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

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overscore
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Re: Drp9341 is (accidentally back) in POLAND for another year!!!!

Postby overscore » Thu Nov 26, 2020 5:32 pm

drp9341 wrote:
Saim wrote:.

overscore wrote:anyway, this is getting off topic and bringing politics into this forum is not something i want anymore. apologies to the log owner for the noise.

There’s no need to apologize, this is fun!

cjareck wrote: I agree with you also on this point! ;)


Im enjoying watching this take place, if it’s not against the rules, SERIOUSLY, have at it!! We’re discussing something relevant to anyone who is learning polish. it even got me listening to some guy who supports konfederacyja on YouTube last night!!..

It’s entertaining and a nice change, this was becoming essentially a place for me to talk about my feelings. Thank you for not allowing that to happen haha.

Polish politics is quite different than US politics. Anyone who says knowledge of politics is not related to language either knows little of what it takes to learn a language, or is completely unaware of the fact that in a democracy politics and the things Politicams say are representative of the culture to a level that not as trivial as you may assume lol.

So don’t stop on my account, have at it. I look forward to seeing more interesting posts!

I wrote this on my phone so there’s bound to typos and half sentences lol

I don't know about Poland, maybe you can ping people on Twitter and have interesting conversations; I follow Филип Карађорђевић on Twitter, the descendant of the King of Serbia – sometimes it's fun to see a first hand account of monarchy life, and monarchists trying to convince like serious german scientists, lol.
For sure a lot of diversity and also interesting characters on this side of the world.. I crack up listening to Slavoj Žižek. will probably buy his book and read that eventually.

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Re: Drp9341 is (accidentally back) in POLAND for another year!!!!

Postby drp9341 » Sat Jan 16, 2021 12:20 am

An update on my Polish

I started doing Anki again around 3 weeks ago, and only missed one day, (I did half of my deck earlier in the day, and forgot to complete it!)

I also stayed with my girlfriend's family in Podkarpacie for about four and a half weeks straight, and have probably spent 6 out of the last 8 weeks with them. My Polish really improved. I could quit trying to improve rights now and still be totally fine in most scenarios, but I know the dangers of the "immigrant trap" or whatever it's called.

I make mistakes, but everyone says, (when I ask them to please correct me,) that I make really small mistakes that they feel silly correcting... this probably means I make many mistakes :D .

I just had a 20-minute conversation with my neighbor about Joe Biden. I tried to answer his questions carefully and not give a biased rundown of the situation. I realized that when talking about a subject I know a lot about, and know plenty more vocab than is necessary in order to talk freely, I am able to speak as quickly, or perhaps quicker, than a native. I even often play around with word order and word choice to add some nuance to what I'm saying. Unlike when talking to my girlfriend's family and friends, I don't care what this man's opinion of me is, so I focused on what I was saying, and not "how I was saying it." I noticed this the other day as well while takinf a tax ride during rush hour in traffic. The driver and I had a very "lively" conversation about Corona Virus regulations and the nature of the pandemic. We agreed on virtually everything, so it was "lively" in the good sense.

In terms of speaking, I just need to keep on adding some more vocab, fixing bad pronunciation habits, and working on my "eloquence" by learning more structures. I also need to learn more about the culture and learn the way unusual words and sentence structures are perceived, and how they are generally used. Obviously, adding some more idioms as well.

The only time I feel like a I "don't know Polish" is when reading official documents. There are so many strange words and sentences are so odd. There are many verbs used in weird ways, and many verbs I've never seen before depending on what I'm reading. If I read a particularly well-written article on a news outlet online, this occurs. This also occurs when watching the news. I actually have a real problem with the news. If I pay attention I understand what they're saying but I'm not quite sure I know what they mean precisely.

I just need to keep going, adding information to my brain. I also need to, in equal measure, continue to correct and improve upon what I already know. This is much less clear cut, and requires that I ask lots of questions, and really pay attention to the small details when watching or reading something in Polish. This leads me to consulting Wiktionary quite often.

