Sarchta's log

[Sarchta]

Hi! I decided to start my own language log.

My goal is to learn six languages. Silezian, English, German, Esperanto, Chniesse, Ukrainish.
Of course 'learn a language’ is a really... vague goal. It should be more specific. Just to know where are you going.

Specific Goals
more or less...

English
I need English for work. I'm sure English is highly wanted among employers. When I read job offers I see English B1 almost everywhere.
Let it be even more clear. I need to be fluent in speech and writing. Moreover I need to be fluent in talking with telephone.

German
Same as English. More or less. I will clear everything up by the time my ‘everyday English routine’ will be easy and automatic. Anyway I need to achieve fluency. I'm really tired with learning on my own (despite the fact that I have a private teacher and go to school) so I think I will buy a course or something like that.

Esperanto
I treat this language as an entertaining yet productive way to spent free time..
I need to understand web conversations. Maybe take part in some events. Meet other esperantist. The point is that Esperanto is not as important as German and English

Silesian
I come from Silesia, which is one of the districts in the southern part of the Poland.
It’s part of the history of our small region! History is a nice foundation. It makes me fell grounded in the present. Not like a flag on the wind. Also it’s still used by many people. Majority of them, is old. Young people don’t use Silesian any more but I think it’s worth to spent some time learning this language.


Chinese and Ukrainian
I just need some things to do. I don’t want to spent hours learning those two languages but just few minutes everyday.




How to?


Starting from the shortest:

Ukrainian and Chinese - One Duolingo lesson every day. Knowing the fact that I maybe want to learn those languages in the future I think it’s enough.

German - I wait..

Esperanto - course from lernu , Duolingo, FB sites, news, Esperantists meeting.

Silezian - spent time with native speakers. Try to use Silezian as much as possible.



ENGLISH PLAN
most important

English is my main focus nowadays. I spent 30 minutes a day learning English. Recently teachers in Poland have suspended their strike, which was a month long, but during the strike I was overwhelmed with the amount of free time I have.

My goal is to develop my speaking and writing skills and to prepare for matura exam (something like A-levels) The only way to improve my speaking and writing skills it is to use English. I think that one of the best ways to improve my English speaking skills is to find a reliable source of spoken English and try to mimic the speaker. Additionally I will start looking for a language exchange partner.

To prepare for matura exam I will just download few of the and try to solve them.

Do you have any ideas on developing your speaking & writing skills? It is a little bit problematic for me. Currently I try to remember few phrases a day and use them sometimes. Anki didn’t work for me. It’s nice for remembering words but not for developing speaking or writing. I find it much harder to use a word than to remember it’s meaning. It fells like you can name a lot of things but you can’t use those words when speaking with someone.

Besides my own plans I go to school and I have a private teacher so I want to stick with their ideas of learning.


In conclusion my plan is to:
1. contribute to this forum
1. read books in English
1. think in English and use few new phrases a day
1. find language exchange partner
1. find a perfect spoken English source
2. try to imitate it as close as possible
2. read Iversen’s book about language learning

[Iversen]

Welcome to the forum. You may be the first member to mention Silezian.

I have noticed with glee that you intend to read my humble language learning guide. If you have comments to it then I'd be happy to answer in my log thread. Another member (Ser) has done a lot of work to get it posted on the front page of this site (the one named 'blog'), but something has apparently blocked that project at the very last stage, so for the moment the guide is just posted as a thread among other threads.

[Sarchta]

Hello

Thanks for reply. Silezian isn't really a language. It's rather a local dialect. Anyway I don't think that many people even heard about this dialect.

if I have any comments or questions about your book I will let you know.

As for my language learning, it was a busy week. I managed to study Esperanto and English at least one hour a day besides doing Duolingo. I've written several e-mails and get through some lessons on Lernu. I'm amazed by the easiness of Esperanto. Although I haven't spent much time learning I'm at almost the same level as German. However, I'm still not able to talk and write freely, without using dictionary. Besides that I've found a nice source of spoken English. It's a podcast called Splendid Speaking. I think I'm going to listen to it daily, write down useful few phrases and try to use them with self talk or anywhere else.

