Posts by Dysydent Miodek

Dysydent Miodek

23 Dec 2010

Language / Declensions, prepositions and pronouns [16]

Hello all. I'm new here and I've been learning Polish on and off for a while now but I don't enjoy exposure to the language as often as I'd like to. I am also struggling to garner and process any useful information about finer grammatical points. I have some good books aimed specifically at grammar and I feel that my progress with verbs is not quite as dire as my attempts at tackling cases and declensions.

My efforts are varied and relatively frequent but lack any formal structure. Beyond reading my favourite Polish song lyrics on tekstowo.pl et al and listening to antyradio.pl I will occassionally force myself to read newspapers and magazines - but this quickly becomes a dull chore when I find that I understand too little of what I'm reading for the material to hold my attention.

I am posting this in the hope that some helpful PF members will provide links to any good sties they are aware of which help English speakers to master declension properly (with instructions, explanations and examples etc provided in English). I'm also eager to know whether anybody could recommend some good sites for listing all known Polish pronouns and prepositions. Hopefully any feedback from this will enable me to speak Polish more expressively and coherently.

Dzięks,

Miodek

Dysydent Miodek

27 Jan 2011

Travel / Polish Dropzones (licensed skydiver intends to travel to Brzeg in Śląsk) [7]

I am a licensed skydiver who intends to travel to Brzeg in Śląsk. I will be visiting my partner's family but I would very much like to try out any local drop zones as I've never skydived outside of the UK before. Can anyone suggest any that are within a short ride of Brzeg, please?

Dysydent Miodek

29 Jan 2011

Travel / Polish Dropzones (licensed skydiver intends to travel to Brzeg in Śląsk) [7]

Dziękuję bardzo! To jest doskanały. It's much closer than I'd dared hope to find one too. The route looks a little awkward as I have to either make a few detours to stick to the main roads or memorise lots of little country lanes. But that's really helpful, thanks.

Do you know whether they do kit hire? Failing that, do you know if there are any kit suppliers based in Poland? I'm just wondering whether a rig purchased abroad may save me some money as they're jolly well expensive over here.

As for the weather: I'll be riding over anyway so for obvious safety/comfort reasons and financial reasons I'll not be heading over until the weather's a little better anyway.

Dysydent Miodek

29 Jan 2011

Travel / Polish Dropzones (licensed skydiver intends to travel to Brzeg in Śląsk) [7]

13k feet is more than our frugal DZO usually lets us have. At £17.38 on the current exchange rate that sounds like it's still a pretty good discount before kit hire. Thanks for all your help. I'll speak to them ASAP and get an idea of how much to take for jump tickets and (possible) kit hire.

Dysydent Miodek

21 Mar 2011

Life / Wiosna - Marzanna ceremony? [7]

Can anybody remind me of the Polish name for the first day of spring please? I know that there's an informal tradition amongst children in Poland to play truant on this day but that's all I know so cultural background is also welcome information. Dzieks.

Dysydent Miodek

21 Mar 2011

Life / Wiosna - Marzanna ceremony? [7]

Thanks guys. I was actually thinking of "Dzień Wagarowicza" but I appreciate the additional input.

Dysydent Miodek

13 Jun 2011

Work / The level of English of Polish teachers of English. What do you think of it? [101]

I have one pet peeve with my partner's former English teachers: they taught her too many American terms and expressions. She often refers to tomatoes as "tomAYtoes" and to lifts as "elevators" etc. It can be very frustrating at times but, other than that, her accent is barely noticeable, her range of vocabulary is magnificent, her spelling is very near perfect and her grammar only ever fails in the smallest ways.

Other than that, Id like to add that I find it very hard to learn Polish due to lack of exposure to it and imagine that it's the same for Poles learning English without holding regular enough conversations with English speakers. I'm sure that this applies to all languages and a wonderful example of native speakers being the best source for picking up a language was recently highlighted on a Michael Palin documentary in an interview with a British ex-pat in the Polish fire brigade. He said that he learned Polish mainly (if not exclusively) by sitting down for a drink with Polish friends as often as possible.