Here's a great summary of my Polish. So, my girlfriend's "best friend" is a professor at University of French, and is in addition works for the French ministry of education as a speaking examiner for French CEFR tests. I decided to take a French class with her over Skype, and we ended up talking about languages for almost two hours. We spoke a mix of Polish and French, and after she told my girlfriend, (I'm translating and paraphrasing), "He's able to talk better than people at a C2 level, but he makes mistakes with things you learn at the B1 level." She's right though. Despite taking some night classes which despite being really fun, were completely useless. I, therefore, feel justified in saying that I never learned Polish in the classroom. I tried to go back and follow Oscar Swan's First Year Polish. I consult his grammar book (I have the pdf.) all the time, and have flipped through probably all of the circa 300 pages. I need a teacher, but a teacher who will be able to identify those small mistakes I make and give me an explanation. I find that most teachers are either hardcore prescriptivists or laissez-faire "communication is the most important" type. It's very hard to find someone who will teach me what I need to work on. I would love a prescriptivist sometime in the future, but not right now.

My "medium-term" goal is to feel like I am not held back by the language barrier living here in Poland, in any situation. Whether it be talking to some therapist about my deepest feelings type of stuff, talking to doctors about serious medical issues, or even (one day!) asking and receiving legal advice from a lawyer.
I know it's not possible to achieve this within the next 6 months, but that won't stop me from trying.



In terms of reading, I want to be able to read novels "well" in the sense that I could read them and enjoy them if I were to be very interested in the topic, although still needing a dictionary from time to time. I'm writing this to remember: reading the news, which is surprisingly difficult.

In terms of writing, I don't know. I don't write in any language except English outside of texting. I guess I write long texts in Italian sometimes, but I really don't write much at all. Now that I'm back at University for my masters' program, I have been writing a lot more though. It's so strange being at New York University doing a masters' degree, but I'm living in Poland, having classes start at midnight Who would have thought? Life really is full of twists and turns.

I think I summed up here quite nicely what needs to be done to reach my "medium-term" goals. Writing really does help one organize thoughts and think more clearly.

If you read the whole thing, thank you.


Edit:
I still work through Mr. Real Polish 365 Daily Polish Listening, and I try to watch one VIP video a night by him. His videos and breakdowns are superb. I highly recommend it. I also sporadically skim through Oscar Swan's Intermediate Polish course, I managed to buy the book online. I'll probably use his materials more in the future.
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Re: Drp9341 is (accidentally back) in POLAND for another year!!!!

Postby Axon » Sat Jan 16, 2021 4:08 am

drp9341 wrote:... "He's able to talk better than people at a C2 level, but he makes mistakes with things you learn at the B1 level."


This sounds a lot like the advanced English speakers I know from Chinese backgrounds who are studying to be professional interpreters. Fluent in speaking English on lots of difficult subjects, but with fossilized mistakes at what is often considered to be a "basic" level. Here's an example I took from a chat with a guy who can simultaneously interpret Japanese, Mandarin, and English as well as speak German, Latin, and French:
"What videos are you recording recently?"
"We need a huge research."
"There was a guy who likes to do crazy things such as eat bizzare food."

Really advanced English learners from European backgrounds make different kinds of mistakes and, from my perspective, have fewer fossilized errors at this level.
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Re: Drp9341 is (accidentally back) in POLAND for another year!!!!

Postby drp9341 » Fri Feb 05, 2021 3:02 am

USING ANKI FOR THE LAST 7 WEEKS

I started using Anki again after a very long hiatus the week preceding Christmas. I failed to complete my deck around 20% of the days, yet still, this is my second longest ever "consistent" Anki usage.

I tailored my Anki experience so as to primarily improve my passive skills, (reading and listening.)

I had made a ton of good cards over the summer. Good as in the highest frequency words I still don't know. I focused a lot on verbs. I focused on multiple basic cards studying verbs that have multiple English translations. I think of them as two categories, a) words like potrącić which can mean hit with a car or to deduct money off of something you owe someone, (a salary, debt.) These meanings are really different. The second category is verbs with simply no good English equivalent, but that have one tangible meaning. I did this over the summer, and I must say I did a good job. Of course, I had my girlfriend check anything that seemed odd, and to my surprise, there weren't that many mistakes lol.

