Polish Links

I'm an eternal organizer.  So, when the bookmarked links in my "Polish Resources" got out of hand, I separated them into two files - Polish Language Resources and Poland Information.

Then those each got out of hand. So Poland Information is now divided into saved news articles about Poland, Polish transportation websites (as if I'd be able to sort through them with my limited Polish anyway), Polish lit resources (primarily websites where you can download Polish ebooks that are Kindle compatible), and Polish culture resources (since I've really no idea still exactly how to behave in Poland).

But I swore to try and focus this blog on Polish language learning in case someone as brave as I am (haha) stumbles across it while trying to do their own Polish thing.

So I had to divide those resources into:
Dictionaries (Obvious, but I thought it'd be smart to have several bookmarked. Rumor has it UPitt's is the best.)
Charts and Lists (Some are not very helpful - such as the website with the list of Polish curse words. Of course I want to know those, but I highly doubt that will be the most useful thing I learn in the course of my language study).
And finally, Most Professional in Appearance and Best in Content

The last category is the most important one. While my charts and lists include this website with its declension charts and this one with the ever important keyboard layout for the Polish International Keyboard are super important, they're resources to aid the learning that could come from the others.

I already talked about LiveMocha, University of Pittsburgh's resources, Mission Europe, and the fun but not entirely useful Do You Know Polska?

So here are three other useful resources.
I Kinda Like Languages has a beginning Polish lesson that's interactive in that you must fill in the blanks. This could be frustrating at first, as I know the likelihood of doing poorly increases when you have a fill in the blank test as opposed to a multiple choice (at least when there's no word bank). However, I learn so much quicker when I have to produce things myself instead of just picking the correct phrase out of a lineup.

U.S. Department of State's Foreign Service Institute has a beginning Polish handbook that features some great, outdated facts about Poland. However, the language hasn't changed as much as the culture in the past fifty years. So I'd say the book's a good resource, even if I'd start somewhere else. It's a PDF so you can take it with you or print it out a lot easier than some of these other sites.

Scribd has a free beginning language book. You can't download it, which makes me nervous that it will disappear. But it's been there for at least a year now and hasn't gone yet. It's not my first choice, but it would be a supplementary place to go in case you don't understand a concept in another text or need extra work.

Happy learning & Happy Holiday!