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TAC 2013 Team Żubr German and Polish Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Amerykanka Hexaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5169 days ago 657 posts - 890 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian | Message 9 of 74 02 January 2013 at 3:26am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi! I thought I would offer you a few corrections on your writing. I definitely think it is a good idea (although it
can be very scary) to write in a language even when you have only a very basic knowledge of it, so good for you for daring to do it!
First, the word mężatka. This literally means "married woman", so it doesn't make very much sense to say that Krystyna is Paweł's married woman. I think the word you're looking for is żona (wife). So, when you put żona in the instrumental case, you get "Krystyna jest żoną Pawła". (You need to write "Pawła" (genitive) instead of "Paweł" (nominative) in order to show possession.) Next, it should be "mają dwie córki i dwóch synów" - this is because "synów", as the direct object, needs to be in the accusative. Finally, "rodzina" is singular, not plural, so you would write "rodzina ma też cztery koty". Other than that, everything is fine. I would probably write "czworo dzieci" rather than "cztery dzieci", but I'm not sure if using "cztery" is actually wrong - maybe a native speaker can pitch in and decide that question. Overall, you did very well! Polish is a hard language, but the more you write the better you get, so I encourage you to keep on writing! (Now I need to take my own advice and start writing consistently in Polish again myself.) Good luck with your studies! :) Edited by Amerykanka on 02 January 2013 at 3:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4367 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 10 of 74 02 January 2013 at 3:43am | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you so much, Amerykanka, for your corrections--it's really the best way to learn!
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6103 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 11 of 74 02 January 2013 at 11:12am | IP Logged | ||
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Great to see you writing Fuenf Katzen (that's an awfully formal way of addressing you! Can I call you 'FK'?).
And thank goodness we have the experience of Amerykanka to call on. Just one more thing; could you edit your log title to include the words 'Team Żubr' as it is a requirement of the TAC for every member to say what team they're with. Thanks! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4367 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 12 of 74 02 January 2013 at 6:32pm | IP Logged | ||
Title updated- thanks for pointing that out! You can address me any way you like! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4367 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 13 of 74 06 January 2013 at 9:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, this wasn't exactly the most productive week with New Year's Eve festivities and hearings, and this coming week is my vacation, so hopefully I don't lose momentum. Still, here's my recap:
German 9 hours and 40 minutes of listening this week. That combined with everything I've been doing since the end of November puts me at over 50 hours of listening so far. It actually is getting easier to hear the different vocabulary. When I first started listening I couldn't hear the different pronunciations very well ("waere" can sound a lot like "wird," "werde," or "werden" depending on who is speaking!). Now I can hear that much more easily. I am also having an easier time recognizing unusual vocabulary in speech, not just in reading. Because I'm at 50 hours now, I think what I should really focus on is learning the da and wo compounds. At this point, I have been trying to avoid them, because I have a hard time knowing which one to use. So I will be paying more attention to this in my listening. Polish I scaled it back to about 45 minutes a day this past week. I decided to repeat past lessons, partially to reinforce it, because I think I sped through them too quickly before, and partially because I'll be losing a week. I continued doing dictations and I think this helps with my listening comprehension. In looking at my progress since I started, there are three separate issues that I will need to address: Grammar; Listening Comprehension; Vocabulary. Now, of course they're not really separate, but for now I think I need to choose just one to really focus on. Tentatively, I'm focusing on grammar, and I'm hoping to work on output by writing one time per week. But when I say "grammar," what I really mean at the moment is cases, which something tells me will the least of my worries once I make it to verbal aspects! So it's very possible that I will change my focus. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4367 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 14 of 74 15 January 2013 at 4:04am | IP Logged | ||
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Back from a beautiful vacation! Of course, this means I didn't make much progress, but I'll record everything here anyway.
German: The extent of my German was overhearing two kids talk about where they planned on sitting on a boat, and an accidental rant to someone who didn't understand me. I suppose I really do have some command of the language when I no longer have the luxury of not hearing the really mundane conversations of everyday life! I'm back to watching my episodes of "Roseanne" though, and it wasn't too hard to get back into the habit. Polish: I was a bad bison last week! My real goal is to ease back into the routine this week, by completing past lessons. I'm only going to attempt 20 minutes a day, because I think I probably won't be able to keep up with it if I start out with much more than that. Like I said, there's not much of an update this week. What I really want to do is just ease back into the routine. At least the motivation is still there! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chav Diglot Groupie United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4487 days ago 43 posts - 45 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English* Studies: Dutch, Polish | Message 15 of 74 15 January 2013 at 5:46am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Five Cats! I'm only on Lesson 2 of Swan -- what's the learning curve like as it progresses?
I'm sure you can get back to the routine! Good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4367 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 16 of 74 15 January 2013 at 3:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm using the 2nd edition (because I got it for free from a former student of his), so my impression might be a little different than if you're using the later one. For me, I find that it works well for my learning style. Polish has a lot of grammar, and I want to learn it correctly the first time, instead of playing guessing games like I did with German. I think he explains the grammar pretty well and gives examples. It works fairly well for me, in that I can look at a sentence and explain it even if I would have trouble reproducing it myself. For now, I decided I needed to choose between understanding the grammar and building vocabulary, because doing both in one year would likely be too much to handle for right now. I originally wanted to get to a B1 level this year, but I'm quickly seeing how hard that is for this language!
The one real criticism I have is that the course is definitely intended for university students. The exercises don't have an answer key, so sometimes you have a problem answering them. I found that it doesn't happen much though; his examples are fairly straightforward, and usually when I've been corrected, it's based on something I haven't learned yet. I also found that it's really easy for me to just go through the motions and not actually pay attention to what I'm writing. I also thought some of the topics were presented a little late, but that might just be because I was taking too much time, or it might have been changed by now. So while it still seems a little odd to put numbers in lesson 12, it's a small issue for me (I'm not really focusing on active use right now). If you have the 2nd edition, try and find the aiff files online (I think Chung posted the link in the Polish language guide somewhere on this forum). The audio really helps a lot with following the exercises. If you have the 3rd edition, I believe the audio only goes up to lesson 9, but it still valuable. I'm also visiting the university's website a lot more frequently to read some of the short stories he has posted. Sorry for the long reply! I really do like his book a lot, so I do the best I can to promote it. I know several students who learned to speak excellent Polish from taking his classes. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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