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Polish TAC Team Żubr: Polski Dots | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5965 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 17 of 34 04 June 2012 at 7:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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OK . . . the time for embarrassment soon comes in every new language . . . so:
I was at a refreshment table that was selling the usual outdoor fair stuff, drinks and snacks. On the sign, I saw wata cukrowa. Mistaking wata for woda, I asked what kind of water that was. The guy laughed and told me wata cukrowa is cotton candy! Moral of story: ALWAYS study the words in your target language that seem easy just as much as the hard ones. I thought I'd remember the word woda, that's so very basic and simple, right? OOPS Edited by meramarina on 04 June 2012 at 7:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6103 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 18 of 34 04 June 2012 at 8:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for confessing meramarina; that's the kind of 'nice' embarassment that helps you to remember words and make friends.
My worst moment came years ago when I was working in a hotel. I was particularly keen on Japanese at the time and my eyes lit up when an Asian delegation checked in. I said 'konichiwa' a few times and was delighted to get some kind of acknowledgement. I soon started saying 'konichiwa' to everything that moved. One morning, I spotted an Asian gentleman at reception so I breezed up and tried another 'konichiwa' on him. The man stiffened, and turned slowly to face me. He said slowly, clearly and with pained dignity "I am not Japanese. I am Korean". I mumbled apologies and fled, with that horrifying feeling in my stomach of having committed the worst crime imagineable. Judging by the history between the two peoples, I probably had. It certainly taught me a valuable lesson about presumption. Edited by Mooby on 04 June 2012 at 10:14pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5965 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 19 of 34 05 June 2012 at 6:25am | IP Logged | ||
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It's time to tell you about my Polish experience!
I met up with my cousin and his fiancé at the 2012 Polish Heritage Festival. My cousin is the same age, and we have similar memories of hearing our grandparents speak Polish. As adults now, naturally, we're interested in the heritage we never learned about. So, Polfest! This is an well-attended, annual state festival and I'm not sure why I never went before. True to the name, it was indeed Polish: I don't think I'll ever hear so much Polish spoken around me unless I visit the ancestral homeland, and I intend to, somehow, one day. I listened very attentively to the speakers, and I really didn't understand much, but I caught a word here and there, and was able to distinguish particular Polish phonemes and get a sense of the spoken intonation of the language, even when I understood nothing. My own attempts at communication were pretty minimal, because I fell victim to that affliction known as Well, Now That I Want to Communicate With A Native Speaker, I Remember Nothing! But that's to be expected, no problem. I chatted with some fine Polish people selling all kinds of wares. I must admit now that I had my phrasebook with me, I know, CHEATER!, but I didn't use it when speaking, or trying to speak. I'd rehearsed some of the most important greetings and words I might need. A very important goal I had was to learn how to pronounce książka correctly(book) I absolutely must be able to ask for books in as many languages as possible, and I’ve had a hard time with this word. A few kind booksellers helped me practice, and now I’ve got it! Ah, and you knew I’d mention books, didn’t you? You should have seen the selection! Videos, too! I was hoping to find a language-learning/practice program and a good, comprehensive Polish dictionary, but I had little luck there. However (big grin!) a Polish lady bookseller didn't quite understand my English when I asked her for a Polish/English dictionary, and so I had to repeat the question in Polish. I’d practiced that question very, very carefully because I knew I might need it. Alas, no good dictionary (only three that were not so good!) but I was understood, and that was encouraging. Of course I left with some Polish books. You'd all be ashamed of me if I hadn’t, right? : ) Unfortunately, they were quite expensive, but I got two dual-language books. One is a publication, Polska from the UNESCO World Heritage Sites series. I also asked for a Polish language-learning program, and all they had was Uczymy się Angielskiego, an English language children’s book of fairy tales. But it’s a parallel text, so I can read the stories in both languages, and listen to the text narrated in Polish. I’ve been playing with it a lot! My only complaint is that every time the program opens, some weirdly overenthusiastic kids sing Old McDonald Had A Farm, in English. So, the more I work with this audio, the more I hear ee eye ee eye o ! and a duck duck here, and a duck duck there, here a duck, there a duck, everywhere a duck duck . . . Oh, help me, make it stop! I wanted a Polska T-shirt too, but sadly, the books were too expensive to allow many other purchases. I looked around for anything with Żubr on it, but no luck. Instead I had to see the ABBA Girlz Tribute Group, and I have no idea why this had to happen at a Polish festival I got some baked goodies from the Lithuanian Bake table. Why Lithuanian? I'm not sure, I think they specialize in many kinds of Slavic foods. Of course my treats are gone now. A solo project, and successful! All this has reinvigorated my interest in Polish language and culture. It didn't go away, it was just on hold, and I didn't write about the study I did do so far. Looking forward to learning more! EDIT: Wow, I had some really bad typo problems when I wrote this last night! Fixed now. My fingers were hurting and very clumsy. Edited by meramarina on 06 June 2012 at 2:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6103 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 20 of 34 05 June 2012 at 9:39am | IP Logged | ||
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That's the thing I like about learning languages, it ushers me out of my comfort zone and into all sorts of interesting social interactions. And I share that affliction of brain-voice-freeze at the point of conversing. It's a particularly humiliating disease that renders its sufferers gibbering wrecks, and attracts accusations of being called a liar - 'I thought he said he could speak some Polish. LIAR!'.
