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One Sharp Knife | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4639 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes  Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 9 of 95 31 January 2014 at 12:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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It seems that Polish becomes more and more popular in this forum... :)
Well, if you've already found the word "ciut"... it's not bad with you :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 5885 days ago 707 posts - 1219 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 10 of 95 12 February 2014 at 1:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Anki = 4617
Hours Studied = 36 (Total this year: 120) I'm wading through Spadkobierca semi-extensively (I look up words or check syntax for the first page, then just read). I'm up to page 138 - slow going. The story revolves around a man facing dilemmas at his factory, where he has been elected party secretary, during the rise of Solidarność in the late '80's. It's turgid stuff, but I've gleaned plenty of new words and reinforced my grammar, so I'll persist. Having finished Colloquial Polish (1995 ed.), I decided to blast through the 2001 edition before selling it (need room on my cramped bookshelf) and moving on to something different. I'll keep the 1995 edition, even though pages are falling out, because it's simply better at explaining things and less trendy, which I prefer. My planned writing has stalled. I've been tired lately, and summoning the mental impetus to do anything active has been a bit of a struggle. Good rest is so important; I notice it in my Anki performance. Wrocław I booked my accomodation yesterday. I'll be staying in a remarkably cheap family apartment on Grunwaldzka north-east of the city centre and a stone's throw from the Odra River. Fortunately there are not many steps to negotiate and public transport is easily accessible. Although there are a couple of language schools for foreigners, I'm now looking for a private language tutor to come for a couple of hours in the morning. The rates are much cheaper than in my nearest city back home, and face-to-face suits me. I need your advice friends; what should I be looking for the tutor to do? Old-school grammar drilling? Conversation with minimum / medium / maximum correction? Whatever we do, I want to centre it around speaking. I fly out on the 23rd March, so my second question is what should I be concentrating on now? My inclination is to listen to loads of podcasts, as well as memorise key phrases and questions. Words of the Week Przegrać Per. - 'to lose' / 'to lose out'. I lost the battle, but I'll win the war ('przegrałem bitwę, ale wygram wojnę') Tęsknota - 'longing', 'hankering' an anxious yearning for something or someone. Kopyto - 'hoof'. 'Ruszyć z kopyta' = 'to get one's skates on' / 'hit the ground running'. Tępy - 'blunt', 'dull' (literally and figuratively). A blunt knife / person not too bright ('tępy nóż'). Wrocław is the capital of Lower Silesia, so I'll not be a million miles away from the cheery, beery, Bavarian-style of music that pervades these parts. Here's an example by the band HaNuta: Park zakochanych or 'Lover's Park'. Grażyna hates this popular stuff, so I might buy her the CD as a tease :) Hope all my former bisons are still plodding on. @Bakunin. Yes, it'll be my first visit. Immersion - here I come! @prz. You're right. The Polish Diaspora may have something to do with it! Polish is the 2nd most spoken language in England and Wales. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Vos Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5346 days ago 766 posts - 1020 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Polish | Message 11 of 95 03 March 2014 at 11:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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First of all, it's great to have finally found your new log! Secondly, so exciting to hear that you're going to Poland!!
Will be a wonderful experience on many levels I'm sure. In regards to how to prepare, I'd definitely go with a lot of listening practice and going over daily, common and high-use verbs, adverbs, phrases, etc., and write, write, write in Polish! Next best thing to actually speaking I've found, as you're producing language which will make remembering a lot easier and it will allow you to find the gaps in vocab or grammar that you may have in the language. As for your tutor, when I was in Bolivia I did two weeks of conversation classes given that I already had a firm grip on Spanish grammar, as you do with Polish, and what we did and what I found to be very helpful, was she would simply talk about life in Bolivia and in Sucre, take me on little tours around the town and talk to me about her life, and I'd respond with questions or make reference to the differences or similarities between life in Australia and my own. In other words we simply discussed personal, everyday things which we could both relate to and both had a lot of experience with. Also whilst I talked if I made some mistake she would pull me up on them once I had finished speaking and then we would go through them for a few minutes until I had understood what I had done wrong and how to rectify it. It was a very positive and beneficial experience doing those conversation classes and I only did it for an hour each day, so if you could get a few in, that would be amazing. Also every two days or so she would also give me a question to take back to the hostel, which would usually requiere me to right a few hundred words in Spanish, which I would then read to her the next day and she would correct any mistakes I had made via conversation. So excited for you Mooby! Make sure to take some photos for of us of Wrocław! Enjoy!! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 5885 days ago 707 posts - 1219 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 12 of 95 21 March 2014 at 7:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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Anki = disaster 1
My laptop crashed 2 weeks ago, the hard drive has stopped working and initial attempts to extract data have failed. Fortunately I have back up Anki files. Unfortunately, they are are only backed up from 2010-2012. However, not all is lost as I have everything on cards, word lists and even photos. I can recreate 99.9% of my deck, but there'll be a lot of inputting to do. I may decide to prune the deck anyway. I bought a new laptop and downloaded the latest version of Anki, and this time I'll save everything regularly (or automatically after input, if this is possible). Hours Studied = disaster 2. Just 63 hours from my last update (Total this year: 183) I had all sorts of unforeseen issues, say no more. Wrocław In 48 hours I'll be on a plane bound for Poland. My preparation over the last month has been disrupted, but I should have enough Polish under my belt to survive - I'll soon find out! It'll be interesting to see where my strengths and weaknesses lie. I have booked a private tutor to help me speaking; on 3 consecutive mornings, 3 hours each morning. I'm going to take family photos to give me something to talk about, and let the conversations develop from there. I'll also be meeting various friends and family members of Grażyna. @Vos. Many thanks for your excellent advice, and encouragement! The prospect of putting some of what I've learned into practice, and connect with people, is very exciting! I'll report back soon. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 4910 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 13 of 95 21 March 2014 at 8:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sorry to hear about your difficult month. Things are not always as smooth as we wish them to be. I find 63 hours still quite impressive, it’s certainly enough to keep your Polish moving forward.
