Easy for you to say! Phonetic exercises for foreigners learning Polish

The book by Dr. Katarzyna Bednarska-Adamowicz, Kamila Dembinska and Agnieszka Malyska entitled Easily You Speak! is a must-have for all teachers of Polish as a foreign, second, inherited language, as well as for teachers and lecturers of Polish as a native language in Poland, all those who care about the correctness of Polish speech and pronunciation, fans of phonetics, speech therapists, people simply interested in Polish language.

The manual shows words „in action” – in the right place in a phrase and in a sentence, properly accented. But these are also words broken down: into syllables, into sounds and into letters – which is extremely important, because spelling is essential in life, and in the life of a foreigner the more, the more he has a complicated name, place of birth or residence, and the more, the more he participates in social life, where he has to remember, write down, understand the name of the place where he has to go. Plenty of interesting examples, juxtapositions, witty ideas make this book an interesting teaching aid. To fans of phonetics and supporters of the thesis of the beauty of the Polish language, I recommend it as a great read for the train, plane, pillow. They will be even more sensitive to this beauty and linguistically richer.

I already am – I have read the book from cover to cover and will reach for it more than once again. Prof. Dr. hab. Jolanta Tambor The publication is a treasure trove of words, sentences, texts and dialogues filled to the brim with practiced sounds in each chapter. The authors of the publication were guided by the goal of taking a communicative view of pronunciation and developing the teaching material in such a way as to improve perception and articulation in a natural global way. Prosody (accent, intonation, rhythm) or voicing was not omitted, the chapters were centered around the most important consonant sounds and groups, in accordance with current curricula.

All the issues presented have been matched to a variety of topics, making the use of the publication convenient at different levels of language teaching. Thus, the handbook is a valuable brick that builds a not quite large collection of publications devoted to learning Polish pronunciation for foreigners. It is definitely worth recommending, and in the hands of conscious teachers – once the exercises are properly adjusted to the needs of a specific group – it can be a regular support of course books. Thanks to the bilingual descriptions and recordings, foreigners can also try to educate themselves and make attempts at self-correction.

There has been no publication on the Polish publishing market so far that would explain to JPJO learners in such an uncomplicated and direct way how to produce Polish sounds. This comprehensive collection of exercises should therefore be on the bookshelf of every teacher of Polish as a foreign language. Dr. Michalina Biernacka