My Learning Polish Woes...

He's Welsh.

'He is so cool :) Isn't he?

Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence there, Juke! --:)

Marek what is your nationality?

I might ask the same. (he-he) Actually, I'm American by birth, German by lineage/extraction and Polish by association.

You look so much younger! I think I was 30 by the time I started learning. I too must be just getting started!

I'm now 48 (to be 49 on 11/1, i.e. 1.11--:)), and may still be said to be "getting started" with various aspects of Polish (no pun intended).

Frankly, don't know if I'd be any shining light in German either, if I hadn't practically grown up with all its myriad vagueries.

Make your mind up whether your birthday is the first of November or the eleventh of January.

Hey LC, I sympathize.

Polish is really tough.
I've been at it exactly 5 years now (My God!) and it wasn't until year 2 that I really began to find my way around it.

Try and listen to audio a lot, to get your ear in.
One big advantage is that once you can pronounce the words you will find that you can spell them. Polish is spelt exactly as it sounds.

You'll find loads of help here of course.
Persevere - Odwagi! = Courage!

Just accomodating to the European/Continental dating method, that's all-:)

I would agree with that. A great thing my teacher does is dictation. She reads aloud a passage in Polish and we write it down. It's difficult but it really helps with understanding. And it helps the other way too, as we know how to pronounce written words properly. Usually...

Yes, I do this with my teacher too.
Here is a good website if you want to practice this without a teacher (from chapter 13 onwards)...
goethe-verlag.com/book2/EN/ENPL/ENPL002.HTM - Goethe Verlag Book2

You can listen to the mp3s and try to transcribe them. You will need someone to check them for you though....

While I'd more than agree that dictations are an excellent form of ear training, writing, i.e. spelling and pronouciation in a language such as Polish, I wouldn't make the mistake in thinking that Polish is somehow a 'phonetic' language, meaning that it's pronounced as written. For instance, a foreign learner might easily write 'ród' as 'rut', based on certain spoken pronounciations. And then there are those consonant clusters. UGGH! How is the poor beginner supposed to know from listening, even in clear diction, that e.g. 'potrzebujesz' isn't written 'poczebujesz' etc.

Not always that transparent if the learner hasn't SEEN the word first.

You can be pretty sure about the pronunciation is your read it, but if you hear it there could be a few different ways of spelling. Some of this spelling becomes apparent when you hear different grammatical forms.


I thought that Americans have a year of 31ish months, each consisting of about 12 days.

You need to see the written word as associated with the spoken word of course. It works though.
The only letter I significantly don't hear properly is j which I would sometimes hear as y or maybe i.

I have problems with hearing all of the letters, but I usually get the number of syllables right. That is until I've heard it a few times. Lipreading helps. Maybe I'm going deaf, or maybe so much of what you hear being spoken is either anticipated by the brain or filled in by the brain rather than clearly heard.

It's not always easy to differenciate between voiced and unvoiced sounds, affricates and fricatives and so on. I don't think it's just a problem with learning a different language that does have different sounds. I have the same problem with unfamiliar names of plants and their associated pests and diseases. If someone says Chimonobambusa tumidissinoda to you for the first time, you might need them to repeat it a couple of times before you get it.

Or write it down!
Climacium Dendroides (my favourite moss, one that rather resembles a tiny pine tree) is one I remembered early on using a mnemonic. Can't really apply that to Polish though.

Of course when Poles speak fast...., I find it very difficult to keep up ;)
But we're getting there.

I have this kind of a woe, and I cannot remember how to fix it =(

I have been on here so seldom that I have forgot my password again =((((((((

So I cannot make new posts ;(

KURWA MAĆ londonchick

deja vu..............i think thats how you spell it ( im better at polish ) :)) hehe

cześć and sześć.................

you are just like me when i started learning polish

some polish people started in my work and i started asking then translations...dzień dobry etc hi>szesc......1(jeden) 2(dwa) 3(trzy) 4 cztery 5 piec AND 6 SZEŚĆ....AND i thought to myself wow....and there the problems started lol and i still have

along with all the other problems i have encounterd learning polish-theres millions of them.................millions...........

