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Homogenik TAC 2012 Polish Team Żubr | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Homogenik Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4816 days ago 314 posts - 407 votes  Speaks: French*, English Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 97 of 115 09 August 2012 at 9:59pm | IP Logged |
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Well I've been in Warsaw since july 26th now and I've had some highs and lows. The city is gorgeous and exciting, very well organized and just going to the university every morning is a visual pleasure. The weather has been ferociously hot (like when sweat rolls down your bare legs while stationary), but now it's become quite cool. The university is small but beautiful and the new library they built downtown is breathtaking, outside and inside. As for the polish itself, I was surprisingly put in the advanced class (C) although I don't think I am advanced. Often times I have felt frustrated with my lack of comprehension of texts read in class, but I was happy to discover I understood everything the teachers said. I went to a few conferences too and understood everything so that was nice. I don't interact much with the other students though, for I'm a solitary person and don't mix well in groups, but I've been interacting more with the locals in shops, coffeehouses, music shops and libraries. Of course, I live with a family of two women so I get to practice every day (and Polish people talk a lot). They're very nice people although I wish I stayed in Warsaw and not in Kobyłka which is just 15 minutes by train from Warsaw. Since the train is reportedly dangerous after dark (the people in it, not the train itself), I don't go out in the city in the evening. I wake up with the rooster's call instead (and sleep with the bark of the dogs). It's been frustrating not being able to express myself thoroughly and to constantly make obvious mistakes but I try not to give up hope that although I don't feel I'm making any progress at all I will, in the end, have progressed.
I was too late to register for the certification exam so I won't be taking it, sadly. At least I bought great dictionaries (how am I gonna make my walizka less than 50 pounds for my return flight, I have no idea...). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6097 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 98 of 115 10 August 2012 at 9:32am | IP Logged |
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Nice to hear from you! All that immersion has to be making an impact and hopefully the motivational boost you get from the trip will last well after you go back home.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Homogenik Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4816 days ago 314 posts - 407 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 99 of 115 18 August 2012 at 6:44pm | IP Logged |
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The woman I live with has said jokingly that I spoke better polish when I first got here than I do now. I wonder if
that's not true somehow... It can't be true! But somehow I feel no progress has been made. Frankly, how much progress can be made in a single month? I'm sure I'll notice an improvement in a month or so. At least I did interact with many locals although it was mostly simple exchanges. I did however manage to have interesting conversations with the women with whom I live with, about Poland, politics, my family, etc. So I suppose something has been accomplished. As for classes, I think I my pronunciation is one of the best of the group (when I read aloud for instance), but the rest is so so. I understand perfectly or almost perfectly whenever the teachers speak (and it's often complex subjects), but I have a hard time understanding the other students which all speak very differently. I'm not so sure it's that helpful to exchange in the language you're learning with other students who struggle like you. Anyway, I do understand teachers, but whenever we do an exercise using a recording, my mind goes blank almost automatically. I don't know why exactly. I met with a young polish filmmaker and we talked an hour in polish and another in English, and I understood, I think, most of what he said in polish, and he was speaking kind of too fast for me, but if I listen to something recorded, my brain doesn't follow. Numbers too are of course an awful evil, evil invention in polish language. I'm rather shy and I don't express myself easily in groups so whenever it's my turn, the numbers come out without any intelligence at work : they just come out randomly (and wrong most of the time). The quantity of possibilities seem gigantic. These are the last few days, my last week here in Poland so I guess I'm starting to make a review of my learning experience and I find myself slightly disappointed, probably because I had such high expectations to begin with, hoping to come back to Canada being almost fluent! Unreasonable of course. Culturally, I had interesting experiences and annoying, boring ones, but of course it's always wonderful to come to Warsaw each morning in the old town and it's beautiful architecture, it's large streets. I've found a few nice small pubs and coffee houses, away from the crowd of tourists (I canNOT stand the sight of another tourist slurping an ice cream cone on Krakowskie Przedmiescie!). I've been to two museums, I've wandered the streets and got lost (willingly), and so on. Of course languages are mostly used for communication (duh), and thus people who have great social skills surely learn more quickly than people like me, and an immersion course such as mine, in retrospect, will surely benefit more such an individual who will be more inclined to create bonds with fellow students or with locals, to speak without fear of being wrong. That being said, I think, in the end, that such an experience can ultimately only be beneficial, especially to a student of at least intermediary level. Also, staying in the actual city instead of Kobylka which is 15 minutes by train away from the city would have been a much better idea as this constant moving around by train is annoying, a waste of time and prevented me from enjoying city after sunset (trains are not very safe in the late evenings). Next time I'll know. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6097 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 100 of 115 18 August 2012 at 8:45pm | IP Logged |
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I'm glad you've made some progress, and it seems your listening (always the hardest part for me) has improved. So well done Homogenik gratulację!.
It's a shame you couldn't do the exam as it would be nice to discover which level you are at, although you must have a pretty good idea. Enjoy the remainder of your stay. Edited by Mooby on 18 August 2012 at 8:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Homogenik Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4816 days ago 314 posts - 407 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 101 of 115 29 August 2012 at 3:19pm | IP Logged |
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Well I'm back home, very tired of course, but glad to be here. It'll take a while I'm sure to properly evaluate my
learning experience in Poland, but I was slightly disappointed by the course I took. First of all, I don't know if my being outclassed up to the C2 group was good or bad. Maybe I would have had more to learn in a weaker group, because as it is I was the weak link in my group, in my opinion (I would evaluate my level between B1 and B2, sincerely). Also, and most importantly, although the classes were interesting, there was no plan, no workbook, no clear goals and I feel like I didn't actually learn anything or much. That really was an important deficiency of the course : too much improvisation, too much discussion and not enough actual work (or even homework). I expected the class to begin with a plan for the whole month with clearly outlined goals. I was not the only one sharing this perception and disappointment. Nonetheless, I'm certain my listening, at least, has improved and surely my speaking has improved a little too. Hopefully I can use a few more words than I did before and I'll be able to improve myself a little faster now that I've had this experience. I didn't get to do the certification exam and that's another disappointment but I'll get over it :) Of course, I bought a few kilos of books over there as for a Canadian everything is so cheap in Poland, comparatively. I spent hours in many libraries gazing at books in polish. I bought excellent dictionaries, including a polish dictionary in three volumes (I don't think there can be any one better than this), a dictionary of synonyms and a phraseological one, all very useful. I also bought some learning material, one for numerals and another for the future (level C2). I enrolled in a university chinese class this semester and I'm starting it tonight. It's for complete beginners so I don't know how interesting it'll be, especially since these are big groups, like 30 people I think. Seems a lot for language course... Edited by Homogenik on 29 August 2012 at 3:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4643 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 102 of 115 29 August 2012 at 5:02pm | IP Logged |
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I can sympathize with you about having to commute... I have to drive these 15 kms every day to my uni, which is very close to Krakowskie Przedmieście.
I have the exact same problem with recordings as you have. No matter if it's German or Spanish or English, I can understand nothing! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Homogenik Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4816 days ago 314 posts - 407 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 103 of 115 03 September 2012 at 3:55pm | IP Logged |
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I found a site with small interactive games for polish language:
http://www.edugames.pl/gry/index/k1/32,gry_ jezyk_polski/ 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Homogenik Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4816 days ago 314 posts - 407 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 104 of 115 06 September 2012 at 3:53pm | IP Logged |
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I had my first chinese university class last night and it was fun but I realize I know pretty much everything we're
going to see in the program and the teacher seems very confused! I don't think she's a very good teacher but it could be a good experience, if only to meet other people learning chinese and to force myself to keep a schedule. As of right now, I'm completely out of the loop, I don't work regularly anymore, I don't keep track of my progress. I guess I'm kind of burnt out from language learning. I need to motivate myself to at least finish the Hurra books because I'm at lesson 15 out of 20 of the last level so there's not much left to do. After that, I plan to do the books I have from Universitas editions: Przygoda z gramatyki, Iść czy jechać and another one I recently bought in Poland on numerals. I'm also reading parts of books in polish but it's a constant frustration as each sentence contains at least 4 words I have to look up. Edited by Homogenik on 06 September 2012 at 3:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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