Yesterday I've decided to stop using Anki. I've thought that Anki is useless for developing speaking and writing. It's kind of useless for me overall. I was bored and I just skipped many cards. So after using Anki for 3 years I decided to stop and invent something new.

[Sarchta]

Two weeks since the last post.. Kind of long time!

Plans are weird! You make them, try to stick to, but then you don't carry them out At least that is how it works for me! If my plans for learning languages were only a bit more specific I wouldn't been able to carry them out. Fourtunetly, I gave myself a big margin of error.

English

Two weeks ago I said that I had found a nice podcast for English learners. My idea was to listen to it daily and try to imitate the speaker. But the podcast was.. kind of boring so I try to find something more interesting.

German

I have found a nice German course . Actually I did more than my plan to "Wait..." (It wasn't that hard tho) and I found a nice German course! Radio D by Deutsche Welle. I really like both of the characters. In contrary to characters from Lernu course for Esperanto which are.. boring, Philip and Paula are really interesting. It's funny, I'm using German language course for English speakers.

Esperanto
I'm going through Lernu course and Kursu, you know, the computer program.
Esperanto estas tre facila. Mia Esperanto estas pli bona al mia Germano, sed mi lernas Esperanto antaux du semajnoj. Cxi estas trista Mi sxatas lerni Esperanto kaj mi volas legi librojn en Esperanto.
Although I haven't set myself any specific goal for learning Esperanto and it's the least important language for me, I manage to make a great progress!

I have 45 days streak in Duolingo

Tschüss!

[Sarchta]

Let this post be more than just a report on my language learning progress. Few weeks ago I moved away on working purposes and now I'm stuck in a place without proper internet connection. I'm going to stay here until the end of the may. That's an important part of the education curriculum in Poland that students work one month during their education in... let's say technical college.

Silezian
I discovered that my goal is not only to learn the local dialect but also discover my cultural background and gain a broader perspective at my past. And so I visit my grandparents, aunts, uncles and listen to their stories. Besides that I started to read a book called "Die erste Polke" or "Pierwsza Polka" written by Horst Bienek. It's both in Polish and German. Story takes place in Gliwice, which is a town located near the village from which I come. The book starts just before the World War II. At that time, Silezia was divided between Germany and Poland and Gliwice was part of Germany.
Reading this book makes me feel.. different? When I was young I thought about history in a different way. It wasn't part of my life. Now history may be a part of my life and give me a proper baseline to judge what's happening.

German
Radio D almost every day.

English
I'm still looking for a nice speaker to follow him. I'm going through numerous podcasts but none of them suits my needs. Some of them are too stiff, some of them are too boring ... I like a podcast called "Welcome to Night Valley" Really enjoyable story!

I have a question:
"Już myślałem, że będę musiał tam jechać" - "I thought I would have to go there"
I think I'm right with this translation. But in Polish we sometimes use the world "już" to emphasize. If I liked to emphasize the English sentence, I would have to say: "I have even thought I would have to go there."? Is it correct?

Esperanto
I wrote my first email in Esperanto and got through some lessons on Lernu on Kurso.

[StringerBell]

I have a question:
"Już myślałem, że będę musiał tam jechać" - "I thought I would have to go there"
I think I'm right with this translation. But in Polish we sometimes use the world "już" to emphasize. If I liked to emphasize the English sentence, I would have to say: "I have even thought I would have to go there."? Is it correct?

Hi Sarchta!

It is very exciting to see someone else from Poland on the forum! I'm sure that someone with better Polish will give you better advice on translating this. My first idea is to translate it as something like "Just when I thought I'd have to go there." but without knowing the context, I can't tell if this translation makes sense.

