Polish

The Polish language belongs to the family of Slavic languages and forms the group of West Slavic languages together with Czech, Slovak, Kashubian, Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian and Polabian, which has gone extinct.
In terms of structurality, Polish is an inflexional language; the flexion (declination and conjugation) influence the language on all levels. One particularity of Polish is the morphological changes that come along with the flexion: when declinating or conjugating a word, a phoneme inside the morpheme is replaced by a different one. This is due to historical processes that happened during the Proto-Slavic period and at the beginnings of the development of Polish.
Today's Polish standard language, with the help of which Polish people communicate in- and outside of Poland, is a unified, interregional and heavily normed variety of Polish. Nontheless, Polish is not completely homogenous, which becomes obvious already due to the differences between written and spoken language. Furthermore, there are geographical varieties of the language, in which former particularities and historical singularities still exist.
Linguistic forms are a part of culture. Polish courtesy forms have a lot to do with Polish linguistic etiquette. This applies for example to Polish greetings or words for good-bye, as well as to the forms of adress pan (Mister) / pani (Misses).

Polish I

Course for beginners. Goals: Communicate in simple everyday situations, get to know the structure of the Polish language on a formal and informal level, development of linguistic skills on a basic level. At the end of the semester, an exam about all the material studied in this semester will take place.

Polish II

Course for students with a medium Polish level. Increase the vocabulary, repete the skills already learned, expand the linguistic skills. Usage of Polish language in oral and written form, learn how to talk about topics of everyday life and about some general topics. At the end of the semester, an exam about all the material studied in this semester will take place.

Polish III

Course for students with a high Polish level. Praca z tekstami autentycznymi (publicystycznymi i literackimi), wprowadzanie lub utrwalanie struktur trudniejszych (składnia liczebnika, tryb przypuszczający, aspekt czasownika, zdania okolicznikowe celu, frazeologizmy), a także typowych dla języka pisanego (imiesłowy). Po kursie student powinien bez kłopotόw identyfikować formy wyrazowe i posługiwać się polszczyzną ogόlną w rόżnych sytuacjach życiowych, niezależnie od stopnia oficjalności. Może czytać polską prasę i literaturę (przy pomocy słownika).

Lecturer of Polish

Name / Titel

Dr. Beata Kułak

Funktion

Lecturer of Polish

Mail

beata.kulak@unifr.ch

Phone

+41 26 300 79 13

Polish courses are offered on different levels: one level for beginners, one for intermediate learners, and one for advanced learners. It is possible to attend the following courses:

Polish I, course for beginners, 3 lessons per week (2 lessons grammar, 1 lesson phonetics/conversation).

Polish II, course for intermediate learners, 3 lessons per week (2 lessons grammar and style with an emphasis on written Polish and pronounciation, 1 lesson conversation).

Polish III, course for advanced learners, 2 lessons per week (write papers).
 

After every semester, students take an oral and a written exam.

The teaching materials will be adjusted by the lecturer according to the needs and wants of the respective group of students. Different books and some simplified and non-simplified texts will be used. Starting from the intermediate level, didactic materials that were created by the lecturer herself will be handed out. All teaching materials have been certified by the "State Commission for the Certification of Proficiency in Polish as a Foreign Language" and comply with the current state of research in second language acquisition pedagogy.

The Polish courses are aimed at students of Slavic Studies as well as students of different degree programs.

Students without previous knowledge may only start with Russian I in the autumn semester. Students who do have previous knowledge may have the possibility to start at a higher course, only after consulting the lecturer.