I'm about to meet a new Polish conversation partner, Grazyna, this morning. Humiliation beckons! (but I'll enjoy it). Children's audio books are great. My other Polish conversation partner, Dorota, has a complete series of over 20 classics. I started with 'Little Red Ridinghood' and I'm on to 'Kot w Butach' / Puss in Boots. Look forward to hearing about your studies. Pozdrawiam serdecznie 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5965 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 21 of 34 06 June 2012 at 2:40am | IP Logged | ||
It's funny you say that, I was reading that one last night, too! Didn't learn much, though. It's simple text, but this language will take some very serious work, even for fun stories like that one. I asked where I could find a group for conversation practice, although I'm not really conversational just yet. I was told to try going to a Polish-speaking church. There are a lot of these in Northern New Jersey, which is not far in miles (I know, that's kilometers in the rest of the world, USA is weird that way!) but in traffic, it's pretty awful. Still, it's worth a try when I get a little better. I have a question maybe a native speaker can help me with. One of the places my family comes from is Gmina Niebylec, in the far southeastern part of the country. How is this pronounced? I have been saying (approximately) Nyeb ee LETS, but I was speaking with an nice gentleman at the festival and he pronounced it Nyeb EE lets. He wasn't sure that was correct, though. It's a very small town and not exactly a common word, I think. Also, what does the word mean, if there's a known meaning? EDIT: I think I made a mistake there; it's Niebylec within Gmina Niebylec - gmina being a collection of several smaller towns. Edited by meramarina on 06 June 2012 at 3:33am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Vos Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5564 days ago 766 posts - 1020 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Polish | Message 22 of 34 06 June 2012 at 10:56am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey meramarina, how's things? Sounds like a wonderful festival, glad you were able to find yourself some good
books and that your back into the Polish! In regards to the Lithuanian presence at the festival, I know Polish and Lithuanian relations go back centuries and they used to form a commonwealth (although I don't know exactly what that entails - more info here), known as The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Królestwo Polskie i Wielkie Księstwo Litewskie). I wonder how relations between the two countries are now and if there is still that tight bond? Anyway, great to see you back around these parts meramarina, looking forward to rejoining you, Mooby and Amerykanka with Polish very soon. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Amerykanka Hexaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5169 days ago 657 posts - 890 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian | Message 23 of 34 06 June 2012 at 7:09pm | IP Logged | ||
Hi, Meramarina! It sounds like you had a wonderful time at the festival!
I'm not a native speaker, but I can tell you how to pronounce Niebylec. It is nye - BIH - lets, with "IH" being pronounced like I in the word "pig". The accent is on the penultimate syllable, as is almost always the case with Polish words unless they are recent loanwords (i.e., "Ameryka"). By the way, when you are dividing Polish words into syllables, consonants always go with the vowels following them, not the vowels preceding them, unless, of course, the consonant in question is the final letter in the word. As for the meaning - according to Wikipedia, Niebylec is an Old Polish masculine name coming from the words "nie" and "był" plus the suffix "ec". I would say the meaning of the word is something like "a man who wasn't/isn't there". That sounds kind of weird, though, so we probably need a native speaker to confirm the exact meaning. I hope this helped! Good luck with your studies! Edited by Amerykanka on 06 June 2012 at 7:11pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5965 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 24 of 34 06 June 2012 at 9:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks Vos and Amerykanka for your comments! I hope to update this log much more over the summer. The festival really was great fun and I'm so glad I went. Now I know where to get the good stuff - go to ethnic festivals! I just may make some plans to find some of these for languages that aren't part of my personal ancestry. I hope I can do this without causing too much suspicion, "Wasn't she at the Mexican festival? And the German one? And the Italian one? And . . . etc !
Vos, I wrote a comment in Spanish on you log and forgot that I should NEVER click the back button when writing in this text box, or all is lost forever. I've been reading some Polish history but I don't remember much about Lithuanian/Polish relations. I do know that part my family came from was at times not within present Polish borders because of the partitions. I think it was part of Galicia. It is very close to today's Ukraine and Slovakia. Amerykanka, that is very interesting about the town name! I wonder why it might mean that? I've read area websites (in translation) but didn't see anything about etymology, except that the name dates back to the 1400s and the area has also been called Jawornik. My pronunciation need work, but after I spoke to this man at the festival, I had a feeling that that accent on the penultimate syllable sounds better, as you said. "The man who isn't there" ! If that's correct, there has to be an interesting story there somewhere! My great-grandmother was born in Niebylec. There are family connections to other villages in the general area, and I'm sure a lot that we just don't know about. But this one is clearly documented by her immigration records. Edited by meramarina on 07 June 2012 at 4:43am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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