Poland, Italy, and then back In New York after years abroad

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
drp9341
Orange Belt
Posts: 241
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2016 1:21 pm
Location: NY, USA
Languages: Native: English (US)
C1/C2: Spanish, Italian
B2+: Portuguese
B2: French, Polish
A1: Russian, German
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=5978
x 962

Re: Drp9341's Polish (and Italian, French, Spanish & Portuguese!) Log!

Postby drp9341 » Wed Mar 14, 2018 11:48 pm

okay, I was just thinking, and decided that right now, I'm "making myself a syllabus."

Let me elaborate. For the past couple of months, I've been learning by focusing on "Skills." For example, If I notice my vocabulary is my weakest area, I try to focus on exposing myself to more Polish and marking down everything I don't understand, putting it into Anki, and banging out those Anki flashcards daily.

If I notice that I don't fully understand a grammatical concept, I will drill that grammatical concept, sum it up, make some cloze deletions cards, and a decent amount of example sentences, and put it in Anki.

HOWEVER, I just watched a video on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alh0RmJQ1T0 about China's involvement in Africa. It's a topic I'm familiar with, and have stayed up to date on, but I still had trouble with the video. There were lots of words that I didn't understand, or realize could be used in such a context, (especially verbs!)

It made me think. I'm going to try to 'sorta' implement a new strategy. I'm going to focus on certain topics, for a certain amount of time, until I feel comfortable discussing those topics.

For example, I need to teach English to students here who's English is very poor. If the student is very sharp, and I can tell has awareness of how Polish works, then I'll give grammatical explanations in Polish. I have one student who I do this a couple of times a week with. I also ALMOST finished Luca Lampariello's book about language learning, (The one that's only in Polish,) and I read it pretty intensively, looking up everyword, and reading every sentence at least twice, and reading entire portions of the book over again once I finished reading them the first time. Now, I can talk about language learning very well. I want to be able to talk about other things though...


I'm going to do something similar to what I did with the topic of "language learning" except I'm going to do it in a more structured way. I plan on watching short informational youtube videos, news casts, and reading articles. I'll try to start writing about that specific topic when I'm ready, and posting it on iTalki for corrections. I'm going to "officially" start on Monday, but realistically I will probably start tomorrow.

Heres my list of topics so far, (many more will hopefully be added!)
- Politics. I'll start with Politics in general, and then maybe focus on one aspect more specifically, (like immigration, for example,) depending on how difficult it is.

- Comedy I'll start with comedians, and funny websites. My girlfriend and this one very intelligent, but very socially tuned in friend of mine, are 110% necessary while focusing on this.

- Health I wan't to be able to talk about health and dieting etc. It's a strange feeling when people try to lecture me about how I'm going to die because I ate a Big Mac two months ago, and I can't do anything but shrug my shoulders.
WARNING: mini-rant about Polish culture (skip to end if you want 8-) ) Sorry to any Polish people reading this, but I've never been amongst a group of people so obsessed with health. The weird part is, it seems people are much less worried about gaining weight, and much more afraid that they're going to die if they eat something that's not "bez chemii" (without chemicals.) Also, the amount of people my age who talk as if they have a PhD. in nutrition, (yet say stuff that is scientifically incorrect,) is astounding. I had a personal trainer, (this was his job,) tell me "You can bench press every day, if you're sore, lifting again will make you not sore." It's really odd. Once I told my class that I usually only eat one meal a day, and they started panicking, thinking that I would die, and wouldn't stop repeating "5 small meals a day!" The first few months it annoyed me a bit, but now I actually find this mentality pretty funny; I get a real kick out of it sometimes lol. Note: I am not basing this off of one group of people, I've had these sorts of encounters with everyone from grandmothers born and raised in small villages, to young "Warsaw" professionals in love with the corporate lifestyle.
END OF RANT

- Tools and construction Polish equivalent of dirty jobs, watching DIY videos in Polish on Youtube, and maybe some written sources as well.


Well, that's all for now. I need to sleep. I stayed up half an hour past my bed time to write this :o
Dobranoc!
5 x

drp9341
Orange Belt
Posts: 241
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2016 1:21 pm
Location: NY, USA
Languages: Native: English (US)
C1/C2: Spanish, Italian
B2+: Portuguese
B2: French, Polish
A1: Russian, German
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=5978
x 962

Re: Drp9341's Polish (and Italian, French, Spanish & Portuguese!) Log!

Postby drp9341 » Mon Mar 19, 2018 3:14 pm

Hello everyone!

Today is a new update regarding... Italiano

So. I'll be in Italy for my birthday exactly a month from now, and I want to improve my Italian, (just a bit!) before I go. I always have this fear that I'll get there and won't be able to communicate with everyone I know, and my friends and family will be like "what, he spoke Italian for as long as I can remember and now he can't understand what I'm saying or my jokes?"

