Polish (with a sprinkling of French)

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StringerBell
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Re: Polish (the lazy way)

Postby StringerBell » Tue Jun 18, 2019 12:58 am

Polish Paralysis wrote:I have chosen a tutor who is not necessarily my favourite but who follows has a methodology I appreciate. Prior to the lesson she sends sends me some "homework". The lesson invariably is in relation to the homework that is set. I then go to youtube and listen to various videos on that topic so as to have sufficient vocabulary for a conversation. The lesson then takes place on the basis of a set of questions that she prepared on that topic and I am forced to describe things as best as I can (which usually turns out to be the same way a caveman would describe things). I find that sticking to discrete topics is greatly beneficial especially in terms of broadening my vocabulary.


Can you send me a PM with the name of this tutor? When I'm done with the Preston publishing course I'm currently doing, I might start some tutoring, and I like the idea of having the sessions structured like this.
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Re: Polish (the lazy way)

Postby lusan » Tue Jun 18, 2019 2:08 am

Polish Paralysis wrote:
I have chosen a tutor who is not necessarily my favourite but who follows has a methodology I appreciate. Prior to the lesson she sends sends me some "homework". The lesson invariably is in relation to the homework that is set. I then go to youtube and listen to various videos on that topic so as to have sufficient vocabulary for a conversation. The lesson then takes place on the basis of a set of questions that she prepared on that topic and I am forced to describe things as best as I can (which usually turns out to be the same way a caveman would describe things). I find that sticking to discrete topics is greatly beneficial especially in terms of broadening my vocabulary. Would you consider using a tutor in the future?


Very interesting. I am also in the Polish journey adventure. Is that an Italki tutor? If so, I would like to know further.
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Polish Paralysis
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Re: Polish (no longer being lazy)

Postby Polish Paralysis » Wed Jun 19, 2019 2:09 pm

lusan wrote:Very interesting. I am also in the Polish journey adventure. Is that an Italki tutor? If so, I would like to know further.


I tried sending you a PM with some details but don't know if you got it because it is sitting in my outbox by the looks of it.
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lusan
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Re: Polish (no longer being lazy)

Postby lusan » Sat Jun 22, 2019 8:55 pm

Polish Paralysis wrote:
lusan wrote:Very interesting. I am also in the Polish journey adventure. Is that an Italki tutor? If so, I would like to know further.


I tried sending you a PM with some details but don't know if you got it because it is sitting in my outbox by the looks of it.


I got it. Thanks. I have not been around much because I fell in love with French. In both Polish and French I have began watching TED talks. I love them. Dzięki.
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Re: Polish (no longer being lazy)

Postby Polish Paralysis » Sat Jun 22, 2019 9:13 pm

lusan wrote:I got it. Thanks. I have not been around much because I fell in love with French. In both Polish and French I have began watching TED talks. I love them. Dzięki.


Great. Glad you got it. Strangely enough I have been flirting with French a bit this week after I realised I could understand one of Luca's videos in French. I studied it in school for two years but never really learned anything besides the names of the different tenses. I might end up giving it a try in an attempt to not feel to disheartened about my slow progress in Polish. I plan on keeping up with an hour of Polish a day and maybe adding half an hour of French into the mix. Richard Simcott mentioned in a video of his that when he takes on a difficult language he also tends to take on an easier one, so that he isn't so aware of the slow progress in the more difficult language. He's the true authority when it comes to language learning and I definitely see where he is coming from.

Anyway I will update my log next week and give you an idea about how I plan to approach French. I'm also open to suggestions as always.
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ILikeKarkówka
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Re: Polish (no longer being lazy)

Postby ILikeKarkówka » Wed Jun 26, 2019 9:19 am

Polish Paralysis wrote:So I'm already fed up with the idea of learning Polish grammar using the traditional approach of chanting declensions. It simply doesn't work for me.

Recently, I have realised that my listening skills are pretty good. I can now capture about 70-80 percent of the message in podcasts where the hosts talk about themes where I have a fair amount of the necessary vocabulary (especially politics and psychology). I have been listening to two new podcasts recently, namely Politico and Psycholog Pisze, without the use of transcripts. As much as I am enjoying my current activities, I don't feel like I am benefiting from them in the way that I used to. I hear a lot of familiar words and those words that I don't understand I usually gather from context. Therein lies the issue. The fact that context allows me to understand what is happening means I simply never quite get a handle on the words themselves. From a natural acquisition perspective, I guess this is fine. But I think things could be made to be more efficient.

Another issue is that I struggle to pick up the grammar patterns of Polish in rapid speech. To put things in perspective: I have a tutor who talks extremely slowly. I irritates me no end because I feel like she doesn't appreciate the fact that I am capable of understanding fairly rapid Polish. I have felt like saying "speed it up" a few times but I have always stopped myself, realising I actually end up learning more by being able to hear the ending of each word.

With these issues taken into consideration, I am about to start a new phase in Polish learning. Reading. I plan on reading a book I saw recommended by Steve Kaufman called "Czerwony Alert". I plan on using an L-R approach (with the help of Readlang), although not with the time periods that are prescribed. I'm thinking of reading 3-5 pages a day at the start and hopefully moving on to doing more when I feel more comfortable with the content. I will let you know how it's going soon.


