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TAC 2013 Chav’s Polish Log - Team Żubr

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
31 messages over 4 pages: 13 4  Next >>
Chav
Diglot
Groupie
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4491 days ago

43 posts - 45 votes
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*
Studies: Dutch, Polish

 
 Message 9 of 31
14 January 2013 at 4:35am | IP Logged 
I've been listening to some Polish pop/rock music, though I don't know if it counts as studying when I only recognise the odd word. Still, it's cultural! Got a bit of a vocabulary backlog of words I don't know yet, which is a wee bit worrying but I should be okay if I focus on that for a few days without adding to it by moving forward in the coursebook. A lot of it is words I don't feel all that inspired to learn yet, but I need to get them at some point so I suppose it might as well be now. Anki's been very useful.

I'm definitely making process though, I can follow very basic sentences and pick out common words from things. It's nice, it makes all the effort seem worthwhile. I think this easily marks the furthest I've ever got with Polish, so here's hoping I manage to keep at it. It doesn't seem like a chore yet, and I'm if anything enjoying it more than the languages I have to do for academic reasons. (Not that I'm not liking those, but Polish seems to have a special appeal.)


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Gosiak
Triglot
Senior Member
Poland
Joined 5128 days ago

241 posts - 361 votes 
Speaks: Polish*, English, German
Studies: Norwegian, Welsh

 
 Message 10 of 31
14 January 2013 at 10:06am | IP Logged 
Hey :)

I'm glad you're enjoying studying Polish and it seems that you acheived a breakthrough. I wish you all the best with your studies and I'll be following your log. Do you need any music recommendations? If you had any questions feel free to ask me.
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Mooby
Senior Member
Scotland
Joined 6107 days ago

707 posts - 1220 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Polish

 
 Message 11 of 31
14 January 2013 at 10:18am | IP Logged 
Listening to Polish pop / rock is an enjoyable way of familiarising yourself to the Polish sounds. I must admit, though, that I rarely listen with the intention of studying hardcore grammar! Listening to tracks with texts is helpful.
I don't know if they're to your taste but here a few tracks with text:

Maria Peszek - Miły Mój
Mrzozu - Korzenie
Perfect - Nie Płacz Ewka
Pudelsi - Dawna Dziewczyno


I learned a lot of vocabulary initially, because my focus was on reading. For speaking you don't need that much (less than 1000 words) if you just want to improve basic conversation. Of course, you'll need more for more complex discussions and listening. But it's amazing how you can take a handful of common words and practice using them in order to understand things like syntax, what declensions come after what prepositions etc. Grammar is my weakness and so, for now, I'm going to slow down my vocabulary building in order to focus on it more.

Well done on your progress, continue to enjoy it and keep us up-to-date.

Do zobaczenia
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Chav
Diglot
Groupie
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4491 days ago

43 posts - 45 votes
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*
Studies: Dutch, Polish

 
 Message 12 of 31
14 January 2013 at 4:30pm | IP Logged 
So far the music I've liked best is Republika, even though I'm not sure it's something I'd listen to in English. (This is also true of German and Spanish, which makes for a strange phenomenon.) I have no idea what the words are but hopefully someday I will.

I'm hoping this coursebook brings cases in a bit at a time. When I was at school we got all four German cases pretty much at once and we were all left suddenly unable to say anything because of the confusion.

1 person has voted this message useful



Chav
Diglot
Groupie
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4491 days ago

43 posts - 45 votes
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*
Studies: Dutch, Polish

 
 Message 13 of 31
17 January 2013 at 8:09am | IP Logged 
I've paused a bit with FYP, because I'm worried that I'm not retaining enough vocabulary :S Some of it is quite slippery. So I'm avoiding more piling up until I've learned what's happened so far. Any tips for learning words?

1 person has voted this message useful



Mooby
Senior Member
Scotland
Joined 6107 days ago

707 posts - 1220 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Polish

 
 Message 14 of 31
17 January 2013 at 9:39am | IP Logged 
I don't know how you learn German and Spanish words, but I suspect they are easier to learn and retain due to the shared cognates with English.
Polish vocabulary is very different, with perhaps just 5% transparency.
I use Anki.
To feed Anki, I read articles online and use the Google translate feature to get an intial meaning. But I use several dictionaries to reinforce what a word means, and I usually create a sentence (often copied / adapted from an article on the web) and add it to my Anki deck. For example:


to humiliate[demean, degrade, debase]
I demean my guy terribly
He humiliated his wife

--------------------------------------------


poniżać   poniżyć
strasznie poniżam mojego faceta
poniżył jego żonę


As you get familiar with common Polish roots, prefixes and patterns, learning vocabulary gets easier.
Also, hearing the word is important for it to stick in the mind. That's why one of my dictionaries is the PONS Dictionary where every word is on audio.



1 person has voted this message useful



Chav
Diglot
Groupie
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4491 days ago

43 posts - 45 votes
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*
Studies: Dutch, Polish

 
 Message 15 of 31
19 January 2013 at 9:47am | IP Logged 
The past couple of days I've not done much beyond listening to music and doing Anki reviews. More due to lack of time and health issues than any loss of interest, though, so I should be able to get going again. Oh and I listened to some BloggyPolish podcasts and I think that's helping my pronunciation a fair bit. Still can't tell all the "sh" sounds apart though :/
1 person has voted this message useful



Chav
Diglot
Groupie
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4491 days ago

43 posts - 45 votes
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*
Studies: Dutch, Polish

 
 Message 16 of 31
24 February 2013 at 1:19am | IP Logged 
Well, February pretty much didn't happen. Alas.

My Open University courses started this month and it's taken me a while to work out a schedule for those. Polish this month has therefore been limited to listening to a couple of podcasts and doing some Anki revisions. But tonight's Anki reps showed me that I remember more than I thought, and I'm going to spend a bit of time back in the books after this.

I can't give up, I have come far enough that it's worth continuing just to see how much I can learn before I get completely unstuck by grammar or something. Nor am I starting over, since I seem to remember a fair bit of what I've already done.


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