Saturday night I had an hour long conversation with an iTalki teacher in Italian. Nothing out of the ordinary. I messed up some vowels, like saying 'bandiera' instead of 'bandera.' This things always happen to me when I take a break from Italian. I know the process pretty well by now.

Sunday night, I met my friend's fiancée, she's from Spain, and she doesn't speak English or Polish that well. Me and her talked for like an hour and a half about all sorts of different things, (she moved here recently also.)

The one thing I noticed when I got home was how easy speaking Spanish was. Still, there doesn't seem to be a huge difference for me whether I'm speaking in Spanish, or in English. The only really tangible difference, is my stories are funnier in English. Other than that, there really isn't anything I can say. She told me, (without me asking her,) that I sound Mexican, and that if her fiancé didn't tell her I was from the states, she would think I was Mexican. This surprised me because I haven't really used Spanish that much recently.

This week I have quite an easy week in terms of work. Today, I started watching videos and reading stuff in Italian. Then I recorded myself telling some stories on my webcam, and watched them. Most of the mistakes I make are because I'm out of practice, my mouth lost some if it's muscle memory and I occasionally mispronounce things because of that. However, I don't sound that bad. I am not, however, as able to as fully express myself in Italian as I am in Spanish. When I'm in Italy for a few weeks, I can. However, once I leave, I loose it. I feel like I'm eternally trapped at "C1," and I can only stay at "C2" (in my spoken Italian) if I: 1. Have been immersed for a week. 2. Continue the immersion. It's very frustrating.


Polish has been going much the same. I haven't actually done anything with my "syllabus" idea yet as I got distracted by Italian and Spanish, but I will start doing it as soon as I finish completely dissecting "Chłopaki nie Płaczą." I skipped Anki 3/7 days, and I still haven't done it today. I've just been pretty lazy the past few days. I've gotten stuff done, but that's because I've had so much free time. Unfortunately, it seems whenever I am really busy, I have tons of ideas and motivation, and coincidentally, I'm always lazy when I have free time. I don't know if it's coincidental, but I don't like it.
My Polish routine is this: 1. Anki, and read for 30 minutes. 2. Do the other stuff. (if I have time.) Part two is optional, but I would guess that 60% of the time when I'm able to complete part 1, I also spend about 2-3 hours on part 2. It's strange.


Thanks for reading, I'll post again soon.
- Danny
2 x

drp9341
Orange Belt
Posts: 241
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2016 1:21 pm
Location: NY, USA
Languages: Native: English (US)
C1/C2: Spanish, Italian
B2+: Portuguese
B2: French, Polish
A1: Russian, German
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=5978
x 962

Re: Drp9341's Polish (and Italian, French, Spanish & Portuguese!) Log!

Postby drp9341 » Mon Apr 02, 2018 9:18 pm

Hello everyone!

I haven't really studied Polish at all recently. I don't know what's going on exactly. However, it's been alright. I've been studying Italian again. I really like Italian, so whenever I try to "refresh it" I have to fight the urge to study it full time.

I've been in the south of Poland with my girlfriend's family and friends for the past 4 days, and I've been speaking only in Polish for these last few days.

I can honestly discuss just about anything, with two caveat: 1. If I want to speak at the same speed as a native, I need to stop thinking about pronunciation. 2. If I want to talk about difficult subjects, I have to throw grammar and "perfectionist tendencies" to the wind and just speak.

Today I talked for about 2 hours with my girlfriends relative about Polish history, Banking, Taxes, Laws regarding owning your own business etc. I didn't have any problems whatsoever with communication, but I made tons of mistakes with pronunciation and declensions.

If I speak about everyday topics, I can speak very well, with great grammar and a really nice accent and rhythm, with good pronunciation. I think I just need to keep chipping away at Polish. Anki really helps. With a language as grammatically complex as Polish I need to basically memorize things, because if I try to think about the correct way to say it, I will end up speaking super slow.

I think I have 2 zones, my "mastery" zone, and my "broken-polish" zone. Depending on what I'm talking about I am in either one of these zones.

I think that with time, and as I continue to chip away at the language, my mastery zone will keep growing, and my amateur zone with move further out to more obscure topics.

I definitely take my skills for granted though. I was not happy with my Polish when I was explaining the way laws are passed through congress in the United States, but later on when I thought about it I said to myself, "wow, I explained that without having to pause and look for words, and he knew exactly what I was saying" However, my declensions were very bad, and my pronunciation gets bad. I start to make the sounds in the wrong place in my mouth, "sz" and "ś" sound the same, I pronounce "l" alveolarly not dentally, etc.

However, with time, this will improve.

