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Mooby’s TAC2013 - Team Żubr - Polish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5128 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes  Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 49 of 134 27 April 2013 at 11:02am | IP Logged | ||
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Mooby, sounds like a good approach. It's a virtuous cycle: the more you read -> the easier it gets -> the more you read. :)
I tried some intensive reading with the Foreign Language Text Reader (very similar to LWT but much easier to use, unfortunately not available online anymore), but since Polish is so inflected (in contrast to Thai) I quickly gave up. Now I just read extensively... not very balanced, I know. If you want to give your reading a boost, maybe join one the upcoming Tadoku contests (in July or the second half of August). That's an 'extensive reading contest' (where everybody wins as they put it) started by a bunch of Japanese learners but open to all languages. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6103 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 50 of 134 27 April 2013 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks Michael for your post. I think your friend has a massive advantage in having a Polish wife. It will obviously give him motivation and practice, although I dare say such a relationship brings its own complexities to language learning too. If your friend isn't a member of HTLAL, I suggest that he joins and reads how other people have coped, for example how emk managed / is managing to learn French married to a French-speaker. From my experience, momentum is so important in learning any language, and all the more so with difficult languages. A few hours here and there is not enough, what I found was that Polish requires a lot of intensity in the beginning. Someone on the Forum said that if you try to climb up an ice slope gradually you'll keep slipping down and have to start again and again. The only way is to sprint up - which requires at least an hour a day study, preferably 2+. Any less, and progress is frustratingly slow and loss of motivation / inertia can drag you down. There are many other ice slopes to conquer after the first one, but he should try to get to a reasonably comfortable level with reading, ideally outloud. This helped me to overcome the fear of consonant clusters and to practice pronunciation. Even if he is going to classes or, better still, has a private tutor (wife?); I think he will have to devise his own learning strategy and teach himself. There are lots of materials in the Polish Profile. Choose one work book (e.g "Polish in 4 Weeks"), find a childrens story or audiobook and lots of stuff to listen to (radio is great) and start getting a massive amount of input. Bearing in mind his situation, he'll probably want some output (speaking) too, but writing can be a lower priority. So to reiterate, I recommend an emphasis on input (reading and listening), followed by a gradual increase in speaking. Enjoy it (relaxes the brain to take in more). Perservere at it (it's a long road). Use it (the whole point after all). He will find his own way of learning that suits him. Unfortunately there's no magic pill - but he could join Team Żubr and become a bison! Powodzenia! @Bakunin; Thanks for the link. The "Read more or Die!" slogan may be a little melodramatic, but a challenge I may consider. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6103 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 51 of 134 03 May 2013 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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Anki = 3783
Hours Studied = 24 (Total: 418) So far, I've found that reading fiction is a much slower process than reading general non-fiction. Reading Kroniki Kresu is no exception - just 18 pages so far at nearly an hour a page! But this is my intensive reading and every new word is checked. If it's too exotic (like a fancy synonym of a more common word, or an obscure rare verb) then I'll pass. If I think the word is common or useful enough I'll consult up to 5 dictionaries, and log it onto Anki. Sometimes the word has an exact equivalent in English, in this case it takes a couple of minutes to acquire. On the other hand, a word might have several meanings or be highly ambiguous (usually verbs), so it takes longer to distinguish the central meaning, find example sentences using different conjugations or make annotations. In extreme cases, this can take me an hour although it's usually a lot less. I make extensive use of Google to find these example sentences, and sometimes I'll do an image search as well, to give me a visual reference. There's no guarantee that this thorough approach will prevent future misunderstandings, but it's a solid base to work from. The nuances will hopefully follow from a lot more reading and listening. I've now watched 186 episodes of the TV serial Samo Życie, the whole thing is pretty corny but my listening has improved. I can distinguish over 60% of individual words in slowish speech, half that in rapid speech. But the simultaneous recognition and comprehension of whole sentences is still lagging. Words of the Week Nalegać imperf. - 'to insist'. They insist on a divorce ('nalegają na rozwód') Ogłuszający - 'deafening'. With a deafening roar ('z ogłuszającym rykiem') Obręcz fem. - 'rim' e.g of a wheel, 'hoop' e.g basketball, 'band' e.g of metal. Promień - 1.'radius'. Within a radius of 10 miles ('w promieniu 10 mil'). 2.'Beam / ray'. A ray of hope ('promień nadziei'). A sun beam ('promień słońca') A death ray ('promień śmierci')... ...SLEEPING DOGS BEWARE: 
fishki.pl Edited by Mooby on 03 May 2013 at 6:28pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5128 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 52 of 134 03 May 2013 at 6:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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You're also making good progress towards your goal of 1000 hours! Compared to last year, where you only did half of what you're doing now, do you think the additional investment is worth it?
Intensive listening: Wow, one hour per page! Do you enjoy the process? Sounds like torture to me, but learning styles are vastly different :) If I were to pursue such a regime, my main concern would be that such work results in long lists of rare words I'm not going to see again for quite some time, especially since time spent on chasing those words cuts into time spent on getting exposure to the language. Here's an idea how to slightly modify your approach to cut out a good number of rare words: on the first encounter, I would look up the word, take the first translation that makes sense and then move on. Only on the second encounter (which often is on the same or the next page, or never) I would invest those couple of minutes to one hour to hunt down all details and put them into Anki. That cuts out all those hapax legomena, words that appear only once - and there can be many (for instance, according to the wikipedia article linked above, 44% of the distinct set of words in Moby Dick occur only once). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6103 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 53 of 134 03 May 2013 at 8:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks Bakunin, there's some good ideas there!
