2017 Polish Log

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solocricket
Orange Belt
Posts: 157
Joined: Fri Oct 02, 2015 4:21 pm
Location: USA
Languages: My good languages: English (N), French (C1), Spanish (B2), Italian (reading knowledge)
Languishing Languages: Dutch (~B1), Icelandic (delapidated passive intermediate skills), Yiddish (basic passive), Japanese (smattering of reading knowledge, lots of vocab, maybe I'll get back to it someday)
Studying: Polish (A1)
Wish List: Chinese, Urdu, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew... yep
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Re: 2017 Polish Log

Postby solocricket » Fri Mar 10, 2017 6:57 pm

Finished Lesson 3 right on schedule! I would be happy to continue the pace of one lesson per week, but we'll see, since next week will be busier (visiting family across the country). I won't add new cards over the weekend so that I can get the reps down to a manageable amount. I might not be able to do Anki on Sunday, however, since I'll be flying all day :P But that leaves plenty of time for reading and listening to podcasts.

I tried to switch up the listening more today by watching a bit of a Let's Play video while I did my reps. If you're not familiar, Let's Play videos are people playing (and usually narrating) video games-- they're fun! That being said, the one that I was watching didn't have enough talking for my liking.
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lusan
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French(Intermediate)
Italian(Intermediate)
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Re: 2017 Polish Log

Postby lusan » Sat Mar 11, 2017 2:47 am

solocricket wrote:
Definitely! I'm well aware that Polish is not like the Romance languages :) What resources are you using (I can obviously use more), and where do you find movies?


As many as I have been able to find. I have done Krop po Krop I, Supermemo I, Polish in 4 weeks I, almost memorized the understanding of 3000 Glossika sentences and Polish Assimil, etc. However, they do not seem to deliver more than A2 level. They do not have enough listening material. Maybe my problem is that my mother tongue is Spanish as well as a high level English fluency. They are so different from Polish that there is almost nothing in common to hold on. I thought I was going to be done within 2 years, now I suspect that it will take 4 years to reach listening B2 level. It seems that after all these method is when the fun and hard work really start. -Hey, I am know feeling comfortable with polish cases and I do not panicking with the thousands of exceptions, the verbs are not so hard as I thoughts.- I think my reading level is probably about C1 as per readlang metrics. -I understand 96 % of C1 level books.-

I retired 1.5 ago and I took this polish thing as my NEW JOB. I love it and I pass any available free time learning words, listening to dialogues, reading with Readland. For the last 6 months, I focused in listening only. Now I am incorporating Serial Films. I am watching daily an episode of Czas Honorus. First I watch it with English subtitles and, then, with Polish subtitles. These are 7 seasons with plenty of actions. I think that by summer end I should be able to watch it without subtitles.. Ah..

Currently I study too, Dana Bielect grammar's books as well as Mówi po polsku II. I think MpP is the best for A2/B2. My tools? Anki, Anki, Anki... Speaking? I have an Italki Polish tutor and language exchange friend 30 min/week. Speaking does not have much of a priority till now but I began to place more emphasis on activation this year. Writing? None. I do not bother but I do grammar exercises that I create from Dana Bielec' book (probably the best Polish Grammar book I have found) What I read? Currently, I am reading my third novel of Agatha Christi.

By my experience: the best materials....
ANKI, ANKI, ANKI....and more ANKI
Polish sentences is http://context.reverso.net/translation
Initial listening: Polish glossika
Serial: Czas Honorus
Books: Pierwsze Przygody Mikołajka and then whatever suite your taste
Method: Whatever could be dumped into Anki to reach 15k passive and 6k active cards
Verbs patterns: Anki

Lately I started 20 min a day of podcast listening to my practice.

What else? The more I learn the more I like it.

Polish is a wild animal for those that come from a Romance language. If does not seem to me there is an easy way to the goal. I will takes time and a lot of patience, but slowly I see myself getting better and better with every passing study day.
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Italian, polish, and French dance
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solocricket
Orange Belt
Posts: 157
Joined: Fri Oct 02, 2015 4:21 pm
Location: USA
Languages: My good languages: English (N), French (C1), Spanish (B2), Italian (reading knowledge)
Languishing Languages: Dutch (~B1), Icelandic (delapidated passive intermediate skills), Yiddish (basic passive), Japanese (smattering of reading knowledge, lots of vocab, maybe I'll get back to it someday)
Studying: Polish (A1)
Wish List: Chinese, Urdu, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew... yep
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=5502
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Contact:

Re: 2017 Polish Log

Postby solocricket » Thu Mar 16, 2017 2:23 pm

I've been mostly reviewing Anki rather than adding cards while I've been on vacation. On the plane on Sunday, I was able to listen to several hours (!!) of Polish (though, admittedly, I might have dozed through some). I haven't been keeping up with reading very well, but I'll get back to it once I'm back home. I skipped Anki yesterday and had 200+ cards to review, but I got through them this morning! I was just thinking that I might want to shift my cards to all sentences, since it seems that my vocab recall is much better with the context of sentences. And then I proceeded to add 42 single item vocab cards because my course had a family/relations word list up next :D Ah, well-- I might avoid adding single item cards in the future, since I fail them a lot.
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lusan
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Re: 2017 Polish Log

Postby lusan » Fri Mar 17, 2017 1:05 am

solocricket wrote: might want to shift my cards to all sentences, since it seems that my vocab recall is much better with the context of sentences.