That's all for today, hopefully within another year I will speak "normally" :D

happy easter!
4 x

drp9341
Orange Belt
Posts: 241
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2016 1:21 pm
Location: NY, USA
Languages: Native: English (US)
C1/C2: Spanish, Italian
B2+: Portuguese
B2: French, Polish
A1: Russian, German
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=5978
x 962

Re: Drp9341's Polish (and Italian, French, Spanish & Portuguese!) Log!

Postby drp9341 » Fri May 11, 2018 10:10 am

Big News: I started Russian yesterday!!!!!

As far as my Polish is concerned, I really haven't been having many problems.
The only things I've noticed:
1. Verbs of movement = today I was speaking to a Ukrainian guy who's Polish wasn't all that great, but he of course understands everything. I had no problems today for some reason, but two days ago I was hanging out with my girlfriend and her friend and we were asking each other about our plans for where we were going and when, (in Polish,) and I was speaking really slow. I made it seem like I was thinking, so I didn't break the illusion of "fluency" however I was having a hard time. I think I need to start working on this more, but I haven't figured out what's the best way to focus on this - like reading someone's travel schedule? I can't think of any ideas, please help!.

2. Infrequently used verbs / verbs with many possible prefixes = zmienić, rozmienić, odmienić, przemienić, these kinds of things!

3. The never ending vocabulary... This is normal in any language. I remember even in Spanish it took me years before I could understand (practically) every word I saw. I blamed this on Spanish's numerous dialects, however now that I'm studying Polish. I see this is normal.

My routine has been: Reading Luca Lampariello's book, "Jak Uczyć Się Języków," for the second time. I have it on my kindle, and I highlighted all the words I didn't understand the first time around. Now I am able to read it pretty much, "fluently." Which is fantastic. I actually am trying to use his own bi-directional translation method for all the new structures and expressions that I've come across in the book, (I bought a fancy new notebook,) and it's going quite well. I'm 1/3rd of the way through. When I am done, I will summarize it and put the info on the forum. It's a shame that his only comprehensive book on his method is in Polish. There's not translations for it, and I know he sells some products now, but I checked the price once and it was really expensive. I paid 20złoty for this e-book, (that's like 5 euros.)

ALSO - I am trying to spend 45 minutes a day, with a google doc, writing down all the new expressions I don't understand from the show, "WATAHA," on HBO GO. This is truly a fantastic show. I really recommend it to everyone, even if you're not interested in Polish.


FRENCH: I watched "The Chalet" on Netflix. (another great show, hopefully language learning won't turn me into a TV junkie.) This show was really great. I watched it really slow, looking up all the words. It was 6 hours, but it took me about 24 hours to watch. I learned a lot, and remembered a lot more.

RUSSIAN: I only just started. The pronunciation is tricky. I already knew the alphabet, but this is my plan: Me and my teacher, (via Skype, but not iTalki,) are meeting once a week. She gives me homework. These next 6 weeks I'm probably going to spend an hour a day on grammar, and then after that move onto Assimil Russian. I am not in a rush to speak it, and I already understand A LOT if they speak slowly. If in the next few weeks I feel comfortable with the pronunciation and grammar, I'm going to skip right to Assimil. However, I don't want to confuse Polish and Russian, and in my experience, having a separate grammatical and phonological framework in place for the languages are the best in order to keep the languages separate and avoid interference. I plan on going to Belarus the last week of July, (I have some friends in Minsk that I will stay with,) so I will calibrate my learning so that I am at least capable of functioning on an A1 level by then.

Also, I got a really well paying job as a teacher starting in September, so I am going to stay here for at least another two years. By the end of those two years I want to get a C2 certificate in Polish, and if I can pull off a miracle, even Russian. If I can't get my Russian up to C2 by then, I will try to start preparing for the Italian C2 exam. I think I would be able to pass the exam without that much practice. I would just need to brush up on my writing and spelling without the help of spellcheck, and read a couple of more books.
6 x

drp9341
Orange Belt
Posts: 241
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2016 1:21 pm
Location: NY, USA
Languages: Native: English (US)
C1/C2: Spanish, Italian
B2+: Portuguese
B2: French, Polish
A1: Russian, German
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=5978
x 962

Re: Drp9341's Polish (and Italian, French, Spanish & Portuguese!) Log!

Postby drp9341 » Wed May 16, 2018 7:10 am

I just re-read my last post. I mentioned C2 in both Polish and Russian. I think I was drinking waaaaay to much caffeine at the time.


Work: Anyway, the job I have next year at the international school forbids me to speak Polish in front of the students. Supposedly if they know the teachers speak Polish they will not speak to them in English. Anyway, it's a very well paying job, with vacation time, which will allow me to travel so I can maintain other languages.

