A language learners’ forum

In an effort to restructure, refocus and reuse some of my logs, I'm going to be primarily focusing on my European "ancestral" languages (German, Polish and Irish) in this log. I may eventually branch out into other European languages, but that is not going to happen for a good long while.

My original post continues below.

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Hello everyone,
This is my first official post here, yay!

I suppose it would be nice for me to share a few things about me. I am a somewhat lazy self learner of languages. Of particular interest to me are my three heritage languages (in no particular order: Polish, German, and Munster Irish), but I am also very interested in the wider Slavic, Germanic and Celtic families. I've learned all three languages off and on for years and various levels (mostly at the ~A1-A2 level at present).

Due to having schooling in religious studies, I have had some prior contact with Ancient Greek (Koine) and Biblical Hebrew, but unfortunately I've lost a lot of it since my graduate studies. The interest to refresh and expand these two (and add Latin), is there, however. I hope to eventually get around to these three languages.

I am also very interested in East Asia, and have been since childhood. I've learned some Japanese over the years (again, off and on), and would like to learn some Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese, Taiwanese, Shanghainese, Teochew, Hakka) and Korean eventually.

My dream-list is ridiculous.

If anyone wants to know anything else, feel free to ask.

Let's get this log under way!

Polish:
I've been going through First-Year Polish by Swan for a while, and have made it through Lesson 5 so far. I'm presently working on Lesson 6. I do have the extra workbooks and audio from Ohio State University. I also have Polish in 4 Weeks - Level 1 (and will soon have Level 2) My current hope is to get through FYP by the end of January, though I still have to figure out how/when I want to use Polish in 4 Weeks. I hope to eventually get into the textbooks put out by Universitas, especially the upper levels (B1 and above).

German:
I was going through Begegnungen A1+ by Bucha & Szita. I kinda stopped going through it, so I'm playing catch up at the moment. I don't have a strict deadline on this one at the moment. (I have up to Erkundugen B2+, so I'll just keep moving through the series as I finish textbooks. I'll also eventually pick up the C1 and C2 textbooks.) The amount of vocabulary in a given lesson is a bit overwhelming though...

Japanese:
I had gotten up to Lesson 10 in Minna no Nihongo (Beginner level), but then took a break (wrong decision), so I'm once again playing catch up. I also have Genki (and some of the follow up books by the Japan Times), but I prefer MnN. I want to try to get done with MnN around the same time as FYP.

A belated welcome to the forum! How nice to have a other learner of Irish here. And what a dream list!

jeff_lindqvist wrote:A belated welcome to the forum! How nice to have a other learner of Irish here. And what a dream list!

Thanks!

And actually, my dream-list has even more languages on it, but the ones I wrote about in my post are the main focuses for the foreseeable future.

I like to get the nitty-gritty of pronunciation and spelling in my foreign languages. To that end I have Modern German Pronunciation by Hall, and The Sounds of Japanese by Vance. I was wondering if anything like these texts exists for Polish?

Hello, księżycowy, nice to see you here. Good luck with your study plans.

Thanks, cèid donn. It's nice to see you here as well.

Hello and good luck with your Polish! If you need an explanation, just ask

Thanks!

Ok, so I dug out my copy of Beginning Polish by Schenker, which has one of the best systematic introductions to the Polish spelling system and phonology. I intend to just use it for those sections of the lessons.

I'm thinking that I will attempt to focus solely on Polish for the next month or two and use some combination of Polish in 4 Weeks and First Year Polish. I know that if I do too many languages at once (yes, even three), it becomes too much. And for some reason or another, I don't feel like working on Japanese quite yet. And no, I'm not necessarily looking to learn Polish in four weeks.

More updates to come!

Four weeks does seem like a rather ambitious timeline within which to learn Polish. If the book itself is that efective, I perhaps shall give Polish a try. I tend to be a bit skeptic of such claims, but there are some good courses which make similar claims (the Hugo's language name In 3 Months comes to mind). Do keep us updated, as Polish is on my someday list, so I would be interested in knowing the best resources for it.