Your Truly's Polish Journey

[YoursTruly]

Hello everyone, I'm very new to the forum and I'm making this log as a way to keep myself accountable.
I am currently jumping into studying Polish because of a plan to move to Poland within the next year or two. I was a member of HTLAL years ago under a different screen name and I was bouncing around between a variety of languages, one of my biggest obstacles in life has always been wanting to do everything at once. I know a bit of Russian, German, Spanish, and a phrase or two in Mandarin, but I am nowhere near conversational. I spent years jumping around and as a result never make any significant progress, but that stops now because I am going full board into Polish and not attempting any other languages until I am at a solidly conversational level.

I am very motivated because, unlike my other attempts, there is an actual goal associated with this. Moving to Poland, that will keep pushing me through the boring times much more than just a pip-dream of being able to speak another language. It is a necessity (or at least would be a massive benefit) to where I want to be in my life soon. My fiancée will be studying with me, which is also a big motivator as having a study partner always makes things easier.

I am beginning with Duolingo, the Michel Thomas Polish course, and a Memrise Polish course. I am using a playlist of Youtube videos for pronunciation of the alphabet and some native audio to parse through. I will post those videos eventually but I know that as a new member I am not allowed to post links right now.

I'm hoping to update this thread every day or two as I make progress.
Anyone else interested in learning Polish, or who already speaks it, please jump in and critique me or give me advice. I am always looking to improve.

[YoursTruly]

Going through the first lessons of Memrise's Polish 1, I find myself having a very hard time with the writing portion. I'm recognizing the sounds and remembering the translations when the words are shown, but the "type out the word that means this" is killing me. I don't think I got a single one. The writing system is going to be the biggest struggle at first, as it probably is in every language. There are a few letters that look like they should sound one way to m English ear, and they are pronounced completely different. That will take some time to get used to.

Using Tiengos' Youtube videos on the alphabet and pronunciation, I really like the way he teaches. I'll have to go through them a few times before it sticks, but that alongside the Memrise/Duolingo reading and writing exercises and I'm sure I'll catch on fairly quickly.

I also downloaded the FAST program for Polish from FSI, but I haven't looked into it at all yet. I don't want to make the mistake of starting a million courses at the same time and never making any progress with them.

So far today I've reviewed the pronunciation, gone through one session of Memrise and a couple of Duolingo lessons. Not much is sticking so far but that's expected. I assume it'll take a few repetitions before things start clicking.

[chove]

My tip (as ~A2 learner of Polish) is to learn the prounciation/spelling right away, because it's a pretty phonetic language which means if you can spell a word you can say it and (usually) the reverse as well. That can make it easier to remember the words, or at least it does for me.

Good luck with Polish!

[cjareck]

There is a DLI Polish Course also. Unfortunately it lacks audio but there are many pronunciation drills. You may either look for them at www.forvo.com or ask on HiNative app. In both places there are a lot of Polish Native speakers who will record it for you immediately. I can also help of time allows.

If you need some help with Polish, just let me know. Remember that learning Polish is a hard struggle, even for native speakers I will gladly help you. I've subscribed to your topic.

[YoursTruly]

My tip (as ~A2 learner of Polish) is to learn the prounciation/spelling right away, because it's a pretty phonetic language which means if you can spell a word you can say it and (usually) the reverse as well. That can make it easier to remember the words, or at least it does for me.

Good luck with Polish!

Yeah, that's what I've decided. Pronunciation and spelling is going to be the primary focus for a while. Knowing vocab is cool and all, but if I can't real/spell the words I know it doesn't really help much for learning.


And thank you Cjareck, I appreciate the advice and the new resources! I will definitely take you up on the offer for help when I need it.

[YoursTruly]

Didn't study at all yesterday unfortunately, life gets in the way sometimes I suppose.

Today I have done more of the Memrise pronunciation course, two Duolingo lessons, and listened to some native speaking audio.


The pronunciation is getting easier, the Memrise course is great for that because of the audio with it and the examples it gives on each letter. In fact, I'm absorbing vocab just through the constant repetition of the audio.
Farba - Paint
Blef - Bluff
Ten - This
Ale - But
Lada - Counter
Guma - Rubber
Noga - Leg
gęś - Goose

It's a small amount, but given that my point is to learn how to speak and read, the passive absorbing of vocab is a nice little bonus I suppose. I'm getting more comfortable listening to natives as well, I used to listen to a lot of Russian audio when I was studying it a while ago, and switching to Polish confused my brain. I could hear the 'Slavic sound', if that makes sense, but the cadence and (obviously) structure was different. My brain was trying to interpret Russian and search for words that I knew, but obviously, it's a different language, lol. I'm getting more 'in line' with the sounds and speed of them in native dialogue. Happy to continue getting better.

[cjareck]

Ten - This

Yes, but it only refers to a male object. The female version is "Ta" and the neutral one is "To"

Guma - Rubber

But if you mean eraser it is gumka (do mazania). In slang "gumka" means a condom.