Sentences are good. Polish words have multiples meaning depending on the context given. For example, "Zawsze jestem sam", "że sam przy tym byłem, "Jest taki przebojowy i czas sam płynął.", etc. It seems that context is critical for understanding. That is why I like so much, http://context.reverso.net. It gives multiple meaning for each entry. For example, "sam" could mean any of these:
alone [adj/adv]
personally [adv]
same
myself
yourself
itself
just
himself [pron]
one lonely [adj]
single
well
even
mere
solo
Sam

Yes, enough to drive us crazy.
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Italian, polish, and French dance
FSI Basic French Lessons : 10 / 24 17 of 24 goal

User avatar
solocricket
Orange Belt
Posts: 157
Joined: Fri Oct 02, 2015 4:21 pm
Location: USA
Languages: My good languages: English (N), French (C1), Spanish (B2), Italian (reading knowledge)
Languishing Languages: Dutch (~B1), Icelandic (delapidated passive intermediate skills), Yiddish (basic passive), Japanese (smattering of reading knowledge, lots of vocab, maybe I'll get back to it someday)
Studying: Polish (A1)
Wish List: Chinese, Urdu, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew... yep
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=5502
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Contact:

Re: 2017 Polish Log

Postby solocricket » Tue Mar 21, 2017 3:10 am

Back from traveling! Got a lot of listening in, but fell behind Anki-wise. I added about 30 cards today after finishing some backlogged reps. I hope to finish Lesson 4 of the UPitt course this week.

Reading-wise, my Kindle tells me I'm just over 50% through HP1, so I'm making progress plugging away at that. I don't think I've mentioned this, but I'm doing "extensive" reading with HP1. I'm skimming parts I don't know, so it's very much an exercise in exposure right now. I'm depending on my course and random dictionary flip-throughs for acquiring actual vocab. I used reading to find words I've learned "in the wild." :D

I just found a bunch of Hello Kitty PL dubs on Youtube, so that'll be a new resource to include!
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solocricket
Orange Belt
Posts: 157
Joined: Fri Oct 02, 2015 4:21 pm
Location: USA
Languages: My good languages: English (N), French (C1), Spanish (B2), Italian (reading knowledge)
Languishing Languages: Dutch (~B1), Icelandic (delapidated passive intermediate skills), Yiddish (basic passive), Japanese (smattering of reading knowledge, lots of vocab, maybe I'll get back to it someday)
Studying: Polish (A1)
Wish List: Chinese, Urdu, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew... yep
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=5502
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Contact:

Re: 2017 Polish Log

Postby solocricket » Fri Mar 24, 2017 8:42 pm

So, I was sick the past few days, thus I didn't finish Lesson 4. I'm halfway through, so I should finish it next week. I did manage to keep doing reps and adding cards, just at a lower rate than I might have liked.... Lesson 4 has covered a lot of the accusative case, and I'm really liking how the text is introducing cases. Lots of sentences and examples rather than grammar tables. For a free textbook, it's really good (though there are quite a few typos which I've caught so far-- that's not so good with a language textbook!).

I found some cooking shows on Youtube which are fun for listening practice. I've been mainly watching Kuchnia Lidla-- they're high quality and pretty short. And I like cooking shows :D

A couple of days ago, I tried reading a Polish picture book I've had for a couple of years. I understood a lot, sometimes whole sentences at a time. With Harry Potter as my main reading content, it's hard to see improvement there, so I'm thinking I might buy some more younger kids' books. (The reason I use Harry Potter, despite its difficulty level, is because I have the first few books nearly memorized and I can pretty much always figure out where I am)
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Zireael
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C2: English
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Re: 2017 Polish Log

Postby Zireael » Sat Mar 25, 2017 4:43 pm

You using Harry Potter as a reading benchmark reminded me of when I was a kid and won the Prisoner of Azkaban in an English spelling bee or something. I then proceeded to read the book :P and got amazingly motivated to keep learning even though my English class kept dropping people - we started at 15 or even 20, by the end of the class, after 5 years, there were only 2 left from the original group plus 2 more that started coming later.

Ah, memories :)

There are a lot of children's books here, but most of them are translations of foreign books. Harry Potter is very popular among children, as well as Star Wars and Eragon. Stanisław Lem's sci-fi books (I saw you mention them upthread) are seen as a little antiquated, plus they are closer to YA than kids' books. If you are interested in YA, too, there's 50 shades of Gray (ugh) and the Twilight series. You might also want to try Małgorzata Musierowicz's series, or Joanna Chmielewska's crime fiction.
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DCDC
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Re: 2017 Polish Log

Postby DCDC » Sat Mar 25, 2017 11:31 pm

Zireael wrote:
There are a lot of children's books here, but most of them are translations of foreign books. Harry Potter is very popular among children, as well as Star Wars and Eragon. Stanisław Lem's sci-fi books (I saw you mention them upthread) are seen as a little antiquated, plus they are closer to YA than kids' books. If you are interested in YA, too, there's 50 shades of Gray (ugh) and the Twilight series. You might also want to try Małgorzata Musierowicz's series, or Joanna Chmielewska's crime fiction.