I filtered out cards with low-frequency vocabulary that I would hardly ever encounter. I also during these last 7 weeks put in around 500 new cards. When I started there were a little over 1,000 cards in this new deck, (which I had compiled from what I studied over summer, and moving cards from all of the old Polish decks I had made.) Now there are a total of 1559.

I must say, I think Anki really helped. I can watch TV shows prettily easily now. I don't get every single word, but sometimes my brain is just in the right state, and I can hear every word and ask, or search for the definition of the few words I don't know.

This makes consuming native media pretty easy. I have been reading the news in Polish, watching Netflix in Polish, and watching Youtube videos in Polish as well. I could do all of this before, but it required a lot more effort. I would say that now it requires very little effort, and I often just watch Polish TV shows on Netflix (with Polish subtitles,) and binge two or three episodes without making a card or writing down a word. It really just depends on the context.

I actually, looking at my Anki stats, think Anki was responsible for perhaps 40% of my improvement. I still have around half the deck in the "new" category and only 10% in the mature category. School started again, so language learning is taking a backseat, but I'm happy Polish is now a language I can more or less "mindlessly" consume media in. I can spend 5 hours in a row watching Netflix, but I can't really spend 5 hours on focused study. So I think this was a smart move; focusing on learning what will enable me to consume media in Polish as effortlessly as possible.

I'm writing this post as I'm falling asleep, so sorry for how this reads. My classes start at midnight and end at around 3 am, so my schedule is crazy once again. I hope this makes sense. I will add to it, or answer any questions if anyone wishes. Basically, I used Anki to learn to get really good at watching stuff in Polish while having to use my brain as little as possible.
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Re: Drp9341 is (accidentally back) in POLAND for another year!!!!

Postby drp9341 » Tue Mar 30, 2021 6:51 pm

Wow, it's been a while since I've used this forum. I actually stopped using Anki sometime around Valentine's day and haven't used it since. I've been reading and writing Polish a lot, (I've been engaging in a political forum, where everyone disagrees with everyone.)

I've also been speaking only Polish, like using Polish 90% of the time for the last few months, (besides school and after my girlfriends parents fall asleep and it's just us.)

I've been helping with her a family business, (a funeral company.) It's good. I still have a very hard time understanding her father but via spending time joking around with other men his age who speak clearly and enunciate well, despite using a local variant, I'm getting slowly better at understanding him.

Today I had to drive a total of 10 hours to get a body. It's a tragic story about the loss of a child, that I won't discuss online. My girlfriend's brother and I drove together to go get it. He's 40 years old. However, as usual, we talked and argued the entire time. After about 45 minutes I thought that "perhaps I'm talking too much?" but every time I stopped talking he would ask me interesting questions.

We talked about an insane variety of topics. For example, we discussed and critiqued whether it is fair to say that liberal capitalist societies have led to people replacing what their ancestors used to think when worrying about their worthiness in the eyes of God, instead of worrying about their piety and how they're seen in the eyes of God, they think about what their material success means in terms of being a worthy individual. Neither of us holds any radical views, but this question came up as a result of us discussing how even something like Fascism or Feudalism must have had some good qualities if it was (generally...) accepted by the masses on such a large scale. In addition to strange discussions like this, we talked about taxes and compared the NYC tax system to the Polish tax system, which was confusing as hell and we yelled at each other for about 30 minutes straight.

I made an insane number of mistakes, but I had no problems when expressing myself. He said that the "weird way" that I express these uncommonly expressed, "philosophical" thoughts actually makes it seem more interesting and how this makes him have to think more.

I feel totally fine speaking Polish. I can handle any topic, as long as I have a patient interlocutor. I make an insane number of mistakes if I'm tired, (I had to be up at 5 to help the men in the village slaughter and then butcher a pig for easter...) I didn't know TONS of words, but I can literally just say "Hey, what's this called?" and everyone is happy to help. We make jokes about me being an immigrant and other things. It's all good. They like me here, and they all said that they expected an asshole who thinks he's too good to be in a village, but I'm just an asshole, an asshole who likes doing village things and "bantering" with the local men.

I do try to read books that are lying around the house, but I lack vocabulary. I am not at all motivated to study Polish the way I was doing before, but I am using it, and everyone helps me by telling me the right words or correcting something that I said slightly wrong, (like "Albanczyka" is not a word, it's "Albanka." They don't correct my crazy, non-Slavic way of explaining more complex ideas or actions. They say that they understand.

