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Playing with Polish | ||
Tags: Michel Thomas | Polish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6140 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 1 of 29 12 April 2010 at 1:32am | IP Logged | ||
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Today I finished the Michel Thomas Advanced German course, and that means that I no longer have a constant, entertaining language program to listen to for when I am riding my bike, on the bus, in PE class, doing chores, and so on. Therefore, I decided to do an interesting experiment while getting some fun language dabbling in during this otherwise wasted time.
I have Michel Thomas courses for several languages, including ones I'm not currently studying. One of these was for Polish. Actually, I started thinking about the language yesterday when I stumbled across a video on YouTube about Patagonia in Polish, and had the video running while I was working, which somehow allowed me to concentrate. So, my idea is this: I would like to see how much I can learn and how proficient I can become in a totally unknown language (Polish) using only the Michel Thomas course. I am forbidding myself to use anything but this, not even Anki to help memorize vocabulary. The only other resource I could refer to if need be is Google Translation to look up the spelling of a word I've heard (for example, I just now looked up the spelling of the words można and kupić, just for reference). My background in Polish is very, very little. I know more or less how to read and pronounce it from a book on the languages of the world that I got when I was younger, and I know a bit about the structure of the language itself, based on the fact that it's a Slavic language. Also, I studied Russian for several months last summer, so some of the words and grammar are already familiar to me. Other than this, I know nothing. Okay, that's a lie; I knew how to say "hello" (cześć) and "thank you" (dziękuję). But other than that, nothing. So, today I started listening to the Michel Thomas Polish Foundation Course and began to produce my first Polish sentences, beginning very simply: To jest. (It is.) I have now advanced a bit more than that, thankfully. Here are some of the last sentences that I've produced: Pan ma to robić, nie ja. (You're supposed to do it, not me.) Czy to jest już gotowe? (Is it ready [already]?) Jeszcze nie jestem gotowy. (I'm not ready yet. [man speaking]) Dlaczego pani nie jest jeszcze gotowa? (Why aren't you ready yet? [speaking to woman]) Well, I shall be posting in this log to chart my progress. This is just going to be a fun little dabbling side-project that I work on when I have time, so if I go for a while without working on Polish, it really doesn't matter. As such, Polish is now in my language profile, but only listed as "just flirting." Also, an idea just occurred to me, which was that there is a boy who moved from Poland when he was about eight in my French class... I guess that as a final exam, I could try speaking to him in Polish at the end of the course. Okay, I hope this is fun! Bye! [I would say it in Polish, but I don't know how yet and the rules of my project do not allow me to look it up.] P.S. I just felt that I should add that Polish was a fairly random choice for this project, although I did know that a Slavic language would be nice. I didn't want Russian though, because when I take it on I want it to be a full-on study language. Also, if I had had my say in which alternate Slavic language to study besides Russian, I would have chosen Czech. But no matter, because Polish seems pretty awesome so far too. :) EDIT: Hehe, typo... Edited by ellasevia on 12 April 2010 at 2:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kubelek Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland chomikuj.pl/Kuba_wal Joined 6850 days ago 415 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 2 of 29 12 April 2010 at 2:03am | IP Logged | ||
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"Bye! [I would say it in Polish, but I don't know how yet and the rules of my project do not allow me to look it up.] "
that would be.. cześć :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6140 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 3 of 29 12 April 2010 at 2:05am | IP Logged | ||
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Ah! So Polish is one of those languages (like colloquial Greek, and Hawaiian) where there is one word for both 'hello' and 'goodbye?' That's nice, and dziękuję, Kubelek, for sharing. :)
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5479 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 4 of 29 12 April 2010 at 2:16am | IP Logged | ||
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Dobře!!!! Haha Czech and Polish are very similar and I can understand a lot of Polish due to my dabblings in Czech
:). Anyways, it's so cool that you're studying Polish!!! I would join you, but I already have a bunch on my plate. Perhaps I shall do some Michel Thomas for my dabble log :). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kubelek Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland chomikuj.pl/Kuba_wal Joined 6850 days ago 415 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 5 of 29 12 April 2010 at 2:37am | IP Logged | ||
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if you want to see transparency in action search an old Slovak thread which I hijacked with another Pole. We were doing pretty well writing in our respective languages.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6140 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 6 of 29 12 April 2010 at 6:18am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, I'm done with Polski for the day. I just finished up a bit more while doing dishes. I just thought I'd make note of a couple new words I've learned and an observation I've made.
First, the observation. It's not that astonishing, because it's a well-known fact that Polish and Portuguese are both Indo-European, but the verb form for the third person plural of 'to be' sounds almost identical to me between the two: są and são. Okay... Some vocabulary. I've learned a lot today. I'll see if I can remember some: to/tego = it ja/mnie = I/me pan = you (masculine) pani = you (feminine) co/czego = what dlaczego = why gdzie = where dla = for ale = but i = and coś = something nie = no, not tak = yes, this way czy = whether, or, question particle już = already jeszcze = still, yet tutaj = here tam = there jestem/jest/są = am/is/are czytać = to read robić = to do, make kupić = to buy mam/ma = I have/you have można = one can, one may, it's possible gotowy = ready mapa = map kamera = camera dokument = document bank = bank problem = problem studio = studio film = film klub = club telefon = telephone paszport = passport przepraszam = I'm sorry, excuse me That's all I can think of now. I've also learned a bit of basic verb conjugation, declension, adjective agreement, and plural formation. All after only studying Polish for only a bit under an hour. This is going to be fun. I'm just afraid that I'll get so excited that one or both of the following will happen: 1. I'll run out of Michel Thomas material within a couple days (I only have the foundation course). 2. I'll want more and end up studying Polish as one of my main languages, which would be disastrous since I already have way too much going on. This is meant only to fill extra time that would otherwise go to waste. Oh well. It's fun while it lasts. Cześć! --Philip Edited by ellasevia on 14 April 2010 at 12:28am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5479 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 7 of 29 12 April 2010 at 7:09am | IP Logged | ||
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Just stick with Polish on the weekends :). That's what I do with languages I really like, but don't have time for (ex.
Czech, Spanish, Greek). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6140 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 8 of 29 12 April 2010 at 7:16am | IP Logged | ||
Actually, it's a bit ironic but I seem to have less time on the weekends. I always get loaded down with tons of homework and then of course I assign lots of work to myself for languages... And then it seems that because I have the whole weekend I have lots of time, so, well nothing gets done as fast as it would seem. Currently I'm still working on a project that was technically due on Friday for my language arts class. And I'm nowhere close to being done (I'm still rather near the beginning, in fact) and I haven't even thought about that French homework yet... I think I'll restrict myself to studying Polish only when I'm... - doing chores - riding my bike/walking/in PE - on the bus/in the car Stuff like that. That's the "extra otherwise wasted" time that I was aiming for harnessing. I'm going to break my rules a bit and look up how to say 'good night' in Polish... My guess (based on what I remember of Russian and what I know of Czech) is something like "dobry noć." Oh, close: DOBRANOC! --Philp 1 person has voted this message useful |
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