Purchase a Polish textbook. There is a shortage of good Polish pedagogical tools, but Władysław Miodunka has written a series of illustrated Polish textbooks for the native speaker of English, and CD audio materials are included (see Resources below). Whatever methodology you decide on, make sure audio materials are included, as Polish is often a language that needs to be heard to be believed.
Learn the Polish alphabet. Fortunately for the speaker of English, Polish, unlike languages in neighboring Russia and Ukraine, uses a modified Roman alphabet: A Ą B C Ć D E Ę F G H I J K L Ł M N Ń O Ó P R S Ś T U W Y Z Ź Ż. Ąą is pronounced as a nasal o (much like the French "on," as in "bon"); Ćć is pronounced "ch" as in "chair"; Ęę is pronounced as a nasal e (somewhat like the French "en," as in "bien"); Gg is always pronounced hard, never as in the first g in "geography"; Jj is pronounced "y," as in "yet'; Łł is pronounced "w" as in "well"; Ńń is pronounced much like Spanish ñ, as in "baño"; Óó is pronounced "oo" as in "boot"; Śś is pronounced "sh" as in "she"; Uu is pronounced in the same way as Óó; Ww is pronounced "v" as in "very"; Yy is always a vowel in Polish; Źź is a soft "zh" sound, whereas Żż is a hard "zh" sound, like the "s" in "pleasure"-this is a distinction you will learn with time and experience.
Learn how letters combine to make new sounds. Very often in Polish, the exact pronunciation of a letter depends on its environment. The vowel i (pronounced as in Spanish or Italian) causes consonants to become soft. This radically changes the pronunciation of c (ci is pronounced "chee"), s (si is pronounced "shee"), and z (zi is pronounced "zhee").Z also affects the pronunciation of other letters: cz is pronounced "ch," rz is pronounced like ż, and sz is pronounced "sh."Ch is pronounced essentially the same as H, a sound somewhat more rasping than the English "h."Especially at the end of words, Ęę is often simply pronounced Ee ("e" as in "set").Voiced consonants become unvoiced at the end of words (for instance, Kraków is pronounced "Krahkoof").
Stress every word on the second-to-last syllable. Some exceptions are foreign, especially Greek borrowings, but these words, too, tend to become Pollanized over time (muzýka vs. múzyka). In Polish, only a word unit with a vowel can be thought of as a syllable. Therefore, words like Piotr (Peter) and szedł (he went), which may seem to have two syllables, really only have one. Likewise, although you may sometimes hear jabłko (apple) pronounced "yabooko," the correct pronunciation is "yahpko," giving the word two syllables, since ł is a consonant.
Begin to learn simple phrases. For instance:"Dzień dobry, nazywam się Dorota Nowak. Jak Pan/Pani się nazywa?" ("Hello, my name is Dorota Nowak. What is your name, Sir/Madame?")"Bardzo mi miło Pana/Pani poznać." ("I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance, Sir/Madame.")"Cześć, Eryku, jak się masz?" (Hi, Eric, how are you?")
Learn the Polish case system. Polish has seven noun and adjective cases, which are word endings that show a word's function in the sentence. Nouns and adjectives in the three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter) and the plural all decline (change) according to these seven cases, which are nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative and vocative. Refer to your text or a Polish grammar book for the uses of these cases.The word student ("male student"), a masculine noun, in all its forms in traditional order is: student, studenta, studentowi, studenta, studentem, (o) studencie (the locative case cannot be used without a preposition), and studencie! (the vocative can be thought of as the "getting attention" case).The word studentka ("female student"), a feminine noun, in all its forms is: studentka, studentki, studence, studentkę, studentką, (o) studence, and studentko!
Learn the Polish verbal system. What Polish lacks in simplicity of nouns and adjectives, it makes up for in simplicity of verbs: there are only three tenses (with an additional form based on the past tense and using the declined particle "by" for conditional verbs). The trick is that, for every one verb in English, there are essentially two in Polish: most Polish verbs are split into imperfective (emphasis on the process without an indication of completion) and perfective (used for completed or hypothetically completed actions). The perfective is normally formed from the imperfective, either by adding a prefix or an internal change, although this is not always the case (for instance, the perfective of mówić, "to speak," is powiedzić).The present tense of czytać (to read) is: czytam, czytasz, czyta, czytamy, czytacie, czytają (I read, you read, he/she/it reads, we read, you [pll] read, they read).The past tense is: czytałem/czytałam, czytałeś/czytałaś, czytał/czytała/czytało, czytaliśmy/czytałyśmy, czytaliście/czytałyście, czytali/czytały (I read you read, he/she/it reads, we read, you [pll] read, they read). The slashes show masculine/feminine distinction, and also neuter in the third person singular.The future tense can be formed in two ways: based on the imperfective, this would mean that you will be doing something, without indicating that you will complete the action. The form is będę/będziesz/będzie/będziemy/będziecie/będą czytać. (There is an alternate form with the same meaning based on the past tense.)The other way is to use the future tense of the perfective verb. The best thing is that, to create the future of a perfective verb, you simply attach present-tense endings to a perfective verb. When using the perfective, you indicate that you will complete the stated action. The perfective of czytać is przeczytać, and the forms are przeczytam, przeczytasz, przeczyta, przeczytamy, przeczytacie, przeczytają. The past tense of perfective verbs is formed as in the imperfective, and there is no present tense (an action cannot be done and completed at the exact same time).