2017 Polish Log

[solocricket]

Productive weekend! Finished reading Matylda on Saturday. I'm very happy about that. That's a second Polish book under my belt, and now I get to start Złodziejka książek (which I'm expecting to be much, much harder). Some days I'm happy with my comprehension, others I'm not, but that's how it goes at this level. I've been pretty good with dialogue in Matylda, and oftentimes I can understand large parts of the prose, but there are still times when a couple paragraphs go by with little understanding. Sure, I could look up all the words I don't know, but I think that would take the fun out of my mostly extensive reading. I do look up words when I'm very close to understanding the meaning of a sentence.

I kept up with Anki reps this weekend as well, and I added ~20 cards today. I'd say I'm about 3/4 of the way through Lesson 6, so I should be able to finish that up this week. I have to remember that the end of the lesson takes longer than the beginning-- the author has a nice section of varied dialogues at the end of each lesson which makes for great Anki-sentence fodder. But, they're about 2 pdf pages worth of straight typing, so that takes awhile.

I haven't started writing in Polish yet-- I'm up in the air whether it would be helpful at this point. I'm sure it would be helpful in a pure language improvement sense, but sometimes output goals take away the fun of learning the language for me. Also, I'm experimenting with a pure silent period in a way-- I've liked the idea in the past, but I never really did it with French or Spanish. I guess things feel like they're going really well right now, so I'm hesitant to rock the boat.

[solocricket]

Finished with lesson 6, onto lesson 7! Złodziejka książek is more difficult than I anticipated-- I'll either keep going but with more dictionary usage, or I'll abandon it for something easier For now, I'm going to keep at it.

[solocricket]

Oops, fell off the wagon a little bit.... I took a break from Anki reps a couple weekends ago, and then had to make it up during the week. And then, I traveled and skipped Anki for four days in a row.... Agh, still making it up! I also haven't been listening much; I think I need to find more interesting resources. Still, I'm happy I didn't drop Polish altogether for a couple of weeks there

[DaveBee]

As for listening practice right now, I've been enjoying Youtube vlogs by Poles living in Asia and talking about daily life. I've been mostly watching two women-- one who lives in Shanghai, and another who lives in Seoul. I don't understand much (except when they're doing an apartment tour-- I know furniture names!), but they're fun to follow along!

There's a polish MMA fighter who has a (not very active) YouTube blog. She also has a baby, so some of the YouTube channels she's subscribed to may be of interest for easy content (peppa the pig in polish etc.)

[solocricket]

As for listening practice right now, I've been enjoying Youtube vlogs by Poles living in Asia and talking about daily life. I've been mostly watching two women-- one who lives in Shanghai, and another who lives in Seoul. I don't understand much (except when they're doing an apartment tour-- I know furniture names!), but they're fun to follow along!

There's a polish MMA fighter who has a (not very active) YouTube blog. She also has a baby, so some of the YouTube channels she's subscribed to may be of interest for easy content (peppa the pig in polish etc.)

Interesting! I'll definitely check out her channel. I find it fun to watch people who have daily lives outside the norm

[solocricket]

I wrote my first post on Lang-8! It's short and riddled with errors, but hey, I did it. While I was stuck on a lot of easy words while I was writing, I did find that some phrases would pop into mind, so that's something said for the silent period/input method. I think (and I hope I'm not being too intense) I might try to write 30 posts in June.

Złodziejka książek might be a little too difficult for me right now. I'm going to read a little bit today, but if I remain unmotivated, I'm going to find something easier, possibly the second Harry Potter book.

As for the course, I'm still ploughing through lesson 7.

[solocricket]

While I don't like Duolingo terribly (I get bored of it easily), I'm continuing my Polish tree that I abandoned last fall. Writing on Lang-8 has made me realize that I'm missing everyday nouns and verbs, and Duolingo seems like a reasonable way to shore that up. Using a second "course" material, though, has made me doubt the quality of my University of Pittsburgh course.... I've definitely noticed a number of typos (which I think I've caught), but it seems there are vocab definition discrepancies between that course and Duolingo. I don't quite trust Duolingo either, so I checked one item on Wiktionary, but it seems like Duolingo's right. Hmm, is that a bad enough sign to abandon the Pitt course and actually pay for a textbook (I'm thinking Krok po kroku)? I feel like the Pitt course is also moving very slowly, considering my lagging vocabulary.

[lusan]

Hmm, is that a bad enough sign to abandon the Pitt course and actually pay for a textbook (I'm thinking Krok po kroku)? I feel like the Pitt course is also moving very slowly, considering my lagging vocabulary.

I did, with the help of an italki tutor, KPK, book one. It is good enough to reach A2. Book 2 is more difficult.

[solocricket]

I ended up ordering the "Krok po kroku" A2/B1 book. I don't know if I'm quite A2 yet (maybe passive, but not active), but I think I'll outgrow the first book too quickly.

I was traveling over the weekend so I now have a 400 card Anki backlog to take care of over the next few days... That won't be much fun. However, I've been happy with my Polish progress. I've faithfully kept up writing a post every day on Lang-8, and I think that exercise is helping me feel more confident in what I know-- even if I have to look up words in dictionaries and triple check conjugations/cases. My posts are really short (under 50 words each), but the brevity keeps me motivated.

I was feeling a slight bit down on listening comprehension last week. I felt like I should understand more than I do when I listen to native-level stuff. Then I tried Real Polish, a podcast by a native speaker who makes an effort to use simpler language and speak clearly. This podcast is amazing-- I love that it doesn't contain lessons or English at all. It's just a half hour podcast on various interesting topics like time travel, success, history, etc. And the clear/simpler language has really boosted my confidence since I can grasp a lot of what the guy is saying. It's not quite a native resource since it's made for learners, but I have listened to a lot of native-level Polish and I don't this is too far off the mark. So, in the vein of finding simpler language to listen to, I've also started watching Peppa Pig (Świnka Peppa po polsku), a popular kids' show. I'm finding I'm understanding a lot of that as well which makes me feel nice

[lusan]

I ended up ordering the "Krok po kroku" A2/B1 book. I don't know if I'm quite A2 yet (maybe passive, but not active), but I think I'll outgrow the first book too quickly.

I did not like much A2/B1. It is really hard at the beginning and it does not not have the same emphasis on day-to-day language as A0/A1. Currently I am finishing the A2/B1 listening dialogues. Not so happy about it, I began moving into Serials: Czas Honorus and Ranczo. I got these through Empik.com.