Spanish: Last Sunday I spent the day hanging out with Spaniards. It was insane how rusty my Spanish got. The get together was all afternoon, and everyone was speaking Spanish, and by the end my Spanish was about 80% of what it normally is. The cool part is though, that I still was 110% fluent in Spanish, even with that "handicap". The Spaniards there had never been to Latin America, and in the beginning one of the Spaniards who's a friend of a friend, thought I was from Latin America until I clarified that I was from the REAL America, (I'm waiting for some angry Argentinian on this forum to chew me out over that last comment :D :D :D )

Polish: Same grind as usual. I'm learning words and expressions, but the intermediate plateau is REAL. and it's frustrating. I could never imagine myself being as fluent in Polish as I am in Spanish. In Spanish I can literally say anything I want, the only annoying this is having to adjust my vocabulary for people from different countries.

Russian: I hate word stress. I think so far the language is much easier than Polish EXCEPT for word stress, which I think actually gives Russian the edge, making it harder. If Russian had fixed stress it would be really easy. I've gone through a grammar, and learned most of the grammatical concepts pretty quickly. However, I'm not confident that I can say anything without mangling the pronunciation. I listen to words on Forvo like 30 times each, keep the tabs open, then at the end of my session listen to everything like 10 more times. Maybe I'm going crazy, but I don't want to get in the habit of mispronouncing words.

3 days ago I had an Uber Driver from the Ukraine who didn't speak Polish or English, and he spoke to me in a mix of Russian-Ukranian-Polish and I responded in a mix of Russian-Polish. We honestly had a good chat over the course of the 25 minute drive. Also, per minute, Uber drivers are cheaper than iTalki teachers.

That's all for right now. I have a pretty loose schedule for the next 4 days. I feel like I'm getting sick, but if I don't get sick, I'm going to try to just go crazy with Russian until Saturday. Do Assimil, review all the grammar, and try to get to a point where I can have simple little chats with all the Ukranian Uber drivers here.

I might spend Saturday morning just Ubering around Warsaw if I feel I've learned enough Russian in order to practice it - a crazy approach, but it might be cheaper than getting instant tutoring on iTalki haha.
5 x

drp9341
Orange Belt
Posts: 241
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2016 1:21 pm
Location: NY, USA
Languages: Native: English (US)
C1/C2: Spanish, Italian
B2+: Portuguese
B2: French, Polish
A1: Russian, German
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=5978
x 962

Re: Drp9341's Polish (and Italian, French, Spanish & Portuguese!) Log!

Postby drp9341 » Thu May 17, 2018 11:42 pm

So my plan to study like a maniac while my girlfriend was gone, didn't work out as well as planned ;)

I was sick Wednesday night and today, so I didn't really study much. This evening I watched some Wataha and took notes etc. for about 90 minutes not including breaks.

It's interesting how you're listening comprehension goes waaay down when you're sick. Today I watched a show in Portuguese that I usually watch without any problems whatsoever, and today I watched for 10 minutes, put English subtitles on, was too lazy to read subtitles, and turned it off.

However, this morning I went to go see a doctor and we chatted in Polish for like an hour. The guy was real cool and interested in why I was living here etc. etc. I had 0 problems during the conversation. I actually forgot the word for "siblings" which is a really basic word I've heard and used a ton of times. Vocabulary is weird! Somedays words that I've heard once pop into my sentences fluently, and other days I have to search for basic words. I think it's a question of time.

Even though I've been grinding with Polish for almost exactly 12 months, my brain is still not totally used to the language. It's probably not in my long-term memory or whatever.

I remember a similar thing happening in Spanish. I tried to speed learn Spanish, and I remember I was talking with my older relatives in Italian for like 45 minutes. Then I started talking with my Uncle, who's not Italian, and is mono-lingual, and I was telling him, "even though my level in Italian and Spanish are the same, when I hear Italian, I don't even register it's a different language, I just listen and respond. But when I speak Spanish, I know it's a different language, I can hear it's foreign, and I have to put effort into conversing."

At the time, I thought it was a question of early exposure to Italian, but now I realize that it's just the fact that I had been using Italian for years and years, and Spanish was still new.

This information really isn't useful, but it's definitely thought provoking. I'm curious how my Polish will be if I live here another two years and keep studying and studying.

I would like to "be a polyglot" and be able to speak all 6 of the languages that I learned/am learning at a really fluent level, something like I have in Spanish or Italian. However, I don't think that's realistic. I have no idea how someone like Luca can maintain all of his languages at such an impeccable level.

Tomorrow my day is going to look like:
Work from 7am-11am
Study Polish Anki and Reading until 3pm.
Online Teaching from 3-4pm.
Study Italian from 4-6pm.
Online Italian Lesson from 6-7pm.
7pm until bedtime = RUSSSSSIAN. ( If I get tired, I'll study Polish again lol. )

I'll post back tomorrow night with any insights. This log is great. I can log my thoughts here and see what I was thinking, and not get lost in a sea of words and grammar. I can kind of track my progress.