If you are looking for some English podcast suggestions, one of my favorites is This American Life. The narrator, Ira Glass, speaks very clearly and there are even transcripts on their website! You can listen to them for free through iTunes or straight from the site. Here is a link to a sample episode:

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/653/crime-scene

[Sarchta]

Hi Sarchta!

It is very exciting to see someone else from Poland on the forum! I'm sure that someone with better Polish will give you better advice on translating this. My first idea is to translate it as something like "Just when I thought I'd have to go there." but without knowing the context, I can't tell if this translation makes sense.

If you are looking for some English podcast suggestions, one of my favorites is This American Life. The narrator, Ira Glass, speaks very clearly and there are even transcripts on their website! You can listen to them for free through iTunes or straight from the site. Here is a link to a sample episode:

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/653/crime-scene

Thanks for the advice. I helped me a lot! I think I found the perfect translation: "I almost thought that I would have to go to Italy" The context is for example: your boss had told you that you would have to work in Italy for a month but then he changed his mind. If you try to explain what happened you say: "I almost thought I would have to go to Italy, but then my boss changed his mind!"

Thanks for recommendation! I like this podcast too, but that's not exactly what I'm looking for.

[Sarchta]

Hi! It’s been a long time since my last post, but now I’m back (Oh I sound like somebody missed me, well I don’t fool myself:)). The break between the last and this post happened because I was too lazy but also kind of busy.

I focused on learning German. My German is pretty much “kozacki” right now. But I’ve neglected learning English.

I decided that writing about my daily routine and about what I have done everyday is pointless, and so I’m just going to summarize the changes to my method and to my approach towards learning. In the next post I’m going to write about polish books I like or about Poland in general. I will make something up.

TIME
Firstly, I have realized that time is the most important factor in learning. My progress towards mastering a language will be just proportional to the time I spent learning. A method or a teacher are not as important as the amount of time I spent learning. Learning a language requires tremendous amounts of time!

Of course I’m not completely sure about that. It’s just my observation. At least it works for me

Having that in mind I try not to focus on my method. Nowadays I do a mix of SRS, mnemotechniques and multi track approach. I’m going through books, listening to music, but also making wordlists. Now I’m wondering if Anki would bring me benefits..
The main goal of this method is to make learning enjoyable. Learning a language should not become a chore. It should be like a work that you like doing and you have a nice boss that don’t make you spent more time in office than you need. You really like it, but you don’t overthink it Works for people who have trouble wit perfectionism

I have no other goal than spending 30 minutes a day learning English and German and to learning some new words everyday.
Esperanto is not important any more. In my opinion German will bring me more benefits in the future.

[cjareck]

Firstly, I have realized that time is the most important factor in learning. My progress towards mastering a language will be just proportional to the time I spent learning. A method or a teacher are not as important as the amount of time I spent learning. Learning a language requires tremendous amounts of time!

Time is, of course, significant, but it is more complicated than just a simple proportional relation. At some point, investing more time stops being effective. It is crucial to discover that moment and switch, at least for a while, to other activities.

[Sarchta]

Today I’ve read a book about one of the most famous Polish women. Actually, it’s rather a book-album not a book and It’s written in both English and Polish.

Despite the fact that the book looks quite heavy It took me only one hour to read it. The book is full of photos, is written in two languages and the text takes only roughly half of the page, so it doesn't take much time to read it.

The book doesn’t contain much of information. I think that a wikipedia article gave me much more detailed and objective informations. It’s such a waste of resources to print such a long book - album with so many photos.

On general the book didn’t suit my requirements. I already knew that Maria Skłodowska - Curie won two Nobel prizes, one with her husband and Henri Becquerele and the second on her own, was patriotic, even though she lived almost her whole life in Paris and was married there. What really annoyed me is the fact that the book lacks in historical context. The book only explains obvious facts, without giving more detailed information. Maria lived almost one hundred years ago, which makes historical context really important. In that time Poland wasn't on the map because of the three partitions which divided Poland between Habsburg Austria, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Russian Empire.