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TAC 2013 Team Żubr German and Polish Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6103 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 65 of 74 23 October 2013 at 10:06am | IP Logged |
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My sincere apologies FK!
Samo Życie was a serial I picked at random just to find something to listen to on a regular basis. Yes, it's pretty cheesy and over-acted at times, but provides a useful exposure to dialogue and accents. There's no way I'm going to suffer 1400 episodes! After about 300 (which must have taken me 2 years of intermittant viewing), I got bored and skipped episodes. I still watch it, but now I check the written summary to see if the episode is worth watching; sometimes the story is very slow to develop or a particular episode heavily features an actor whose pronunciation I still haven't fathomed. If this was English, I wouldn't go anywhere near it. I can't stand soap operas as a rule. Actually, I'm amazed I've watched so much of Samo Życie; it must be purely out of habit. When I confess to my Polish friends that I watch it, they roll their eyes and laugh - I don't think it's a cultural export they are massively proud of! Anyway, congratulations on your improving listening skills. 2 persons have 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 66 of 74 17 November 2013 at 7:32pm | IP Logged |
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I've been continuing to make my way through Samo Życie to get used to hearing full length dialogues. I now have one character who I actually don't mind (Henryk) and that's more because his storyline is the only one with any depth to it. There are several more though whom I either don't like or I just get bored watching them. Choosing a television show to watch is rough for me; even in English shows I get bored with characters very easily...and this is probably why my listening comprehension is the way it is!
On a happy note though, I'm just about done with First Year Polish. I had a goal of finishing that book this year, and I should be able to do that. I've officially come to a point where I chose aspects of Polish to ignore. After having a whole section on how to properly decline the names of cities, I just stopped trying to do it correctly. It's extremely embarrassing to admit this, because I do know that it's important, and I really don't want to reinforce bad habits. But I've come to a point where there is so much grammar that something has to take a backseat for the time being. I figured because I haven't been to Poland and (unfortunately) have no immediate plans to go to Poland, I could probably skip over this and come back to it later. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6103 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 67 of 74 17 November 2013 at 9:57pm | IP Logged |
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My congratulations (or commiserations) on your progress with Samo Życie!
Henryk is ok, despite rarely smiling, whereas Agnieszka is irritatingly attention seeking. I confess to skipping sections when things became too unbearable to watch :) Yes, selective ignorance is a vital coping mechanizm, no need to be embarrassed. It's something I do all the time. I used to think that I had to approach each grammar lesson with the idea of understanding everything completely on first contact, and would overload my brain to melting point. Now, I do the drills or lesson, make a few notes on Anki and move on knowing that my understanding is incomplete, but also knowing that I'll re-visit the particular grammar again, and again....until, with reading etc. it begins to sink in. Well done on nearly finishing First Year Polish. What's next? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7154 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 68 of 74 21 November 2013 at 9:16pm | IP Logged |
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I recently stumbled on this article on the lexical variation within Ukrainian and immediately recalled our brief exchange in my log about mixing Polish with Ukrainian. In addition to a fairly comprehensive description of the internal variation, the article has many examples of the differences between Western and Eastern Ukrainian which show the tendency of Western terms to resemble more Polish ones, while Eastern ones more resemble Russian ones.
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| 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 69 of 74 30 November 2013 at 5:14pm | IP Logged |
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Chung, that was a really interesting article to read and explains why it seems that all of the Russians and Poles I've met have both said that they understand about 80% of Ukrainian. Interestingly, the Ukrainians I know are from western Ukraine, which probably explains why my comprehension is as good as it is. I had no idea the language was so varied.
I did end up buying a book to learn Ukrainian (Shevchuk's Beginner's Ukrainian). This is definitely one of my languages on the hit list for 2014. Polish has made its way into the category of "languages where progress is seemingly non-existent but there is still a very long way to go." One thing I realized was that I never really learned all of my verb forms and that I had to keep looking up how to form them in imperative forms (among other things). That's something I just assumed I would pick up on my own, but in actuality it's much harder to do so. There is definitely a difference between recognizing a form and being able to reproduce it correctly! I really can't believe 2013 is almost over. As we head into the next year, I'm hoping to think of specific goals I want to work on for my languages. That was a big reason why my progress seemed so slow; I was very vague about what I wanted to do with the language instead of breaking it down into smaller parts. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7154 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 70 of 74 30 November 2013 at 7:14pm | IP Logged |
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I'm glad that you found it interesting even though you're studying only Polish for now. I hear you about your feelings toward Polish. I've felt that way for a while but even at my vague position on the intermediate plateau I've been moderately comfortable for some time in using my Polish actively and passively. Many trips during that time to Poland do help I admit.