Dobranoc!
2 x

drp9341
Orange Belt
Posts: 241
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2016 1:21 pm
Location: NY, USA
Languages: Native: English (US)
C1/C2: Spanish, Italian
B2+: Portuguese
B2: French, Polish
A1: Russian, German
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=5978
x 962

Re: Drp9341's Polish (and Italian, French, Spanish & Portuguese!) Log!

Postby drp9341 » Tue May 22, 2018 1:42 pm

Hello Guys! It's Tuesday. I have barely any work this week at all. Everything turned out perfectly in terms of work. It made me think - Why don't I use this as an opportunity to get all my languages into good shape before the Polyglot Gathering next week!? - so that's what I'm doing :D

I'll give you guys an update on some of my progress. Starting with...
SPANISH

so, I recorded myself telling a story in Spanish. I could hear that there was something weird going on. I watched some Vlogs on Youtube, and then I watched a video I had recorded of myself at my "peak" in Spanish, about 18 months ago.

The difference was astounding. In the old video, I spoke as quickly as a native, without it seeming like I was trying to speak quickly. I was just speaking the way Spanish speakers speak. They produce more syllables per second than English speakers, since generally in Spanish it requires more syllables than in English to express the same idea.

This makes a lot of sense, since one Spaniard that I've spoke with recently, (she's actually a teacher of Spanish here in Warsaw,) that when she first spoke to me she suspected that I wasn't a native because I spoke slower than a native would.

Also, in the video I made yesterday, I noticed that my vowels were off. I remember practicing my vowels a lot, as a native english speaker I tend to at the end of the saying the vowel allow it to slightly turn into a diphthong. What I mean it the "/o/" will at the last moment change into slightly into an "/ɔ/"

Another thing, I learned yesterday that in Latin America, the /s/ sound in NOT dentalized the way it is in Spain. I really don't think this is super important, but it's interesting that I let this slip a few years back when I was nose deep in Spanish phonology. I also for some reason didn't realize that the /l/ and /n/ sounds are only dentalized when they preceed a /t/ or a /d/. I recorded my speech, and I don't think it's something worth working on now.

In order to change an accent you need to speak that language a lot. I'm not going to be speaking much Spanish, and I sound fine the way it is. In the future I will probably work on correcting this. When I move back to New York I'll probably try to improve my Spanish even further, but for now I feel like my time could be used much more effectively.

For the week, I'm gonna get a few cheap iTalki teachers, and listen to more Spanish, and try to record an hour worth of videos over the next 6 days. I also have been writing a bit in Spanish. This helps.

Italian

My Italian is weird. I honestly have no idea if it sounds good, or if it sounds crazy. I've had experiences where I've met Italians outside of Italy and they say, "You have a really weird accent." and other times they say, "Were you born in Italy?"

I have a Tuscany accent. I don't think it makes sense trying to change it. My friends have told me that when I say individual words I don't have an accent, but the intonation is hard. When I think about it, I can hear exactly how my family members/friends would say certain things, but then I record myself trying to say the same thing and it fails miserably.

This week I'm going to work on just my intonation. Everything else is fine.


French

I'm going to do 2 things: WRITE WRITE WRITE, and listen with my "intensive listening comprehension method." I cannot recall individual words in French, but I can speak fluently without thinking, and the words come out. So I'm going to work on that this week.

Portuguese

I just need to write. I'm going to write a really long story, and then message with students of mine rom Brazil for a day. Then I'll watch a few episodes of this Brazilian show. Then my Portuguese will be fine.


Later I'm going to post about Polish. I've made some real progress these past few days. I really want to share what I've been doing. Stay tuned...
3 x

drp9341
Orange Belt
Posts: 241
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2016 1:21 pm
Location: NY, USA
Languages: Native: English (US)
C1/C2: Spanish, Italian
B2+: Portuguese
B2: French, Polish
A1: Russian, German
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=5978
x 962

Re: Drp9341's Polish (and Italian, French, Spanish & Portuguese!) Log!

Postby drp9341 » Tue May 22, 2018 6:12 pm

What I'm doing to learn Polish...

Okay, so the first thing I'm going to do, (since I'm using this log partially for myself, so that I remember what I did, and keep track of how I'm progressing,) Is list all(most) of the places I've learned stuff since Friday, (today is Tuesday.)