I have been overusing the Genitive like crazy. I have told everyone, but they don't seem to care or notice. I have been asking my girlfriend how to say certain things in Polish though and trying to remember her method of structuring it. I need to know how a Pole would say it, and not try to "translate" the idea from English into Polish, as doing so often requires insanely complex case usage. Poles have a way of speaking that minimizes wasting mental energy by thinking of grammar. There's a pattern. It's simply that I don't know every pattern, in the same way I don't know many words.

Seriously though, I need to stop using the genitive so much. I have noooo idea how this started but it's got to the point where people close to me will laugh when I get lost in the middle of a long sentence because I'm trying to ensure it makes sense. This happens if I'm talking about some social movement or historical event, and the conversation naturally delves into discussing things that I haven't heard discussed before in Polish. I like it here in this little Podkarpacki village. Chilling, doing schoolwork, teaching some English, working at a funeral home, hanging out, and having fun with people who are from a totally different background and often much older than me. Who would have thought that the 70-year-old butcher missing a tooth who has only driven through Warsaw once and thought that it looked horrible would be bantering with the young American guy dating the daughter of one of his friends in the village? It's a lot of fun. People in the countryside are so much more fun than the majority of people I know caught up in the Warsaw city life.

I want to get much better at Polish. I will start trying to remember structures that can be useful when trying to say something complex as concisely as possible. I still don't "feel" Polish. It is like I'm repeating things and varying them slightly 90% of the time I talk. I cannot think in Polish. I can do so in English and the Romance languages, especially Italian. I need to learn to talk like them. Knowing how one can theoretically say something that would be grammatically correct is not the same as saying it the way (or the ways) that a Polish speaker would say it. Even Ukrainians have a way of expressing themselves when speaking half Ukrainian/Polish that is almost the same as the way Polish people express themselves. I guess being a native speaker of a Western variety of Ukrainian helps with more than just words and grammar. There is a way to use Slavic languages, and the only way to learn how to do so is the observe and learn from natives who speak for a living, like political pundits on youtube. Their ideas aren't as important as their "linguistic prowess" is. I know a few. Some are from the left, some are from the right, and some are all over the place.

For now, I'm just gonna keep using Polish, observing the way masters of speaking use their native tongue, and do my best to try and hope that I one day get as good at speaking as well as them. I'll study Anki when I have no one to talk to in Polish.

I hope everyone is doing well, and if you actually read this, thank you for sticking with me despite the fact that one could probably write this same thing using only a fraction of the words that I used. Brevity is something I'm working at. Thank you to all, and I hope you're all doing and feeling okay!
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Re: Drp9341 is (accidentally back) in POLAND for another year!!!!

Postby drp9341 » Fri Apr 02, 2021 11:06 am

Yesterday, on my birthday, the Author of first-year Polish, Dr. Sw an Himself, reached out to me. He's going to provide me with all the materials I need to follow his Dekalog course and offered to help me by answering any questions I may have.

I wrote him an email in Polish, (which was quite long and very well written (according to my girlfriend's mom), supposedly the only errors were where I placed a comma or a period!) I didn't ask for help writing it as I wanted him to get a realistic sample of my level,) and he wrote me a super long, super awesome response!

-----

I also got in touch with the director of the Irish Language program at my University, and he did the thing to give me permission to take the course, (it's an undergrad course, and I'm a grad student,) so on Monday when I'm permitted to choose summer classes, I'm going to take intensive Irish courses. It's around 3.5 hours of work each evening, but after two months I'll have completed Irish I, and II.

There is a chance that I'll drop it, (I got hired to work at the largest private security firm in the USA,) if this job is too demanding. As with jobs of this nature, I have little to no idea what I'll be doing, other than I will be staying in the NYC area.

University is a pain, though. It's literally just and only projects, with only one class having exams. I personally hate this. I am very good at exams, but projects are quite stressful as I have no idea if it's good or not, since the criteria is very subjective.

