Polish (with a sprinkling of French)
Posted: Tue Jun 11, 2019 11:44 am
I decided to document my language journey after being urged to do so by StringerBell and cjareck. Hopefully it will be of use to someone out there. If you are learning Polish (or Italian) I highly recommend you check out StringerBell's log where you can find a wealth of information.
I will start by documenting the resources I have used to date. I will write the resources in the form of a list that follows the order that I used them in (although the latter ones have been used simultaneously). My general philosophy to language learning is to make it as painless a process as possible, so as to maintain motivation. I also take a a more or less auditory only approach (and only consult transcripts as and when required in order to make the audio comprehensible). The list is as follows:
Glossika (finished about 2000 sentences)
Piotrs 100 Stories (Real Polish)
Piotrs 365 Daily Listening (Real Polish)
Podcasts (Real Polish) without transcripts
Polish Daily Podcasts
Youtube videos with subtitles (Polimaty, Nieprzeciętne Życie, 7 metrów pod ziemią, Krzysztof Gonciarz and few others)
Podcasts with transcripts (Kryminatorium, Staca Zmiana, Outriders brief)
Series with subtitles (1983, Ultraviolet)
I have also occasionally (maybe once every 2 months) consulted mowicpopolsku.com to create some awareness in my mind of the grammar patterns that exist in Polish.
The above resources have taken me to around a B1 level and I feel that if I continue to use them I will continue to progress steadily. I currently do about an hour of listening a day, with the odd binge day. I am also fortunate to have a fiancée who speaks to her mother in Polish every day on the telephone, from which I derive extra input (kind of creepy I know). I have also been using a language tutor on iTalki once a week for the last month. This helps me learn words relevant to my life and to make use of the vocabulary that I have learnt. I also find that making mistakes is the best way to learn the grammar of a grammatically-complex language such as Polish. Each mistake made is a grammatical lesson learnt.
My reason for learning Polish stems from the fact that the majority of my fiancée's family does not speak English (including my future mother-in-law). That could certainly make for some difficult family gatherings in the future.
The reason why I use an auditory only approach stems from two facts:
1. I find it easier. Passive listening is about the least taxing activity one can perform.
2. I find it very effective and am always amazed at the human mind's ability to take sounds that are meaningless to a person at first and somehow create meaning out of them. I believe this is largely an unconscious process that can only be taken full advantage of when we give out brain auditory input at the right level (i+1).
My methodology is as follows:
1. I listen to a passage (usually about 10 mins in length) while reading L2. This means I usually copy the passage through google translate.
2. I listen to the passage while reading L1 (a few times)
3. I simply listen to the passage (no transcript)
As far as Youtube videos go, I simply make use of the Auto-Translate feature.
I find that using this method ensures maximum comprehensibility, which to me is paramount. Also if this sounds a lot like L-R, well it pretty much is. I just use it on a smaller scale.
I generally prefer to use resources that contain natural dialogues (such as podcasts and youtube videos) rather than books because I find the language more useful. Most books contain extensive descriptions of objects and places, which I simply do not require at the moment. One could say I try to follow the "natural" path of language acquisition as much as possible, always trying to avoid steep increases in the level of difficulty. I love reading in English but I find it a chore in Polish and as such I generally try to avoid it (although StringerBell did make the point that it doesn't take that long for it to feel like a more comfortable exercise).
I plan on continuing along this path of slow-language acquisition for the forseeable future. Anyway thats all from me for now. More to come in future instalments.
I will start by documenting the resources I have used to date. I will write the resources in the form of a list that follows the order that I used them in (although the latter ones have been used simultaneously). My general philosophy to language learning is to make it as painless a process as possible, so as to maintain motivation. I also take a a more or less auditory only approach (and only consult transcripts as and when required in order to make the audio comprehensible). The list is as follows:
Glossika (finished about 2000 sentences)
Piotrs 100 Stories (Real Polish)
Piotrs 365 Daily Listening (Real Polish)
Podcasts (Real Polish) without transcripts
Polish Daily Podcasts
Youtube videos with subtitles (Polimaty, Nieprzeciętne Życie, 7 metrów pod ziemią, Krzysztof Gonciarz and few others)
Podcasts with transcripts (Kryminatorium, Staca Zmiana, Outriders brief)
Series with subtitles (1983, Ultraviolet)
I have also occasionally (maybe once every 2 months) consulted mowicpopolsku.com to create some awareness in my mind of the grammar patterns that exist in Polish.
The above resources have taken me to around a B1 level and I feel that if I continue to use them I will continue to progress steadily. I currently do about an hour of listening a day, with the odd binge day. I am also fortunate to have a fiancée who speaks to her mother in Polish every day on the telephone, from which I derive extra input (kind of creepy I know). I have also been using a language tutor on iTalki once a week for the last month. This helps me learn words relevant to my life and to make use of the vocabulary that I have learnt. I also find that making mistakes is the best way to learn the grammar of a grammatically-complex language such as Polish. Each mistake made is a grammatical lesson learnt.
My reason for learning Polish stems from the fact that the majority of my fiancée's family does not speak English (including my future mother-in-law). That could certainly make for some difficult family gatherings in the future.
The reason why I use an auditory only approach stems from two facts:
1. I find it easier. Passive listening is about the least taxing activity one can perform.
2. I find it very effective and am always amazed at the human mind's ability to take sounds that are meaningless to a person at first and somehow create meaning out of them. I believe this is largely an unconscious process that can only be taken full advantage of when we give out brain auditory input at the right level (i+1).
My methodology is as follows:
1. I listen to a passage (usually about 10 mins in length) while reading L2. This means I usually copy the passage through google translate.
2. I listen to the passage while reading L1 (a few times)
3. I simply listen to the passage (no transcript)
As far as Youtube videos go, I simply make use of the Auto-Translate feature.
I find that using this method ensures maximum comprehensibility, which to me is paramount. Also if this sounds a lot like L-R, well it pretty much is. I just use it on a smaller scale.
I generally prefer to use resources that contain natural dialogues (such as podcasts and youtube videos) rather than books because I find the language more useful. Most books contain extensive descriptions of objects and places, which I simply do not require at the moment. One could say I try to follow the "natural" path of language acquisition as much as possible, always trying to avoid steep increases in the level of difficulty. I love reading in English but I find it a chore in Polish and as such I generally try to avoid it (although StringerBell did make the point that it doesn't take that long for it to feel like a more comfortable exercise).
I plan on continuing along this path of slow-language acquisition for the forseeable future. Anyway thats all from me for now. More to come in future instalments.