I can relate to this somewhat regarding the drills. Although I personally found it it incredibly useful to drill cases in Polish for my own sanity. I wouldn't normally like this approach but I came to the conclusion that the more "foreign" a language's grammar structure is, the more I need to focus on it. Using the old Teach Yourself Polish I drilled the entire case system focusing only on neuter nouns, as prescribed by the book. I started progressing beyond this in the book but lost my way (with the book and Polish overall) as I was using it as my only resource and it is very dry and I got very bored and frustrated at a lack of progression with conversational skills. I am picking it back up now though alongside other methods and resources. I have found value in doing this as while I am not highly proficient in this area, conceptually I understand it fairly well and it means I have to an extent subconsciously picked up declensions of masculine and feminine nouns without active study. Certain things have also started to "sound right" to my ear when listening or talking and it's become less of a conscious thought pattern. Just my own experience but I do believe it can be a valuable strategy.

I can share my method for doing this but it essentially focus on translating sentences from English into Polish that focus on a particular case. So one chapter would focus on genitive plural of neuter nouns and I'd translate about 50-60 sentences and make sure I had the correct pronoun and adjective agreement as well as noun ending. As the chapters progress there is a bit more of a mix.

I'd be very interested to know what you think of the book, are you using the corresponding audiobook?
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Polish Paralysis
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Re: Polish (with a sprinkling of French)

Postby Polish Paralysis » Wed Jun 26, 2019 3:57 pm

ILikeKarkówka wrote:I can share my method for doing this but it essentially focus on translating sentences from English into Polish that focus on a particular case. So one chapter would focus on genitive plural of neuter nouns and I'd translate about 50-60 sentences and make sure I had the correct pronoun and adjective agreement as well as noun ending. As the chapters progress there is a bit more of a mix.


Thanks for sharing your method. I am finding cases much less intimidating these days. I feel like I am starting to get a natural feel for them. There are a few I struggle with (like neuter for instance) primarily because it comes up much less common in spoken Polish. I might try your method out in the future when I feel like I want to know the details. I'm a very content-driven learner. I don't have all that much time to spend with the language (I'm in my last year of medical school) and because I learn it for pleasure I try to enjoy the process of learning the language as much as I can. I feel like you can truly do this from a B1 level onwards if you find the right resources. I find the nuts and bolts much easier to figure out once I understand everything that people are saying. I think it's a matter of just using two approaches that arrive at the same goal.

I actually like the book. The language is very accessible in my opinion. I have however chosen to read another book first, namely Czerwony Glód. It's written by a non-native Polish speaker (I think she's an American journalist) and so even though it deals with quite complicated matters (politics surrounding the famine in Ukraine) the language is fairly simple. I started by simply listening. Unfortunately I only capture about 60% of the message so I plan on doing L-R from this point onwards. Honestly, this has been the laziest week I've had with Polish for a while, mainly because I have been listening to a lot of French podcasts. But I plan on doing some fairly intensive work on this book hopefully starting tomorrow. My greatest problem with L-R is sitting down at a desk and working through the written component. I much prefer to go on walks and listen to podcasts and such like, but I'm starting to reach a point of diminishing returns where I simply am not learning vocabulary at the rate I would like. I think people also tend to overestimate how much they understand as you simply have to pick up a few key words in a sentence to get the meaning most of the time.
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Polish Paralysis
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Re: Polish (with a sprinkling of French)

Postby Polish Paralysis » Wed Jun 26, 2019 4:07 pm

French

Turns out doing 2 years worth of French at school wasn't completely worthless. I have started listening to Inner French, an excellent French podcast for low intermediates and I find I generally understand what the host is saying simply through either the huge number of cognates that exist between French and English, the context or the small number of truly French words that I do actually know. I'm planning on just getting through a few podcasts a day and then subsequently returning to ones I have already done. Even starting from virtually scratch, I do not feel like it is going to be very difficult at all to get to a point where I can understand spoken French. In some ways I am glad that Polish has offered so many challenges, because it makes the process of learning relatively simpler languages a much more pleasurable experience. I'm sure there are a few hurdles ahead but at this stage I'm happy to just listen, listen and listen some more.
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Polish Paralysis
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Re: Polish (with a sprinkling of French)

Postby Polish Paralysis » Fri Jul 05, 2019 11:31 am

I've had a fairly lazy week this week as far as languages are concerned. I was moving out of my flat into a new one and it took some time to get everything in order.

Polish

I listened to the newest Outriders Brief a few times, watched the latest videos of Nieprzecięne Życie and 7 Metrów Pod Ziemia and listened to a few Politico podcasts.

French

I discovered Inner French, a fantastic podcast made by an individual who actually lives in Warsaw and is learning Polish. I must have listened to at least 15 podcasts of his. I plan on getting as much as I can out of this resource as possible as I genuinely find what he talks about to be interesting. Hopefully over the next few months I will have listened to each podcast 3 or 4 times.
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Re: Polish (with a sprinkling of French)

Postby cjareck » Fri Jul 05, 2019 11:40 am

Polish Paralysis wrote:I discovered Inner French

Thanks! Looks interesting. I will have to put some effort into my French and bring it on better level. There are also some interesting podcasts:
Learn French with Vincent: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEf0-W ... Ztx43KPvag
Francais avec Pierre: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... vec+pierre
Mayby you do not know them.
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