Polish: An Essential Grammar (Routledge Grammars)

This book is a disappointment. I was looking for a Polish Grammar and it's true there are few on the market. But this is essentially a set of lengthy tables with virtually no textual explanation. It's a usable reference source (sometimes - if one can make sense of the de-contextualized lists) but not means of learning Polish grammar. There absolutely no progression through the book and it is not designed for the learner at all.

I bought this book after having looked far and wide to discover that there is not a single good Polish grammar book in the English language. This one is at least comprehensive and well organised.

On the other hand, it has instances of language so obsolete that no Poles use it at all and many Poles do not even know about it (e.g. 'mię'). It's clear the author has relied too much on written sources and lacks an intimate knowledge of the language, which is a pity, considering the reputation of the university she works for.


Worst of all is the contextualisation of the grammar. 'There are no trees in this forest'. So where's the forest then? It was proven decades ago in the English language teaching industry that poorly contextualised examples hinder the acquisition of language. When will Polish book writers learn this?

So why not only one star? Because it's the best on the market. If you hope to learn Polish grammar with the help of a book, I strongly recommend this one and only this one. It helped me immensely.

I personally find grammar the hardest part of any language and it is probably the biggest factor in most people's speed of learning, in that if you do not understand the grammar, however good you may be at everything else, your sentance does not make sense. This is the case with most slavonic languages (and germanic I may add), and putting the wrong case ending or the wrong word order may destroy any meaning in the sentance. This book seeks to make that easier, and it does. As I went through it, I felt as if I was reading a good, clear instruction booklet. Actually you'll probably find that learning grammar through this book is easier than trying to make sense of a DIY book or a computer manual.