A language learners’ forum

reineke wrote:I wouldn't want Eido to develop a wandering eye watching this thread.

It's too late for that, my friend. I've already got Icelandic.


(from my Hetalia phase - Poland was a good character, not a favorite though because he was annoying in the way I am and *explodes into Freudian mess*)




Look at that, I finally embedded a YT video correctly!

Online ressources to start Polish:
The Best Resources for Learning Polish
Po polsku po Polsce (it doesn't seem to be in the first link)
Minimal pairs (I'm looking for other MP exercises, if you have that in your bookmarks)

Theodisce wrote:You don't need to study. With your C level Russian, I believe it would be sufficient for you just to listen to Polish content for several hundred hours .

That's funny I'm a native Russian speaker, and I can honestly say that there's a lot in common between the two languages. However, even though I can understand some Polish both written and spoken, it's not enough to start speaking and make yourself understood.
Good thing is that even if you say something in Russian, Poles will understand you the same way it would be a nice bilingual dialog.

P.S. A Polish study group should not exist without this video: https://youtu.be/t-fcrn1Edik

Alina Kuimova wrote:

Theodisce wrote:You don't need to study. With your C level Russian, I believe it would be sufficient for you just to listen to Polish content for several hundred hours .

That's funny I'm a native Russian speaker, and I can honestly say that there's a lot in common between the two languages. However, even though I can understand some Polish both written and spoken, it's not enough to start speaking and make yourself understood.
Good thing is that even if you say something in Russian, Poles will understand you the same way it would be a nice bilingual dialog.

P.S. A Polish study group should not exist without this video: https://youtu.be/t-fcrn1Edik

I absolutely agree that speaking comes later. That's why I mentioned several hundred hours. However, I have to admit that my first 100 hours of listening to Russian were quite demanding. Later on things started to make more sense and in 2014 I ended up binge-listening to lectures in Russian to the point that the language became a serious menace to my study of German .

And thanks for sharing the video!

Theodisce wrote:

Alina Kuimova wrote:

Theodisce wrote:You don't need to study. With your C level Russian, I believe it would be sufficient for you just to listen to Polish content for several hundred hours .

That's funny I'm a native Russian speaker, and I can honestly say that there's a lot in common between the two languages. However, even though I can understand some Polish both written and spoken, it's not enough to start speaking and make yourself understood.
Good thing is that even if you say something in Russian, Poles will understand you the same way it would be a nice bilingual dialog.

P.S. A Polish study group should not exist without this video: https://youtu.be/t-fcrn1Edik

I absolutely agree that speaking comes later. That's why I mentioned several hundred hours. However, I have to admit that my first 100 hours of listening to Russian were quite demanding. Later on things started to make more sense and in 2014 I ended up binge-listening to lectures in Russian to the point that the language became a serious menace to my study of German .

And thanks for sharing the video!

Binge-listening to Russian lectures, wow, that's a nice approach! I do the same thing with French these days
However, I can imagine how hard it can be to adjust to something like Russian or Polish with their 6 and 7 cases, 3 declensions, subject drops and a free word order

reineke wrote:

Theodisce wrote:You don't need to study. With your C level Russian, I believe it would be sufficient for you just to listen to Polish content for several hundred hours .

0 hours
Audiobook (US pulp)
Incomprehensible. I can recognize the occasional word. I sort of feel like dropping the idea.
Audiobook, (HC Andersen)
I can understand some mini scenes and narrative kernels. Very motivating.

Prior exposure: a couple of hours of TV watching in the 1990s.

I can now follow Norman Davies' Europa walczy 1939-1945, Ja Klaudiusz, Niebezpieczne związki, Clavell's Shogun and some other audiobooks. I still occasionally feel like dropping this.

reineke wrote:

reineke wrote:

Theodisce wrote:You don't need to study. With your C level Russian, I believe it would be sufficient for you just to listen to Polish content for several hundred hours .

0 hours
Audiobook (US pulp)
Incomprehensible. I can recognize the occasional word. I sort of feel like dropping the idea.
Audiobook, (HC Andersen)
I can understand some mini scenes and narrative kernels. Very motivating.

Prior exposure: a couple of hours of TV watching in the 1990s.

I can now follow Norman Davies' Europa walczy 1939-1945, Ja Klaudiusz, Niebezpieczne związki, Clavell's Shogun and some other audiobooks. I still occasionally feel like dropping this.

Thanks for this update! Have you been keeping track of your hours with Polish? There is a nice audio version of Norman Davies' Boże Igrzysko (and curiously enough an Ukrainian one of his "Europe. A History").


BTW, https://audioteka.com/pl/?_rd is a good place to buy audiobooks.

The Polish resources thread is a good place to learn about Polish audiobooks.
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... de001c96a4

I don't know how much time I spent on this. Time stretches, you see. I am also not in top language learning shape. I doubt it was more than 200 "good" hours. I have also been listening to Serce Europy and Zaginione królestwa. There's still plenty of words and sentences I don't understand but I can also understand long passages down to a fine level of detail. There's a huge difference between "before" and "after". I have spent only about 10 minutes on the written language.

The average sentence length of James Clavell's Shogun is 9.8 words. It's a good second book.

reineke wrote:I can now follow Norman Davies' Europa walczy 1939-1945

Be careful with the translation in this book. A person who did it had not much idea about the military. N. Davies wrote there about Hans-Ulrich Rudel who sank with his Ju-87 "70 landing crafts" which was translated to "70 lotniskowców" (aircraft carriers). Here: http://www.historycy.org/index.php?showtopic=48534 is a discussion on Polish history forum about the book and its translation. Here: https://www.dws.org.pl/viewtopic.php?f= ... 5#p1526976 is a more professional discussion about the Author's thesis on the Polish forum about II world war history.

cjareck wrote:

reineke wrote:I can now follow Norman Davies' Europa walczy 1939-1945

Be careful with the translation in this book. A person who did it had not much idea about the military. N. Davies wrote there about Hans-Ulrich Rudel who sank with his Ju-87 "70 landing crafts" which was translated to "70 lotniskowców" (aircraft carriers). Here: http://www.historycy.org/index.php?showtopic=48534 is a discussion on Polish history forum about the book and its translation. Here: https://www.dws.org.pl/viewtopic.php?f= ... 5#p1526976 is a more professional discussion about the Author's thesis on the Polish forum about II world war history.

Thanks! Unfortunately my audiobook is based on the faulty translation. I'm afraid I'll have to stick with it because I insist on listening exclusively to audio in the beginning. Also, I enjoy the subject matter.