Yes, intensive reading of highly descriptive fiction is slow - but it represents one extreme. On the other hand, I can read general news items, blogs and non-fiction a lot faster. As I mentioned, I am trying to filter all the words and reject fancy synonyms and obscure verbs. But there's still plenty of useful words and phrases that remain. Using the book Kroniki Kresu, here's a few examples: Words I Rejected: 1. Podbity (enslaved) 2. Kotwiczyć (to anchor) 3. Wywijać (to brandish) 4. Smagły (swarthy) Words I Recorded onto ANKI: 1. Natknąć się (to come across) 2. Pogarda (contempt) 3. Piegi (freckles) 4. Koić (to soothe) Some of the words I reject now, I may well accept later. I hope that I'm striking the right balance. Most of this benefits my reading experience, and it's very rewarding when a word I have learnt appears in some other book the next day. I have to admit though, that I doubt that I will activate everything in speech, not for some time anyway! Another reason why intensive reading is slow, is because I am paying close attention to grammar. For my extensive reading, I just want lots of exposure. I have some fiction that I have put aside for later because the style is either dated (using rare words) or too cryptic. Perhaps Moby Dick is a book like this. I now try to buy modern fiction or stories aimed at teenagers and younger. Plus, I read lots of blogs and news items online. My mood has a lot to do with what I choose. Sometimes I want to chill out and read light material when I don't have patience or it's been a long day. At other times I really like to examine things in fine detail. I am not only learning a language - I'm learning HOW to learn a language. Polish is my first and only serious attempt at this (not count French at school) - it's been a steep learning curve from the beginning! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5128 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 54 of 134 03 May 2013 at 8:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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I see that you're basically trying to filter rare words already, so my comment doesn't really apply. I also see your point about grammar. I somehow haven't have any problem with grammar since I got back into reading or listening to Polish, but that's probably due to the fact that I had studied all of that earlier quite intensively. I couldn't produce any of those forms for the life of me, but I can recognize them decently well.
Funny that you mention that you rejected kotwiczyć (to anchor), because over the past few days I just learned kotwica (anchor) from context from reading Tomek w krainie kangurów... the main character Tomek makes the journey from Triest to Australia by ship, and they anchor a couple of times here and there :) The statistic quoted for Moby Dick applies to most works of fiction, including modern, but probably to a lesser extent to novels for young readers. It doesn't have anything to do with archaic language, only with the distribution of words within a given work. I also find reading books for young readers much more rewarding than proper works of literature in the first few years of reading in a foreign language. It takes a lot of exposure to get familiar with all the major word families, and reading books that use somewhat simpler language helps a lot in this process. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6103 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 55 of 134 03 May 2013 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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My vocabulary aims are quite general and modest.
However, some of my Polish friends have to learn highly specialised language to develop their careers. One guy works in the oil and gas industry, and his wife bought him this English <>Polish Technical Dictionary. Out of curiosity, I had a look. It's full of phrases like; 'duck valve cap', 'transmission oil cooling duct', 'low end frame', 'forced draught fan'. These are bad enough in English, I shudder to think about learning the Polish equivalents! Fortunately, I don't need to. But it's an interesting topic. What kind of vocabulary do I need? What words do I choose based purely on enjoyment and personal preference? Perhaps our vocabulary, even in our native language, is a reflection of who we are and what we do. We share the core words necessary for social interaction, and then add our own diversifications and embellishments which express us as individuals. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6103 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 56 of 134 10 May 2013 at 2:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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Anki = 3834
Hours Studied = 32 (Total: 450) Until recently I only read extensively at bedtime, but I barely managed a page or two before sleep. I have decided I need to do more, so I've started the Polish translation of Pinokio by Carlo Collodi. This book was a present from one of my students and I read it about 18 months ago. On reading it again, I can see how much faster I read now, and how the speed and depth of comprehension have improved; it's like reading a new book! Although I occasionally pause to check a few words, the emphasis is to read it steadily without stopping - to train the brain into simultaneously recognising, processing and comprehending at least the gist of the story. I've read 47 pages in 5 days; at a rate of about 10 pages an hour. I know that's not much compared to others here, but a it's still an improvement for me. Sometimes I'm tempted to switch into intensive-reading mode, but I've got my other book (Kroniki Kresu) for that. I had lunch with Grażyna on Tuesday and spoke about all sorts of topics. I've got enough vocabulary to cope, but my speed of output is hampered by lack of practice and grammatical uncertainties. She told me that her Polish has deteriorated a little, having lived in Scotland for 8 years. She speaks excellent English and can enjoy reading anything written in English, but the words don't carry the emotion in the same way as her native Polish. It's an interesting theme. A word has a utilitarian value and an emotional value. Take the English word 'snuggle' for example; I can learn the equivalent in Polish or German or Spanish, I will intellectually know what they mean, but these words don't have the power to evoke the same memories and emotions as 'snuggle'. Grażyna described how she felt that she was in limbo; not having the same emotional resources in her weakened Polish and neither having the breadth of useful vocabulary in her acquired English. Words of the Week Kark - 'nape'. 'scruff' of the neck. He felt her breath on his neck ('poczuł jej oddech na karku') Kpina - 'mockery'. Zaciskać / Zacisnąć - 'to tighten', to clench'. He tightened his belt ('zacisnął pas') Wybredny - 'fastidious', 'picky', 'fussy'. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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