Last semester, being unaware of American current events, I criticized a reading we were assigned on "equity." This led to a strange debacle, ending with me getting failing grades, despite doing good work, until I got quite angry and contacted him, the director of the program, and my advisor. I made like 50 phone calls and wrote a ton of emails. I never got a response, but he changed my grades. I don't even follow current events unless it is in order to improve a target language. I'm not involved in American politics, don't support the left or right whatsoever, and frankly, I really just find the whole scene hilariously absurd. Literally, as if it were a very long episode of Curb your Enthusiasm.

Hopefully, the Irish classes will be nicer!
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Re: Drp9341 is (accidentally back) in POLAND for another year!!!!

Postby Raconteur » Wed Apr 07, 2021 5:57 pm

drp9341 wrote:I like it here in this little Podkarpacki village. Chilling, doing schoolwork, teaching some English, working at a funeral home, hanging out, and having fun with people who are from a totally different background and often much older than me. Who would have thought that the 70-year-old butcher missing a tooth who has only driven through Warsaw once and thought that it looked horrible would be bantering with the young American guy dating the daughter of one of his friends in the village? It's a lot of fun. People in the countryside are so much more fun than the majority of people I know caught up in the Warsaw city life. [...] They like me here, and they all said that they expected an asshole who thinks he's too good to be in a village, but I'm just an asshole, an asshole who likes doing village things and "bantering" with the local men.
Man, I think all that bantering is paying off, because your Polish is very natural. You express yourself with ease that 99% foreigners lack when speaking Polish (even when their grammar, etc. is spot on). I guess that deep "village life" immersion is really helping, well done! :D
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Re: Drp9341 is (accidentally back) in POLAND for another year!!!!

Postby drp9341 » Fri Apr 09, 2021 5:06 pm

Raconteur wrote:Man, I think all that bantering is paying off, because your Polish is very natural. You express yourself with ease that 99% foreigners lack when speaking Polish (even when their grammar, etc. is spot on). I guess that deep "village life" immersion is really helping, well done! :D


haha thank you man, but I'm still not near where I wanna be. There's so much you need to learn when it's a distant language. It's ironic how there are so many Latin words, but those really don't make a difference!

I made a language tracking document a few days ago, and wrote stuff down. I wrote down my problems, and then how I plan to fix them over the next 18 months.

I wrote...
A - Understanding really informal Speech
i.e. Someone my age drunk as shit talking about how he ducked up his relationship using lots of "impolite" swear words

B - Talking in a nuanced way about History and Current Events

C - Talking to Doctors, or talking about tools.
My vocabulary regarding body parts (including bones and organs,) verbs of movements when talking about yourself, and tools + describing what machinery does.
This is a really weird one. In Poland I've had to go to the emergency room a few times. A few months ago a sprained my ankle really bad. It hurt a lot, like extreme, but I thought it would go away. It didn't for a few weeks. I remember being at the doctor and talking like a mime. I had no idea how to actually explain that stuff. When I heard how my girlfriend said it, I was like "yeah, of course. I can't believe I didn't know that!" but at the time I couldn't think of what to say.
Also, when talking about machinery, I have no clue. I know a few basic tool names, but that's it. I don't even know a lot of verbs.



For A I am meeting with a tutor on Skype on Monday. I don't know where to find words though. All the usual stuff like "wszammać" I know. I was thinking rap songs, I'll check later or tomorrow. If anyone knows any youtubers who are very vulgar, let me know.


For B and C It's just vocabulary. I might actually try the Polyglot thing where I memorize monologues. For History I guess I just need to read about it in Polish more.
Last edited by drp9341 on Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Drp9341 is (accidentally back) in POLAND for another year!!!!

Postby cjareck » Fri Apr 09, 2021 6:36 pm

drp9341 wrote:For History I guess I just need to read about it in Polish more.

I've both Skype and WhatsApp now :) So if you wish we could meet from time to time to practice Polish history and English in exchange. :D
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Re: Drp9341 is (accidentally back) in POLAND for another year!!!!

Postby cjareck » Sat Apr 10, 2021 3:19 pm

Well, I have to admit, that Drp9341's (at least writing since I've had possibility to check only that) Polish is better than I've expected. Honestly, better than my English. We could discuss various complicated topics and I didn't have to limit myself in vocabulary due to speaking with foreigner. I'm really impressed!
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