1. Coimisiún na Scrúduithe Stáit Polish Higher Level (Irish) Leaving Cert Exam.
2. Jak Uczyć się Języków
3. iTalki Corrections
4. Diki.pl (on my google doc)
5. iTalki lesson
6. Safari Tabs on my phone.
7. Article about plumbing

Soooo... I changed up my strategy. Friday I had to message a lot of people in Polish. I requested a language exchange and a ton of people replied. I chatted with them in Polish on facebook messenger for the course of a few days. (90% in Polish.) This helps me a LOT with slang and NOT over-elaborating, (something I do often when speaking a language I'm not great at because I lack enough words to be concise.)

I was messaging my cousin from Ireland who speaks Polish, "Almost like a Native," (according to sources,) about what she did to learn Polish. I still haven't heard of any foreigner who speaks Polish at an advanced level. Even the foreigners who I see on the internet talking
about moving here etc. don't speak it that well. They have strong accents, and make mistakes that even I notice. She's the only person I know of who is not slavic, and learned Polish to near perfection as an adult, (she married a Polish guy who doesn't speak English,) and she's never even lived in Poland.

She was telling me how she learned, and how she keeps learning, Polish, and what she does to improve. She said that taking practice tests really helps to get better at the more "formal" side of Polish. I took the test, and it was hard. I was able to do it without using a dictionary though! It was a really long and complex article about the cross-over between philosophy, psychology, and the refugee crisis. All the questions required you to answer in the form of short essays, so it was great practice.

THEN, Everything I write, even facebook conversations and email exchanges, I put on website under a different account, (I remove/change personal details,) and have it corrected by Poles. I also ask my girlfriend to correct stuff, but I prefer if someone who's interested in languages does it. They give better explanations and I have the corrections typed out, on the internet in an easily viewable format.

I never re-write these essays, but I re-read them a million times, and make example sentences using the correct form, and put that in my ever-growing google doc.

As far as reading Luca's book, I'm almost done with my second read of it. Then I'm going to go back, transfer all the words I still can't remember into my google doc, and summarize it here for you guys. This probably won't be for a while, as reading his book only happens on the bus (IF I can get a seat,) and IF I can finish all my other stuff at home.

My Polish is improving. However there are serious gaps in my vocabulary. Last night I was talking to our friend's new boyfriend about plumbing, and as soon as I tried to describe the kind of work I did, it was as if I was trying to speak in Zulu.

So today, I read a long article about plumbing - it's an article telling teenagers who are interested in a career in plumbing what the job entails, it's pros and cons, etc.

BIG THING I'VE NOTICED: Yesterday, I saw on the front of a magazine, "Distansu do siebie nauczył mnie tata." I could not figure out this sentence AT ALL. I asked my girlfriend, and I know what it means now. HOWEVER, I realized that this is the first time this has happened in at least 2 months; I understand all the words but don't understand what the sentence means. Now, it only happens with idioms. Usually I can recognize idioms, but "distansu do siebe" sounds like something literal, like: "My dad taught me far away from himself." This is a good sign though, because in the beginning, I would often read something, know all the words, and have no idea what the hell it meant.




Also... today I spent 30 minutes working on the numbers... I say them correctly due to having heard and memorized lots of expressions with numbers in them, but I've never actually sat down and learned how to decline every number -cardinal AND ordinal. This is something I'm going to take slow.

Let's see what happens!

Thanks for reading. (I'm shocked that people actually read this, and give it likes lol.)
4 x

drp9341
Orange Belt
Posts: 241
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2016 1:21 pm
Location: NY, USA
Languages: Native: English (US)
C1/C2: Spanish, Italian
B2+: Portuguese
B2: French, Polish
A1: Russian, German
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=5978
x 962

Re: Drp9341's Polish (and Italian, French, Spanish & Portuguese!) Log!

Postby drp9341 » Wed Jun 06, 2018 12:29 pm

I'm going to write about a great new method I somehow woke up with this morning for people struggling to speak a language that has a structure very different to their own.

but first... I'm going to talk about how this came about.

So I was at the Polyglot Gathering in Bratislava. It was a blast. I'm definitely going again. Slovak is so similar to Polish it's unreal. I got lots of speaking practice from talking to Slovaks all week.

One night I asked some girl for directions to a bar, and she ended up coming out with me for a few drinks. She didn't speak any English, but we managed to hang out with few problems, I spoke Polish, she speak Slovak. We hung out for over an hour, and it was actually a good time despite the language barrier(s?). I had to say a lot of things 3/4 different ways so that she understood, so it was good Polish practice. Honestly, I can normally slide by just saying stuff that makes 1/2 sense if I'm tired, but in Slovakia I had to make sure my Polish was on point, and that I could say everything in multiple ways, so it was actually really good practice.


When I got back to Poland I spent the next 3 1/2 days with my girlfriends family, and I was speaking a LOT of Polish. On the car ride back to Warsaw, (blabla-car), I ended up chatting with the driver for the ~4 hour trip. My girlfriend confirmed what I thought before - I'm using too many damn verbs. It's hard to explain if someone doesn't speak a Slavic language, but they don't use verbs as much as we use them in English or the Romance languages. Many of my sentences are 3x as long as a Pole's, so it's something I need to work on.