for example i am just back from krakow and i bought something from the airport(krakow) bottle of coke and i listened to the price the girl told me :" cztery zloty".......i had to say to her jeszcze raz (one more time).....and second time i understood that she said 4....but still very very difficult

tip one NEVER GIVE UP (you will always improve )
tip 2 PRACTISE makes perfect
tip3 repetition is the master
good luck
one last thing get a polish b/f would help immensely

GOOD LUCK

It pisses me off when ppl come on here and use words like this in a language they know nothing of. PLG, you obviously have just picked upm this work and think its ok to use it but what if a Pole came on here and said

****

Please dont use words like that when you dont know the full extent of their meaning.

Flipping heck!

Actually they do...but I agree I think this kind of language anyplace is stupid and makes you sound like an idiot.

I swear in English as it is my native language (welsh too) but I dont think I could swear in Polish until i could truly feel the extent of the word. I hear poles saying F*** all the time and it makes me angry that they use thi$s when they refuse to use K****

Plg, I know you've been learning Polish for some time now, and you have been contributing to PF for quite a while too, but it would do you well to pay a little more attention to a few things.

For one thing, we hear Poles swearing quite a lot, but don't people of most nationalities swear quite a lot, but not necessarily in such a context.

Another thing, LondonChick has been around here for a while, and she has only recently decided to start learning Polish. She decided to start learning, at least in part (you could ask her) beause she does have a Polish boyfriend.

Does she? I was under the impression she was married (not to a Polish guy) but had taken her love from Poland from a visit(s) a while back.

But please, let's not let this thread descend into a rabble about swearing in either language but let's continue to encourage LondonChick in her learning of a beautiful language.

I want to support her. Polish is beautiful.

I might be wrong. That is always a possibility.

I take Welshguy's point! Only when you truly know a language, inside out, backwards and forwards, should vulgar slang, or in fact, slang of any sort, be employed. Incidentally, I really never realized that I KNEW Polish, not merely could mouth a few phrases in it, when I swore angrily at a bus driver who splattered me with mud while I was walking. It just came out of me: DUPA!!!!, I yelled. Later on though, I found out that this was tame by comparison with actual gutter curses. Still, I felt a lot better being able to get something unpleasant off my chest in a foreign language.

Only when you can get angry in a language, can you be said to really speak it--:)

You guys should keep that filth to yourselves ;)

But seriously, that's what Polish kids go through in school to practice and test the spelling skills. At least when I was there. The Polish term for this is dyktando.

Still, I think the key aspect of every language is the active part. That means talk, talk, and talk some more. Repeat what you hear whenever you can. Write down what you hear as an exercise. The active part also greatly accellerates the passive knowledge of a language skill.

Me too! Don't worry! I feel the same but you just have to stick at it!


for me its CH = cz - vs. - SH =sz therfore they dont sound the same to me...I never even noticed the similarity until you mentioned it.


Thats interesting...is it true?

:>

.....yes, it is, actually. Why? English learners in other countries typically take English language instruction for granted, particularly in say, Scandinavia and/the Netherlands. Foreigners, especially Americans and even Brits learning, f.ex. Polish, Swedish, German, what have you, are brought up to believe they 'don't really ever need to know a language other than Englih fluently!'. As a result, we oddities among them who DO see the need are the exception, not the rule. Consequently, we'll usually make a more concerted effort at learning a foreign language at the highest level possible. Again, we take it more seriously, plus, it's often an elective class in highschool, so it becomes more of a pleasure than an obligation.

Can an EU member say, 'Gee, I hate English. I'll opt out!'?? No chance!

Ok London Chick, you should try the Pimsleur course, it worked for me. There are 2 Pimsleur Polish courses available, pimsleur polish I and pimsleur polish II. Pimsleur I is readily available on the internet through torrents but the Pimsleur 2 is hard to find and I ended up buying it, but it was worth every penny. I sold it to a frien otherwise I would make mp3s of it and send it to u.

As z_dariusz, the best metheod to learn is constant repetition and Pimsleur takes care of this for you

Hope this helped

Me too-:) I've heard better things about Pimsleur than Berlitz, for instance. To be honest though, I don't trust either.