Polish Verbs & Essentials of Grammar

I started studying Polish with a teacher and our Krok po Kroku book is not very helpful. But, this little gem, which is more than a book of verbs, summarizes basic grammar rules. No, it won't follow the order of whatever text you might be using, but information is easy to find. Most of the chapters cover one part of speech--nouns, adjectives, etc. Content is well organized. I use a highlighter to review grammar that I am introduced to in my class. It works very well for me. I come to Polish language study with limited Polish vocabulary (heard as a child) and no understanding of Polish grammar, which is difficult and often operates differently than English. I'd be lost without this book. And for a beginner, anything more detailed would be too confusing.

I am learning Polish because my family is part Polish and have been invited by a relative in Krakow to visit. Our family has always been devoted to St. Maximilian Kolbe; my brother picked him for his confirmation. So, I have always wanted to visit Auschwitz, in addition to the hometwon of Pope John Paul II. So, this book is a resource to help fulfill a dream. This book is available in an online format too, but I really like having this handy at my fingertips. It covers the grammar in a step-by-step method and is easy to follow. I have Pimsleur's tape series as well, but having this book as a companion has been invaluable, and allowed me to more strongly benefit from the audio Pimsleur lessons. The author is a professor, and his training comes through clearly. If you are only going to get one resource, get this one, but you will need some audio, because the sound system is tricky. I suggest using your local library as that resource.

Was looking for a concise book to use as an aid while learning Polish through an online language course. I looked over all the choices and decided on this one. I haven't been disappointed. Polish is a difficult language to learn so when there is a clear, concise learning aid available for less than $21 you may want to consider having it at your fingertips.

A good book if you know the basics of the Polish language. It's a lot to grasp for someone looking to learn from scratch. Overall has helped me understand as I have started studying the language more regularly.

I bought this book as a supplement to learn polish. I wanted something that would help with conjugation and explain the polish language. This book does a great job as explaining rules and grammar. As I said, this should be used as a supplement to a program such as supermemo UX or any other language software.

These are all good books and have used them to learn other languages. Information is presented clearly and concisely, making it a good reference or initial learning tool. Would highly recommend.

I rarely give one star, but this warrants it. Online resources, like Word Reference, and apps, like Duolingo, are useful, this is not. I say this because as I was reading through the first chapter I realised that, apart from what I already knew, the explanations of everything were pretty meaningless. The author writes obscure things about how to hold your mouth when pronouncing things and at one point describes as certain letter pronunciation as sounding like an m without completing the full pronunciation of the letter m or some such rubbish that is both meaningless and unhelpful. After several pages of scratching my head in bewilderment I realised that I was already 10% of my way through the book and had really not advanced my understanding of Polish grammar one iota. One would be better buying a book of verb tables than this. I haven’t got to the verb lists yet and don’t intend to as I suspect, given the short length of the book, that the author has merely listed the infinitives of 500 verbs which really you could pull from many places online without spending a penny.

Swan's book is a godsend to people trying to study and/or review the Polish language. It is lucidly presented, well done typographically. Don't let its small size fool you, this book is full of quality information, most of which has yet to be presented so ably in an English-language publication.