The New Method
When I talk about certain topics, "Language Islands" I talk great, but when I need to explain sort of complicated things that I've never explained before, my girlfriend tells me, "If I didn't know what you were trying to say I wouldn't be able to follow you."

So here's what I started doing last night. I took an 8 minute Youtube Video where some guy was explaining the history of certain words and expressions, and I looked up everything I didn't understand. It was a real eye opener. The whole time I tried to compare how I would say it, to how he said it, and I realized that my problem is bigger than I thought :D.

So I downloaded the Youtube video, added a metronome, and have been listening to it while walking / taking trams all day. I have most of it pretty memorized to the point where I know what he's going to say, but I'm going to give it more time. If I keep examining this guy's videos, and this other guy's videos, I'll be able to explain things much more effectively.

The other guy has a channel, "TO JUZ jutro" and he basically just talks about current events and the future etc. and explains it in anywhere from 5-10 minutes. I like this guy because he's also a comedian, he's probably only early 30's, and he's a normal guy who I could see myself hanging out with. Basically, he's the perfect guy to copy.

I think this method will work very well. It seems to be exactly what I need. Everything else is straight forward - learn more. However, I don't want to end up like a lot of Chinese / Japanese students; They have tons of "knowledge" but they speak in a way that's super confusing and twisted.

Also, I've come to realize that a lot of native speakers of Polish DON'T KNOW CASES - in the sense that if you ask them, "how do you say xyz" They need to think, and second guess themselves. They just speak, and it comes naturally. If I keep reading enough, and listening enough, I will be able to get pretty good. I do however want to have a structural understanding of the language in the way that a linguist or a teacher would, because that structural understanding will make it much easier to pick up other Slavic languages.

Also, I know this might be a little hardcore, but I've been looking into some etymology of slavic words, I think this will help me a lot when adapting to new Slavic languages in the future. When I get back to New York for 5 weeks, I'm going to read, and do this method, and maybe review some Polish grammar books if I have any questions, but I am not going to go crazy. I'm going to try to let the language "stew" in my brain.

I'm also going to try to read in Italian instead of English when I'm back home. If I have to choose between Italian or Russian, however, Russian will win.
7 x

drp9341
Orange Belt
Posts: 241
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2016 1:21 pm
Location: NY, USA
Languages: Native: English (US)
C1/C2: Spanish, Italian
B2+: Portuguese
B2: French, Polish
A1: Russian, German
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=5978
x 962

Re: Drp9341's Polish, Arabic, (Russian?) and... ITA/SPA/PT/FR/ Log!

Postby drp9341 » Sat Jun 09, 2018 5:07 pm

No one could have saw this coming, but I there has been the addition of a new language into the midst...
ARABIC
I have a very loooooong history with Arabic, and it is actually the first "foreign" language I ever spoke
BELOW I WILL TELL AN INTERESTING STORY ABOUT A WHITE BOY FROM THE BRONX LEARNING ARABIC WHEN HE WAS 7, (skip if you want)
I never really mention this, because I don't really like to talk about languages that I'm not fluent in. Maybe this is a result of growing up in America where if you're able to say "Hello" people will consider you fluent and brush off any attempts to state the contrary as you simply being modest. However, here is my short biography with Arabic.

When I was 5, my aunt married a Coptic/Egyptian from Cairo. My whole family lived on the same street in the Bronx, New York City, (literally: both sets of grandparents, my aunts, my 2 cousins, my grandfather's brother, his wife and their son. Both parents grew up on the street etc. We lived about .5 miles away, but I spent more time there than I did at my own house.) - Yes, I had an amazing childhood.

During the wedding process, I became really really good friends with my uncle's nephew, let's call him, "Hani" for the sake of privacy. He lived with his parents, and his grandparents, in a little tiny apartment at the end of the block, on the top floor. Both of his parents were doctors, but since they had only moved to the US 2 years earlier, (when Hani was 5, he is two years old than me,) they need to complete their "US Medical Residency, and thus worked all the time. I started to spend hours and hours a day at Hani's house for about 2 years. His grandparents were always there, and they didn't speak English at all.

When Hani's parents finally completed their residency, they found a job in Oklahoma, and moved there. I was sad, as my best friend moved to a place that "that's existence is questionable" (according to New Yorkers.) However, every summer for the next 7 years, (ages 8-15) I would spend anywhere from 10-30 days a summer in Oklahoma.

