Polish language immersion, time, fluency

Hi Everyone.

1. this is my first post-- go me! Happy happy, joy joy.

Ahem, now...
Im a native speaker of English who is moving to Poland for two years. I have a background in Russian from my university degree, but only elementary level; been studying that about a year and a half (4 semesters). During my time in Poland, two years, what level of fluency should I aim to obtain? Is ability to read a newspaper speedily with little dictionary use too much? Easily understand a movie? Does anyone have any experience with language immersion in Polish, Id love to hear your experience.

My goal is before I leave (next year), to have familiarity with the grammatical mechanics (case endings, a use of common verbs), and maybe a vocabulary of around 500 words?

That was around the amount of words I knew in Russian after one semester, and there is some overlap so I don't think it should be too ambitious.

Thanks

I think you should be careful if you are looking on ‘overlapping’ words from Russian to Polish and the other way around; very often they sound the same but the meaning is completely different. In my opinion, when learning the language, vocabulary is the most important. Of course you must know the grammar as well, but good level of vocabulary allows to put your message through. Once you have a good collection of words in your vocabulary bank you can start working on grammar.

The level of fluency you will obtain depends on how you are going to learn the language for these two years. If you have a contact with language on daily basis and support that with e.g. online courses, you should not have too much trouble to read the newspaper or watch a movie.

there is this David Snopek who is American but spent a couple of years in Poland and learned Polish pretty well - you can view his video blog entries on youtube (dsnopek) - oh forgot it they are in Polish- but the videos will direct you to his languages related blog which is both in Polish and in English - he describes how he did manage to achieve the level of Polish he has

I know Brits who have been living in Poland for over a decade who are barely able to order something in a restaurant. I know people who after 5 years are communicative.

After two years you'll be able to engage in some small talk. Forget about Polish movies or newspapers, maybe after a decade.

Ridiculous.

I even had a row today with a woman in the post office in Polish - which was impressive.

Interestingly, I can't hold a conversation in a social context in Polish - everything is "functional". It's a bit ridiculous, but I find it difficult to talk about myself - only about situations and what's going on, what I need. It's probably related to where I'm using it most - work related reasons.

Ten years to read a newspaper? I'm sorry, but that must be hyperbole right? One year of Russian and I can read a newspaper with a dictionary in a reasonable amount of time. Writing, speaking, and other active uses of language of course take longer. But understanding and reading should come with less time, no?

I'm sure it should take much less than ten years. You have the experience in Russian whose alphabet is much more difficult to read through than the Latin alphabet applied in the Polish language.

500 words in 2 years? is this supposed to be a language immersion?

Russian alphabet is no Hebrew script or some chinese hashes - it is pretty straightforward and ortography is quite phonetic too like in Polish (except for those unaccented o's and g's in grammatical endings) - also Russian alphabet shares a couple of signs for the same sounds with Latin alphabet (A, O, T, M, K, in a way E) - if you know Greek alphabet a couple of Russian letters are identical or quite similar (pi, lambda,delta)


500 words from a university-run Russian course is not little if you consider how divergent Russian is from English - how many classes do you think she had a week - 10? i bet it was just 2 a week - which is definitely not an intensive teaching

Of course, I know that as I learned Russian at school for 12 years and I am able to read a Russian newspaper even without a dictionary. But still, I find the Latin alphabet easier to "absorb" into my mind than, for example, the Russian cyrilic. It must probably be the case of everyone used to the Latin alphabet.

the thing is Polish is significantly more irregular than Russian - it is because of phonetic developements of the language - just a little example: Russian: bieda, biedie (poverty in nominative and dative/locative) - Polish: bieda - biedzie (the same); another example: Russian: idti - idiot (to go - he goes) Polish: iść - idzie

yet another one: Russian: vyezti - vyezu (to carry on a vehicle - I carry on a vehicle) Polish - wieźć - wiozę (the same); yet another Russian: igra - igrye (a game nominative- dative/locative) Polish: gra - grze

add another case: Russian: ruka - rukie (a hand nominative - dative/locative) Polish: ręka - ręce

I only give situations where Polish and Russian words are similar - there are plenty of words that are completely different in Polish and in Russian

It is extremely hard to clearly say how many years the language immersion takes. It is different for every single person. Of course it is the best when you can use it on a daily basis, however at first it may come as a shock because native speakers will speak extremely quick and you might find it hard to understand. But the more you listen to the language, the more you will understand.

Sorry for there to be so much misunderstanding. My goal of 500 words was BEFORE I leave to live in Poland. I want to have a foundation before I leave. From that point, I would be in immersion setting, where I was wondering at what rate my proficiency would improve, and to what degree.

500 words +grammatical cases was about the amount I had after 1 course of Russian at university level (in America), classes five days a week for 15 weeks. I have since taken 5 courses.

Thanks for the direction to the youtube videos, those were interesting and helpful.

i would imagine this to be somewhat unusual? how on earth did these people cope with everyday life? queenside, if you are able to pick up languages easily ( and it sounds like you can ) then i think you would not have too much of a problem communicating at all. grammar is the hardest, but you will be mixing with polish people every day. a lot will depend on the effort you put into learning though. am sure you will be fine and best of luck :)