This morning, I upgraded to the new OS on my Mac, and to my utter dismay the reading software I use for Thai, FLTR, doesn’t seem to have survived: the rendering of the characters is all messed up, and initial attempts to fix it have failed. I’m preparing myself to give up on a tool which I found extremely helpful over the past two years. I’ll try to frame it as a lesson about over-reliance on technology, but at the moment it feels really frustrating. All those hours lost which I spent entering definitions and customizing the dictionary. I still have the data, technically speaking, but I can’t access it anymore in a convenient way. You’re situation is even worse, you seem to have lost a good chunk of the data. Entering hundreds or maybe thousands of Anki cards again seems like a painful grind. Going forward, you may want to have Anki sync to Ankiweb. I use it to sync the desktop version and the one on my phone, but it also serves as a backup. This won’t help you with your problem now but might prevent it from happening again. As to your upcoming trip to Poland, I hope you’ll have a great time! Three hours conversation practice each morning sounds tough but will certainly be a good litmus test for your Polish. I hope you’ll find time to explore the city, too. Looking forward to reading about your experiences! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 5885 days ago 707 posts - 1219 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 14 of 95 21 March 2014 at 10:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for your commiserations and your best wishes Bakunin!
I hope your Thai data is readable / recoverable soon. I took a lot of time and care to find suitable sentences for my Anki cards, and annotated them to highlight grammar, synonyms, colloquial use etc. Fortunately I still have all of this information. I just have to type it again as fast as possible. Of course, the spaced repetion will take longer to settle down. One of Grażyna's friends asked her what I might like to eat, as she has invited us for dinner. I said 'Sernik!" So next Friday I'll be filling my face with lovely cheesecake. Na razie :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 5885 days ago 707 posts - 1219 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 15 of 95 04 April 2014 at 1:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Anki = Undergoing rebuild
Hours Studied = 12 (Total this year: 195) A few days ago I returned from a wonderful trip to Wrocław. I was finally able to experience immersion and use my language skills 'on the edge'. For my log, I'll write about each of the 7 days of my visit separately. Please feel free to correct my Polish and comment on syntax and style. Here goes: DAY 1: Poniedziałek - Monday POL. Po śniadaniu ciemnego chleba z masłem i miodem, jogurtu dżemem z płatków róży, pojechałem taksówką z Grażyną do starego rynku. Dzień był deszczowy, więc poszliśmy do kawiarni, 'Witaminka', na kawę i sernik - zobacz zdjęcie. Następnie udaliśmy się do księgarni Empik gdzie kupiłem pięć książki - wymienione poniżej. ENG. After a breakfast of dark bread with butter and honey, yoghurt with rose petal jam, I went by taxi with Grażyna to the old market. It was a rainy day, so we went to a cafe, 'Witaminka', for coffee and cheesecake - see the photo. Then we headed for the bookshop Empik, where I bought five books - listed below. 
Books: 1. Nowe Przygody Mikołajka, the Polish translation of the French original by Goscinny and Sempe. The book is divided into short, easy-to-digest stories using simple language that I can flow in without the need to look up many words - ideal for extensive reading. Not bad value for over 600 pages. 2. W Otchłani Mroku a crime thriller by Marek Krajewski. It was recommended to me by Grażyna as the story is set in Wrocław. 3. Donikąd by Konrad Czerski. I took a chance with this one, it seemed intriguing but probably too advanced for me at the moment. 4. Tworki by Marek Bieńczyak. This is another advanced read and judging by the reviews, a tough one. A philosophical story of a psychiatric hospital which won the Nike Award for Literature in 2012. I'll read it, but probably not anytime soon! 5. Kiedy mówisz by Jan Twardowski. A collection of poems by the late priest in Polish with English translations by one of my favourite poets. Quizzical, thoughtful, playful. Rebuilding my Anki deck is progressing well, I hope to have it restored in a week's time. Edited by Mooby on 07 April 2014 at 2:13pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| pesahson Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5508 days ago 448 posts - 840 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: French, Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 16 of 95 04 April 2014 at 1:49pm | IP Logged | ||
I hope you don't mind corrections. :) Po śniadaniu Z ciemnego chleba z masłem i miodem, jogurtu Z dżemem z płatków róży, pojechałem taksówką z Grażyną do starego rynku. (...) kupiłem pięć KSIĄŻEK. Nowe Przygody Mikołajka is a great book. I read it when I was an adult and I also used it to learn languages, but it helped me with French. It's a great choice. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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