Hani's parents continued to work 12-14 hours a day, so we spent all of our time with his grandparents. His grandmother became like a a grandmother to me, and I was extremely close with her. During those years I learned enough Arabic to speak with his younger brother (he didn't go to school yet, and so he didn't speak English,) and his grandparents. I never really realized Arabic was important until I was about 13, then I remember that I helped an old Egyptian lady in the super market one day, and my parents were in complete shock to hear me speaking Arabic, (I don't know how my accent was, but I can still make and distinguish all of those weird sounds effortlessly.)

My parents were so happy and proud, I didn't realize fully understand why, but they started telling everyone I spoke Arabic, and tried to sign me up for Arabic classes. My uncle, Hani's parents, and my uncle's parents basically said that under no circumstances should I take Arabic classes at a mosque as they will convert me to Islam, (their family fled Egypt due to increasing tensions and supposedly severe discrimination due to the fact that they were not muslims. Since Egyptians don't have last names, (you have - your first name, your fathers first name, and your grandfathers first name, and your great grandfathers first name: for example, I would be "Danny Giorgio Luciano Giovanni") It's very easy to tell your ancestry. Hani, and his father, had "Arabic" names, meaning that those names could be either Muslim, or Christian. However, my uncle's father, grandfather, and great grandfather had names like "George" and "William" so they were identifiably Christian from a mile away.

My family doesn't really care about this geo-political issues, but they trusted our family's new "highly-educated in-laws," (I'm the first person in my entire family to every get a bachelor's degree, to just give an example.) and searched for some sort of coptic church that could teach it to me instead. Despite living in New York City, I guess there were any Arabic classes that weren't tied to Islam somehow.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands, and ask "mommy and daddy" to buy me the rosetta stone, and some books on FoosHa/Modern Standard Arabic grammar from a bookstore. I remember I studied a decent amount, and used to cheat in High School by writing Math/Chemistry equations etc. in really sloppy Arabic on my arm. I also remember I could read a little bit. When I went to Oklahoma though, I remember Hani would always laugh at my new words and say it sounded like I had a speech impediment, (he moved to the US at 5, so he knew no FoosHa at all.) Regardless, I remember that when I was around 15 I went to my cousins christening at a coptic church, and sat through the 5 hour mass all in Arabic, and during the breaks and recesses I tried to speak Arabic with the old people, and I remember not having a problem. Hani used to tell me I spoke "cave-man Arabic" which I still find hilarious.

I was in Israel a couple of months ago, and I was sitting outside a quiet bar pretty drunk with my girlfriend, and these two absolutely blitzed Arabs walked up and asked me where the bathroom was in Arabic, and I started speaking Arabic "fluently" (I wasn't pausing, I'm sure I made a million mistakes.) My girlfriend was in absolute complete shock as she had 0 idea that I knew any Arabic whatsoever. I tried to pretend to be nervous and say, "It was French I swear!" and then "confess" that I am actually "not who I say I am" which she only believed for about 10 seconds. It was pretty hilarious though.
END OF STORY


I recently realized after making myself study Russian, that I'm tired of Slavic Languages, ( for now. :twisted: :twisted: ) I watched a Netflix show with a lot of Levantine Arabic in it, and realize that I still think Arabic is super cool.

I used to be really disheartened by the fact that Arabic was so unstandardized and that you basically needed to learn 5 languages to learn one, but I meet a cool guy recently who spoke Arabic, and we got to talking about it, and he is gonna guide me through the process. I decided that I am going to spend only one hour a day for at least the next 5 weeks learning Modern Standard Arabic. I am going to focus on READING AND WRITING, and of course the phonology, and grammar. Then I'll see what happens.

My plan is this: when I feel my passive skills, and my intuition of Arabic grammar, it's root systems, etc. is good enough, I am going to work on either the Levantine, or Egyptian Dialect, depending on where (Warsaw vs. NYC) I am at that point, and availability of resources. I know that Levantine is closer to MSA, and I also have always thought Levantine, especially Lebanese, Arabic sounded the prettiest. However, I am most interested from a tourist perspective in Morocco, HOWEVER I could see myself teaching English somewhere in the Gulf. So I am going to play it by ear. For now I am going to control myself, get a foundation with MSA, keep working on Polish, and see what happens. I don't need to worry about learning Arabic "quickly" and I don't need to worry about speaking or understanding it right now, so it should be fun. I also really like the language, so it's enjoyable. MOST IMPORTANTLY: I know a lot of this stuff already, but I forgot it. It's like returning to a hazy, but pleasant memory, instead of starting something brand new and foreign.

Lets see where this takes me. Regardless of whether I do this, or if I quit, it will be fun.


As far as Polish is concerned - the podcast analysis and speaking/immersion is working good. I learned a lot these last few days despite not really caring or stressing about learning it. Imagine if I was in one of my stressed out modes?

Peace 8-)
8 x


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests