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Amerykanka’s Adventures - 2015 and Beyond | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Amerykanka Hexaglot Senior Member United States Joined 4967 days ago 657 posts - 890 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian | Message 33 of 55 28 June 2015 at 11:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Okay, now that I have a moment, I would like to introduce my new plan. Operation Vocabulary Recovery
(OVR) is a multifaceted attack strategy which will employ various kinds of weapons, such as SRS, news articles, ancient legends, and picture dictionaries. OVR will work together with the Summer Reading Challenge to restore my Polish to its former glory (or lack of it, whatever). So here is the situation: for the last two years, as those who have been reading my logs know, my Polish has been suffering from some serious neglect and one of the consequences is that my active vocabulary has shrunk. So OVR is about rehabilitating my active vocabulary and strengthening my passive vocabulary, and about upgrading my passive vocabulary to active. I am planning a two-month crash course - should be fun! Then I will evaluate to determine my next focus. Materials: - My old Anki decks - The Oxford University Press's Polish-English Picture Dictionary - Book of legends that I picked up when I was in Kraków - m.onet.pl/wiadomości and other news sites Goals: - Read 5 news articles intensively per day and add all vocab to Anki; 1 legend = 2 articles - Add the vocab from the picture dictionary to Anki (3 pages per day) - Fight valiantly to reclaim Fortress Anki, which has been in enemy hands for over 6 months - Incorporate the most useful words encountered in the Summer Reading Challenge into Anki This has been going well so far. My car decided to break down the other day, and so I had a wonderful opportunity to review flashcards for an hour as I waited for my mom to come pick me up. Today I spent 45 minutes on my three Polish decks and now two of them are under control - the first is a temporary deck (which will eventually be merged with my main vocab deck once it is manageable again), and the other is my sentence deck. The final deck (the main vocab one) is still in dire straits - although I've got the number of reviews due under 1000 again, thank goodness! So the Anki portion of OVR is going splendidly. Words are flooding back into my mind after only 3 days; I am very excited! I managed to read 11 news articles over the last few days and added vocab from 6 pages of my picture dictionary to Anki. Since the last three days were incredibly confusing and hectic, I am very pleased with these results and I am even more optimistic about the weeks to come. My Summer Reading Challenge has suffered over the last few days, mostly because I was trying to figure out OVR and life kept interfering. I decided to read Stara baśń next; I am surprised how easy it is for me. It makes much more sense to me now than it did a few years ago. Don't get me wrong, it is still probably the hardest thing I have ever read in Polish (with the exception of Pan Tadeusz), and for this reason I am cutting back the reading goal to 10 pages per day. I want to make sure that I have plenty of time for OVR. SUMMER READING CHALLENGE: DAYS 11, 12, & 13 Niebla - 26 pages Stara baśń - 12 pages As you can see, I got a bit behind. :) I am going to take Serpent's advice and not attempt to catch up. In other news, I started watching the Spanish show Águila roja. I haven't even finished the first episode (I'm about 40 minutes in), but it will definitely be some good listening practice. I have the (Spanish) subtitles on right now but I'm hoping to get rid of them soon. My friend recommended the show so I'm optimistic. :) EDIT: I'll post today's update later. I was busy with church and exercise this morning so I haven't had a chance to do much language-related stuff yet. Edited by Amerykanka on 28 June 2015 at 11:06pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Amerykanka Hexaglot Senior Member United States Joined 4967 days ago 657 posts - 890 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian | Message 34 of 55 29 June 2015 at 7:04am | IP Logged | ||
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I made a fatal mistake - I decided to investigate lyricstraining and now I am hooked. Alas.
