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Bangkok - Warsaw | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| doubleUelle Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 4028 days ago 67 posts - 95 votes  Speaks: English*, Russian*, French, Japanese Studies: Spanish, Thai | Message 17 of 69 08 January 2014 at 11:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Bakunin,
Just wanted to say hi, and wish you good luck with Thai! As a fellow Thai learner :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BrianDeAlabama Groupie United States Joined 4512 days ago 89 posts - 113 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 18 of 69 09 January 2014 at 4:59am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello Bakunin! I figured I'd cheer you on too with your endeavor in Thai. My wife's parents are from
Laos/Thailand. Also they attend a Lao/Thai church where you can find speakers of Lao, Thai, Vietnemese and I think Cambodian. My father-in-law at one time spoke English, French, Vietnemese, Lao & Thai. I know he is fluent in his English (with moderate accent), Lao & Thai. I think his French is fairly dormant but I heard him pulling some phrases out the other night at a get-together at their house. We had some young men from Thailand over there too. It provided some motivation for me to start some Thai but I got to see how my college studies are going to go. I'm intermediate in my Spanish but am wanting to at least get started on learning to read Thai. I have Pimsleur's Thai & Teach Yourself Thai. I thought about studying French just so I could access some of Assimil's language programs. They have Thai for French speakers along with advanced German. If my school doesn't work out for me then at least I can study some languages. :) Good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5123 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 19 of 69 12 January 2014 at 7:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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Warsaw was a really pleasant surprise. I'd been there before, maybe something like 5 years ago, but the city is developing fast! The winter/Christmas decoration in the Old Town is beautiful, and there are many great coffee shops that double as bookshops. The interior of Warsaw coffee shops and restaurants is often very imaginative, artsy and intellectual. I think, Warsaw doesn't have to hide behind Kraków anymore, it's an exciting place to visit!
Two of those bookshop/coffee shops I really enjoyed were Tarabuk, ul. Browarna 6, and Czuły Barbarzyńca, ul. Dobra 31. In terms of normal bookshops catering to the masses, Empik has it all. The two big ones in the center, on Marszałkowska 104/122 and Nowy Świat 15/17, are as good as it gets. There are many more bookshops with slightly different selections of books all over the center. I bought many, many books, about 10 kg or so. My plan is to read as many books for young readers as I can stomach to advance my vocabulary as quickly as possible, and then move on to topics I'm really interested in. I'm also going to run a few extensive reading experiments which I will report on here.
@pesahon: Thank you so much for the recommendation! Tarabuk has a whole shelf dedicated to Czarne, and I also saw many at Czuły Barbarzyńca. They have a great selection of interesting titles, and I ended up buying five! One of them is Podróż przez Niemcy by Wolfgang Büscher, a German writer I adore. It's a report of his journey on foot around Germany following the border, a book I wanted to read for a long time. Another book from Wydawnictwo Czarne I'm really looking forward to read is Dryblując przez granicę - Polsko-ukraińskie Euro 2012, containing essays from 8 Polish and Ukrainian writers. I'm not really interested in football, but very much so in borders and cross-border relations, and this looks like a fascinating read. I also bought and look forward to reading Marcin Kołodziejczyk's Polska B - Opowieści z planety prowincja, published by Wielka Litera. @doubleUelle and BrianDeAlabama: thanks! Good luck with Thai, I hope you will manage to stick to it. Learning Thai has been an immensely enriching experience for me; it's a beautiful language and culture. Edited by Bakunin on 12 January 2014 at 8:03pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6098 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 20 of 69 12 January 2014 at 8:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Congratulations on your successful trip Bakunin.
10kg of books is impressive! I just hope you got something more contemporary than Alfred Szklarski :) I hope to visit Poland for the first time, in Spring. Nothing is finalised, but there's a strong possibility I'll be visiting Wrocław with a friend. Did you have some good conversation practice? And, most importantly, did you enjoy a slice of sernik with your coffee? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| pesahson Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5721 days ago 448 posts - 840 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: French, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 21 of 69 12 January 2014 at 8:39pm | IP Logged | ||
I've never heard about those books you mention. They seem interesting, especially 'Podróż przez Niemcy". I will give it a look. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5123 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 22 of 69 12 January 2014 at 9:09pm | IP Logged | ||
Oh my god, I got so much better stuff than Szklarski! Lots of detective stories, some fantasy and some cute stories about animals. Empik has shelves and shelves of stuff for children and adolescents. But, as I've written above, I've got six really cool 'adult' books on border travels, travels beyond the Eastern limits of my Middle European consciousness, Poland B and even football waiting to be trophies of my slog through books for young readers. Actually, it won't be a slog… As long as my Polish is still weak enough that I benefit from books for young readers, I usually enjoy reading them. Just being able to understand a story in a foreign language is sufficiently rewarding for me. Once I'm past this stage and ready to move on, I won't enjoy those books any longer. Should I not need them anymore, I won't have any qualms giving them away without having read them. Szklarski will probably be on that latter stack of books :) I didn't get much conversation practice, but I wasn't seeking it out in the first place. I was busy checking out bookshops and coffee shops, catching up on sleep, and walking around Warsaw on foot (my method of getting to know a city). I didn't even have time to go out. But, most importantly, I did enjoy a good slice of sernik (or two) with my ginger-lemon-honey tea. I love Polish cakes, they remind me of German cakes which I dearly miss in Switzerland. Edited by Bakunin on 12 January 2014 at 9:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5123 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 23 of 69 12 January 2014 at 9:26pm | IP Logged | ||
There's another book by Wolfgang Büscher published by Czarne which I can recommend to read if you're into that kind of literature: Berlin-Moskwa - Podróż na piechotę. The author describes his journey on foot from Berlin to Moscow (through Brandenburg, Poland, Belarus and Russia), reflecting on history, society, culture and common people, but also his very own experience walking East. He looks at things more from the perspective of a clochard than from that of an intellectual (but, of course, he is an intellectual) which makes this book even more interesting. His writing style is beautiful in the German original. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Vos Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5559 days ago 766 posts - 1020 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Polish | Message 24 of 69 13 January 2014 at 1:15am | IP Logged | ||
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Great to hear you got yourself a nice pile of books in Warszawa. Always exciting and so much fun hunting them
down. If you happen to own an e-reader of some sort or don't mind reading off screens, there is an excellect site from which you can download a heap of Polish literature for free: WolneLektury Enjoy your Polish reading Bakunin! 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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