I second the Joanna Chmielewska recommendation, her books are really funny. Just make sure to read her older stuff, because most of what she wrote after... maybe 1990... is not very good (with a few exceptions, of course) and everything she wrote after 2002 is straight up terrible.
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User avatar
solocricket
Orange Belt
Posts: 157
Joined: Fri Oct 02, 2015 4:21 pm
Location: USA
Languages: My good languages: English (N), French (C1), Spanish (B2), Italian (reading knowledge)
Languishing Languages: Dutch (~B1), Icelandic (delapidated passive intermediate skills), Yiddish (basic passive), Japanese (smattering of reading knowledge, lots of vocab, maybe I'll get back to it someday)
Studying: Polish (A1)
Wish List: Chinese, Urdu, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew... yep
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=5502
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Contact:

Re: 2017 Polish Log

Postby solocricket » Sun Mar 26, 2017 6:20 am

Zireael wrote:You using Harry Potter as a reading benchmark reminded me of when I was a kid and won the Prisoner of Azkaban in an English spelling bee or something. I then proceeded to read the book :P and got amazingly motivated to keep learning even though my English class kept dropping people - we started at 15 or even 20, by the end of the class, after 5 years, there were only 2 left from the original group plus 2 more that started coming later.


Harry Potter makes for great motivation to learn English! Not only was I obsessed with the books when I was small, but I like to take advantage of the fact that they are widely translated and all available on Pottermore.com :D

Zireael wrote:There are a lot of children's books here, but most of them are translations of foreign books. Harry Potter is very popular among children, as well as Star Wars and Eragon. Stanisław Lem's sci-fi books (I saw you mention them upthread) are seen as a little antiquated, plus they are closer to YA than kids' books. If you are interested in YA, too, there's 50 shades of Gray (ugh) and the Twilight series. You might also want to try Małgorzata Musierowicz's series, or Joanna Chmielewska's crime fiction.


DCDC wrote:I second the Joanna Chmielewska recommendation, her books are really funny. Just make sure to read her older stuff, because most of what she wrote after... maybe 1990... is not very good (with a few exceptions, of course) and everything she wrote after 2002 is straight up terrible.


I have taken both of your recommendations to heart and I ordered a Joanna Chmielewska book based on cover art + avoiding books written after 1990 :lol: So, I'm getting Dzikie białko in a week or so (Aaaaand upon looking up Dzikie białko it's apparently the sequel to Lesio.... Ah well, I don't think I'll understand enough for it to matter). Małgorzata Musierowicz's books are too pricey online at least, but I also picked out a random cute-looking picture book as well.
Last edited by solocricket on Sun Mar 26, 2017 6:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
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User avatar
solocricket
Orange Belt
Posts: 157
Joined: Fri Oct 02, 2015 4:21 pm
Location: USA
Languages: My good languages: English (N), French (C1), Spanish (B2), Italian (reading knowledge)
Languishing Languages: Dutch (~B1), Icelandic (delapidated passive intermediate skills), Yiddish (basic passive), Japanese (smattering of reading knowledge, lots of vocab, maybe I'll get back to it someday)
Studying: Polish (A1)
Wish List: Chinese, Urdu, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew... yep
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=5502
x 265
Contact:

Re: 2017 Polish Log

Postby solocricket » Thu Mar 30, 2017 5:14 am

Well, I'm going to be traveling again tomorrow until Sunday. Since Thursday and Sunday are travel days, I likely won't be able to add new Anki cards.... I might have to skip reps too! Who knows... Thus, it's taking me longer than anticipated to finish Lesson 4. I'll have time Friday and Saturday, so maybe I can finish going through Lesson 4 over those two days? I'm on page 40/62 in the PDF.

I think I'm making some progress here. I'm picking out more and more words in Harry Potter and sometimes catch a complete sentence of dialogue. Something has shifted with Anki as well, and the cards aren't so difficult to get through-- until now, reps have taken a lot of "brain energy"-- lots of thinking and remembering words to each sentence. Now, I'm remembering sentences a lot more easily, and reps are going faster :)

I've been watching My Little Pony (Youtube) for listening practice, which is quite fun since it's cute and colorful. I never got into the show in English. I've still been listening to Polskie Radio in the background since its easy to pull up and there's always talking going on. When I take walks during the day, I've been listening more intensively to a gaming podcast called Niezatapialny (Unsinkable). It's very conversational and casual, and I barely understand a word. I think, though, that the act of doing nothing but listening (and walking...) to each and every word is worthwhile!
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