I read my five articles and added my Polish vocab words to Anki, but that is it, I'm afraid. I wasn't home most of the day so I didn't have a chance to sit down and read. But tomorrow I will get back into my reading challenge. Now I just have to say - I learned that "social media" is media społecznościowe and for some reason this phrase makes me very happy. :) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Mooby Senior Member Scotland Joined 5901 days ago 707 posts - 1219 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Polish | Message 35 of 55 29 June 2015 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm glad I'm not the only person for whom certain Polish words exert a bewitching power. I was under the thrall of the word śrubokręt ['screwdriver'] for a long time, relishing both the sound and the feel of it in speech. There are plenty more words which have this effect, currently it's spragniony ['thirsty'] - a word I must refrain from chanting when in the company of Poles, lest I be brought a glass of water and told to lie down for a bit. Your comment got me thinking. What are the reasons why some words / phrases make us happy? Neither fooling around with screwdrivers or feeling thirsty make me particularly joyous, so it must be the aesthetics of the words. Maybe the unfamiliar combination of these hard and soft sounds give rise to an exotic appeal. Is the appeal instant? Or do we learn to love the way a language sounds, even after an inital aversion? The aesthetic appeal of Polish was instant, and now, after 5 years I'm searching for a counterpoint language (something less sibilant-rich maybe). Keep up with the reading and Anki-bashing! Edited by Mooby on 29 June 2015 at 3:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Amerykanka Hexaglot Senior Member United States Joined 4967 days ago 657 posts - 890 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian | Message 36 of 55 30 June 2015 at 6:02am | IP Logged | ||
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I also like the word spragniony - it conveys its meaning so perfectly - but chce mi się pić fascinates
me even more. It's something about the grammatical structure and the sound; the words roll right off my lips. I too am always eager to express my thirst, usually to my monolingual family, who are very used to it even if they have no idea what I am saying. (It has gotten to the point where a lot of my friends can recognize Polish when they hear it, even when it is sandwiched in between lots of other languages - I guess this is a testimony to my habit of addressing people in Polish whether they understand or not.) Anyway, I think that I have always found Polish sounds highly appealing. It's hard to say though, since my eleven-year-old self might simply have fallen in love with the first exotic thing that came her way without much regard for aesthetics. But to this day Polish exercises a kind of control over me that no other language has been able to rival. I have learned to love Spanish sounds over the years, but I still don't feel the same attraction or connection. Greek has put up a very good fight, but Polish remains the undisputed victor. Who can say why? The closest any language has come to comparing was probably when I was experimenting with Arabic earlier this summer - Egyptian Arabic sounded absolutely beautiful to my ears - or when I was dabbling in Welsh a few years ago. I think that, for whatever reason, certain languages touch us in mysterious ways. And I for one am determined to take action whenever a language truly moves me like Polish has; I don't want to lose an opportunity to have a special connection with a language. This is why I feel certain that some day, I will learn Arabic and Welsh, although I can't do it right now. I had better end this post before it turns into a long, rambling, "why-I-love-languages" rant. Also, I need to go to bed, and I have to post my update first. Edited by Amerykanka on 30 June 2015 at 6:03am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Amerykanka Hexaglot Senior Member United States Joined 4967 days ago 657 posts - 890 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian | Message 37 of 55 30 June 2015 at 6:07am | IP Logged | ||
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SUMMER READING CHALLENGE: DAY 15
Niebla - 60 pages I promise I wasn't trying to catch up on my Spanish reading (okay, maybe a little) - I was just ready to be done with Niebla. I enjoyed the argument between Augusto and Unamuno at the end of the book, and all of the various philosophical ideas proposed were entertaining (my favorite was Paparrigópulos' notion that there is a single female soul that is shared by all women, since all women are obviously identical except in externals haha). I'm still puzzling over Unamuno's purpose in writing this book though - unless it's to make fun of ludicrous ideas such as Paparrigópulos' and to get people to stop philosophizing and start living. I also reviewed my Spanish flashcards in Anki (12 minutes). And I spent quite a bit of time on lyricstraining. :) POLISH VOCABULARY UPDATE - 5 articles on m.onet.pl/wiadomości - 3 pages of the Polish picture dictionary - 12 minutes of flashcard review in Anki As part of my project, I have been compiling a list of common abbreviations that I have come across while reading newspaper articles. Some of them I am quite familiar with, but some were new to me, so I thought it would be useful to make a list. I am including it below in case it interests anyone, and I will continue to add to it as time goes by. br = bieżącego roku ds = do spraw itd = i tak dalej itp = i tym podobne m. in. = między innymi np = na przykład tzn = to znaczy tzw = tak zwany wg = według ws = w sprawie No Stara baśń today - I'm still getting the hang of my new vocab schedule and, I'll admit it, there is this website called lyricstraining which I might have mentioned . . . 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Amerykanka Hexaglot Senior Member United States Joined 4967 days ago 657 posts - 890 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian | Message 38 of 55 30 June 2015 at 7:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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SKRÓTY CZĘSTO UŻYWANE
br = bieżącego roku ds = do spraw itd = i tak dalej itp = i tym podobne m. in. = między innymi np = na przykład proc. = procent św. = święty tys = tysięcy tzn = to znaczy tzw = tak zwany wg = według woj. = województwo ws = w sprawie zwł = zwłaszcza 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Amerykanka Hexaglot Senior Member United States Joined 4967 days ago 657 posts - 890 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian | Message 39 of 55 01 July 2015 at 6:22am | IP Logged | ||
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SUMMER READING CHALLENGE: DAY 16
El sueño del celta - 21 pages I also reviewed my Spanish flashcards in Anki (33 minutes). And lyricstraining, again. :) Also, I watched 30 min or so of Águila roja until my internet went out and Netflix stopped working. Then I listened to 20 min of one of my favorite podcasts - VOA Noticias' "Buenos Días América". I highly recommend this podcast, by the way - a new 30 min news update comes out every day. I am hoping to start listening to it regularly again. Along with Águila roja it will help to boost my listening skills. POLISH VOCABULARY UPDATE - 5 articles on m.onet.pl/wiadomości - 6 pages of the Polish picture dictionary - 22 minutes of flashcard review in Anki I also reviewed the sections on the declension/use of numbers in Gramatyka języka polskiego dla cudzoziemców, since some of the pages in my picture dictionary were about numbers, fractions, etc. I need to make some of my fancy, color-coded flash cards tomorrow to make sure I remember everything. I always forget about the liczebniki zbiorowe and so whenever I see something like "czworo dzieci" I do a double-take. I believe that it is finally straight in my head now. So we have: dwa domy dwaj mężczyźni / dwóch mężczyzn dwie kobiety dwa miasta dwoje dzieci Collective numerals, strange as it may sound, are one of my favorite parts of Polish. Especially in przypadki zależne (sorry, I'm blanking on the English term and it's late so I'm too tired to look it up) where the 'g' appears. I mean, what can be cooler than a word like dwojgiem? Bad news when it comes to Stara baśń. My mom kidnapped me and made me go to my brother's baseball game. It was fun and all, but one of the consequences was less reading time. Tomorrow. Will. Be. Better. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Amerykanka Hexaglot Senior Member United States Joined 4967 days ago 657 posts - 890 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian | Message 40 of 55 02 July 2015 at 6:25am | IP Logged | ||
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SUMMER READING CHALLENGE: DAY 17
El sueño del celta – 18 pages Stara baśń – 12 pages SPANISH UPDATE El sueño del celta seems to be the perfect book for me to read – the register is just a little higher than I am comfortable with, but not high enough to exhaust me or flood me with vocabulary. Marina was, honestly, too easy, while Niebla had a lot of archaisms, but El sueño del celta is a solid novel with advanced, but not esoteric, vocab. I encounter on average 2-3 unfamiliar words per page, and I can add these to Anki without significant decrease in my reading speed. Today’s words included lacra (“scar, defect”), duermevela (“light/fitful sleep”), galimatías (“gibberish”), and avispado (“bright, sharp”). In other Spanish news, I finished watching the first episode of Águila roja and started the second, and I listened to another 30 min episode of “Buenos Días América”. In addition, I spent 46 minutes reviewing cards in Anki. My main vocab deck has a scary 5,000+ cards due. Eep. Eventually I ran away and listened to a few songs on lyricstraining to take my mind off things. I really like that website even though I won’t count it as study time. It is extremely relaxing – my only complaint is the limited number of languages. I wish there were some Polish songs up. OPERATION VOCABULARY RECOVERY (aka POLISH UPDATE) - 6 articles on m.onet.com/wiadomości - 3.5 pages of the picture dictionary - 25 minutes reviewing cards in Anki I learned a lot of hair-related vocabulary today – very interesting. I’m not sure if I ever knew how to say “bangs” (grzywka), “part” (przedziałek), or “sideburns” (baczki), but I do now. This picture dictionary plan has been working well; it will hopefully cover any vocab major gaps (such as those related to hair). And my newspaper articles reminded me of how to say, among other things, “embassy” (ambasada) and “mercury” (rtęć). As I noted above, I read 12 pages of Stara baśń. A few more days and I will have reached the place where I was last time I stopped. But this time, there will be no stopping. I am determined to power through and finish all of these books that I started and then abandoned due to business. I’m not sure which book I’ve stopped reading more frequently – Stara baśń or Kamienie na szaniec – but this summer will see the completion of both. EDIT: Does anyone have any experience with iTalki, by the way? I really need to get some Spanish conversation practice and since I haven’t managed to locate an exchange partner, I was thinking of paying a tutor. Especially since I would like to take the DELE C1 soon - hopefully November, although I may be overestimating my level; this is part of what I would like to ascertain from conversation sessions. Edited by Amerykanka on 02 July 2015 at 6:30am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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