordering food stage and start being able to build my own sentences.
Nie ma problemu! Yea building my own sentences was intimidating at first because of all the grammatical cases. I don't know how you feel about studying grammar during language learning. But for me, learning some grammar was really helpful because I had a hard time trying to pick it up naturally. Check out the YT channel Polish With Ania. It was super helpful for me.
Sounds like we had/are having a similar experience. I think I need to just bite the bullet and start memorizing cases to get off the ground. I've been working at it for over a year now, trying to pick it up naturally and have gotten quite a lot of vocab stored away at this point, but damn if i can't say more than the example sentences in apps/tutorials and "survival" polish like gdzie jest dworzec? and poproszę cappuccino z mlekiem sojowym haha
It's been a while since I checked for resources on youtube, I will def check out polish with ania!
Yea, I know exactly what you mean. Not being able to combine simple sentences after studying for a long time because the fucking word endings change constantly is super frustrating.
I'm trying the mass immersion approach now (linked in the how to learn a language thread). They really destress the importance of speaking and language output. If you take in a lot of comprehensible input, combined with some grammar lessons every now and then, I think the speaking and sentence formation will come over time.
As for news/opinion pieces I'll recommend Krytyka Polityczna.
Oh and if you're looking for a podcast to listen to, I would recommend Polski Daily. I tried listening to Real Polish, and the dude is such a chud that even though he has tons of content and speaks slowly and clearly with transcripts, I can't bare listening to him.
Edit: Also here's a script you can use to scrape all the PolishPod101 lessons (which I've found to be pretty useful): https://github.com/nedlir/languagepod101-scraper. If you have trouble using it, I can OnionShare the courses I've downloaded over to you.
Okay, let's see... This might be a long post. So, I'll focus on things that should be easily available and for free.
YouTube has plenty of movies and shows in Polish. It seems that the algorithm doesn't care as much about Polish content, especially if it's older. Some classic movies are available in great quality for free too (e.g., Studio Filmowe Tor).
Major issue might be that intermediate and advanced content (movies for grownups) may have more subtitle options than beginner content (kids movies). One exception I thought of is the bizarre Akademia Pana Kleksa that I watched with some friends recently. I'm sure there's more. A way to avoid the sub problem in kid content would be to look for Polish dubs and subs of Netflix kids content, e.g. Steven Universe and such.
If you don't care that much about subtitles, you can go back to roaming for free on YouTube. I just looked for Moomins (Muminki) with a Polish dub and there seems to be plenty of episodes available. If you'd like to try something really old-school, there's also Miś Uszatek, Przygody Kota Filemona and Ferdynand Wspaniały. There's also some old live-action content like Tik Tak, an old kids variety show.
One thing that people might not know about is that -- in addition to subs and dubs -- there's also a weird third option. It's called a LEKTOR. In practice, it's a single person reading through the entire dialogue of the movie/show while the original audio is playing in the background. In terms of free YouTube content it leads to a bizarre situation where you can easily find full US movies with a lektor, which I guess is too confusing for the algorithm. I was just able to find full uploads of Pulp Fiction and Se7en right on YouTube.
While it's a bizarre experience for someone who is not used to it, lektorki and lektorzy usually have amazing enunciation/pronunciation that might be great to listen to if you're getting used to the new sounds Polish has to offer. Finding content you like and/or are familiar with might be an added bonus.
I could come up with more stuff, but wouldn't want to spam too much with just one response here. Maybe we should start a separate thread with just Polish media content of different kinds?
yes please do!! that would be wooooonderful!
thank you so so much for all this 🤍 ❤️
Hey, no problem at all! I had some people ask me for similar stuff recently, so I'll just go ahead and start a thread. Am happy to help <3
the music, the movies, super interesting and outspoken historical activists, and family who i can't communicate with bc they only speak polish.
Im native speaker so i could help if you want, but im not sure if i can in any way
thank you! i appreciate it. if anything catches your eye that you think would be fun for an adult to read/listen to that's in slow/clear Polish, keep me in mind and share it here.
Terrible shit post
spoiler
___You can try some starter phrases the nattionalists in Poland have made mandatory
The Soviets did Katyn
Holodomor is a real thing
The Soviets didn't offer us collective security agreements before the outbreak of WW2
It's a huge part of the nationalist propaganda in Poland. I just wanted to shit on current day bourgeois Poland
along with "The Soviets invaded Poland!" neglecting to mention the land the Soviets marched up was the land that Poland had stolen from Ukraine/Lithuania and Belarus in 1920 then subjected the local populations to a ruthless process of 'Polandisation' where Polish settlers were sent, national languages were outlawed and basically apartheid was setup
Dont watch netflix polish movies. They're awful and depressing.
Especially don't watch 1983. It's got some nice brutalist aesthetics but the series is so full of fucking dogshit "PRL bad" messages it's insufferable.