If you think that the imperative is tough to form in Polish, wait until you to try to figure it out in Ukrainian. In Polish it's in fact predictable just by looking at the stem used in present tense. In Ukrainian it's predictable once you know the pattern for stress placement in the verb's conjugation for the present tense - too bad though that stress placement of a given word is unpredictable in Ukrainian! 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 71 of 74 12 December 2013 at 3:24pm | IP Logged |
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Last post of 2013:
As of this morning, I have FINISHED First Year Polish! I thought now would be as good a time as any to wrap up the year. What I wanted out of this year with Polish: A very vague "B1." What I achieved: I wouldn't say I actually am at that level yet. Actually, if my perception and definition of what that level entailed last year had remained the same, I probably would say that I made my goal. As it is, I'm not nearly automatic enough to say I'm at that level. However, I don't consider everything to be a failure, because I definitely think I'm reaching into that point, and on a really good day when I have enough time to warm up, I may actually make it. What was good to do: Taking my Polish class in the summer. I can't stress enough how beneficial it was to have someone break down the grammar. Going it on my own in a Slavic language for the first time resulted in chaos! Unexpected difficulties: Mixing Polish with German. I didn't realize until I took my class how much that interference really made it difficult for me to keep with the language. Now I think it may just be a process I have to go through which will become easier with time (and it has). Books used: So I used two textbooks this year, which were First Year Polish and Hurra Po Polsku. I don't know how much I said about Hurra, but lets just say I won't be using that again. It definitely had a "death by colors" feel to it (every lesson had pages with bright green, red, fuschia, yellow, orange, etc.) and I have to say, the weird focus on using dentists as an example in the lessons was strange--although it provided some comic relief in class! That said, the audio was good, and it was nice to be able to go back a few times to try and improve my listening. First Year Polish I'm glad I used, although I had an outdated edition (and no audio). I admit, there were a couple of parts I skipped over (properly declining the names of cities and towns, memorizing kitchen equipment). That said, the exercises were good to have, and I do think this is a book where if I run into a problem in the future, I can probably look it up in there. Conclusions: I really did underestimate the difficulty of Polish. I suppose I thought that because I had already learned a language, that it wouldn't be too difficult to learn a second one. Maybe that actually wasn't untrue, but it was (and is) quite a challenge. For next year I do plan to continue with Polish, but I plan to take a break from a lot of grammar study and do more with vocabulary, because that's an area which really suffered this year. I've found that I was good at either learning grammar or learning vocabulary, but not both at the same time. 2014 will probably be an interesting year because I'm adding Ukrainian to the mix, which I'm sure will bring a whole new set of challenges as I try and keep the two of them separate. My goals for Ukrainian are much more modest than my Polish ones were. In 2014, I hope to be able to read three books in Polish and watch up to 300 episodes of Samo Życie (keep checking back, Mooby, to see if I actually accomplish this! Agnieszka might make me a little crazy!) Thank you to everyone who read my log this year, and I hope to see you all in 2014! Good luck and much success to all of you! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 6103 days ago 707 posts - 1220 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 72 of 74 12 December 2013 at 3:50pm | IP Logged |
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Fantastic FK, massive congratulatons on all the you've achieved this year!
Your summer class experience has convinced me to try something similiar myself. There are recreational classes in my area, but I want something more advanced and rigorous. I'm checking out a few classes in Poland, and there's a possibility of finding a private tutor in Wrocław via one of my friends. 300 episodes of Agnieszka! Good luck with that. You'll need it - believe me! And good luck with Ukrainian. As much as I tempted, I'll be resisting these lovely exotic sirens luring me to certain grammatical entanglement and doom! Well, for now anyway :) Edited by Mooby on 12 December 2013 at 3:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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