Polish Paralysis wrote:So I'm already fed up with the idea of learning Polish grammar using the traditional approach of chanting declensions. It simply doesn't work for me.
Recently, I have realised that my listening skills are pretty good. I can now capture about 70-80 percent of the message in podcasts where the hosts talk about themes where I have a fair amount of the necessary vocabulary (especially politics and psychology). I have been listening to two new podcasts recently, namely Politico and Psycholog Pisze, without the use of transcripts. As much as I am enjoying my current activities, I don't feel like I am benefiting from them in the way that I used to. I hear a lot of familiar words and those words that I don't understand I usually gather from context. Therein lies the issue. The fact that context allows me to understand what is happening means I simply never quite get a handle on the words themselves. From a natural acquisition perspective, I guess this is fine. But I think things could be made to be more efficient.
Another issue is that I struggle to pick up the grammar patterns of Polish in rapid speech. To put things in perspective: I have a tutor who talks extremely slowly. I irritates me no end because I feel like she doesn't appreciate the fact that I am capable of understanding fairly rapid Polish. I have felt like saying "speed it up" a few times but I have always stopped myself, realising I actually end up learning more by being able to hear the ending of each word.
With these issues taken into consideration, I am about to start a new phase in Polish learning. Reading. I plan on reading a book I saw recommended by Steve Kaufman called "Czerwony Alert". I plan on using an L-R approach (with the help of Readlang), although not with the time periods that are prescribed. I'm thinking of reading 3-5 pages a day at the start and hopefully moving on to doing more when I feel more comfortable with the content. I will let you know how it's going soon.
I can relate to this somewhat regarding the drills. Although I personally found it it incredibly useful to drill cases in Polish for my own sanity. I wouldn't normally like this approach but I came to the conclusion that the more "foreign" a language's grammar structure is, the more I need to focus on it. Using the old Teach Yourself Polish I drilled the entire case system focusing only on neuter nouns, as prescribed by the book. I started progressing beyond this in the book but lost my way (with the book and Polish overall) as I was using it as my only resource and it is very dry and I got very bored and frustrated at a lack of progression with conversational skills. I am picking it back up now though alongside other methods and resources. I have found value in doing this as while I am not highly proficient in this area, conceptually I understand it fairly well and it means I have to an extent subconsciously picked up declensions of masculine and feminine nouns without active study. Certain things have also started to "sound right" to my ear when listening or talking and it's become less of a conscious thought pattern. Just my own experience but I do believe it can be a valuable strategy.
I can share my method for doing this but it essentially focus on translating sentences from English into Polish that focus on a particular case. So one chapter would focus on genitive plural of neuter nouns and I'd translate about 50-60 sentences and make sure I had the correct pronoun and adjective agreement as well as noun ending. As the chapters progress there is a bit more of a mix.
I'd be very interested to know what you think of the book, are you using the corresponding audiobook?