My language journey. Polish. July. 2016

Scratch everything I said before the referendum. My focus is now only on European languages.

One of the enlightening consequences of writing a monthly update on my language journey is that I realise how much I dither, how little time I spend, and how little progress I make as a result.

I suppose that this is in part a natural consequence of playing at something as a hobby, and I am slightly hesitant to set out my next plan. But hey, the brexit campaigners didn't even have an exit plan from the EU, so does it matter if I chop and change slightly;)

Obvious as it seems, having a stated and written aim has been very helpful. And I'm just learning a language, not trying to leave the EU. Sigh.

But before outlining this months aim, let me tell you what happened with my last months Afrikaans objective.

My aim was to learn 1000 words of Afrikaans using memrise, and read the first quarter of Kobrain Afrikaans.

I read the first quarter of the book, more or less getting the gist (but no more) so that was a success.

I learnt a few hundred words with memrise and stopped, as it didn't seem to be helping me very much. I'll give memries another go with Polish. See below. So while I wasn't technically successfull with this part of the monthly goal, I don't think it could actually be branded a failure either. I'll give myself a weak pat on the back.

Looking forward ...

Well, I think we all need to learn more european languages so we can explain to our european friends why we are leaving them:(

And so onto ...

Polish

Polish is unfinished business for me. I've spent a lot of time and not achieved very much, but the language doesn't seem unfamiliar.

My biggest difficuly has (up until now) been comprehension which leads onto my aim for July.

Aim for July

Two years ago or thereabouts I bought 100 Daily Polish Stories for beginners from Mr Real Polish. At the time these were too difficult for me.

These consist of 100 (duh!) stories, followed by questions and answers based on the stories. They use simple language and are clearly spoken.

The idea behind them is that through listening to the stories, followed by questions and answers you will assimilate Polish grammar.

I think that makes a lot of sense, but before starting it is necessary to know something of how the Polish language hangs together, or have some background knowledge of the grammar. If you don't, it is very difficult to recognise patterns, and understand what it is you are looking at.

Two years ago I lacked sufficient knowledge to use these effectively, as there were too many gaps in my knowledge. I'm hoping that now, these will make more sense. I've not actually looked at Polish at all during this time, but somehow during this absence my brain has formed some new neural connections and it seems to make (marginally) more sense than before.

This month I aim to finish listening to these 100 stories, and aim to understand around 90 percent.

I'm going to try memrise again with Polish.

Pax,

Moonface. May. 2016