curro Newbie Canada Joined 4580 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes
| Message 1 of 6 10 May 2012 at 10:40pm | IP Logged |
Polish is my mother tongue, but I feel that my abilities to speak the language fluently
have dwindled. (Oddly enough, I can read and write Polish just fine) I only spoke Polish
when I was a young child. However, I had to learn English and French over the years as I
live and study in Canada. Although we speak Polish and English in my household, English
is the most dominant language in my culture.
I know basic Polish, and I have a good understanding of Polish grammar. Although I can
maintain a conversation in Polish, I lack a vast vocabulary. I often find myself wishing
for something like a dictionary so I wouldn't have to constantly ask myself "What's the
word for that again?" If anyone can suggest something that would focus on improving my
vocabulary, I'd greatly appreciate it.
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WentworthsGal Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4886 days ago 191 posts - 246 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish, Spanish
| Message 2 of 6 10 May 2012 at 10:58pm | IP Logged |
I would suggest reading as many Polish books/magazines and watching as much Polish tv, films and youtube videos etc as possible. I think it would be the best way to come accross more and more vocabulary. Also if you can see if there are any Polish speakers near to you (or through Skype), that could help you too as you would pick up on their vocabulary...
Ooh, also, for the forgetting words bit... If you carry around a small notepad (or use phone etc) and every time you forget a word, write it down and look it up later. That might help :o)
Edited by WentworthsGal on 10 May 2012 at 11:00pm
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hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5128 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe
| Message 3 of 6 11 May 2012 at 2:53am | IP Logged |
WentworthsGal wrote:
Ooh, also, for the forgetting words bit... If you carry around a small notepad (or use phone etc) and every time you forget a word, write it down and look it up later. That might help :o) |
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Or just use your phone, assuming it's some sort of smartphone variety. Collins, among others, make a decent dictionary for android, iPhone and blackberry, and you can also use the phone to jot down words and other notes for later lookup or reference.
It's also pretty trivial to change the phone's interface to another language. I'm a big fan of using the tech we already most likely carry around with us.
R.
==
Edited by hrhenry on 11 May 2012 at 2:54am
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Vos Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5564 days ago 766 posts - 1020 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Polish
| Message 4 of 6 12 May 2012 at 7:57am | IP Logged |
I would recommend as WentworthsFal has already suggsted, to read, read, read. When you come across a word you
don't know, write it down and look it up later, then add it to a SRS (spaced repetition system) such as
Anki and start using that to boost your vocab. Also putting the words in the context
of sentences will help you to remember them much better than if you simply add the word in with its English
counterpart. If you want to find some quick sample sentences to add to Anki or which ever program you decide to
use, I'd recommend Tatoeba. Also if you do have a smart phone as
hrhenry mentioned, you can download Anki as an app and do the repetitions whenever you find yourself with a few
spare minutes. Very handy app to have on you. Here's a link to a good online polish dictionary also -
Polish Dictionary
Powodzenia!
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Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish
| Message 5 of 6 12 May 2012 at 10:23pm | IP Logged |
I tagged your post with "forgetting a language", check that tag. It has a lot of posts specifically about forgetting your native language.
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curro Newbie Canada Joined 4580 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes
| Message 6 of 6 13 May 2012 at 3:49pm | IP Logged |
Thanks for the suggestions everyone!
Writing down words as soon as I can is so simple (and it will work for me!), I really
should have thought of doing it earlier.
I'll take a look at all the links provided too, thanks for pointing them out.
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