As of this week, I have lived 18 months in Poland. My last language class was three months ago. I still don't speak Polish.
As I have written before, it is very easy to not learn Polish when you live in Warsaw. As I have also written before, Polish is notoriously difficult to learn (even for Poles). The combination of both those factors makes it challenging to get motivated to study, and when I attend a class I always have a headache by the end (and I get tired when I do homework or do self-study).
By the end of my last language class, I was feeling somewhat overwhelmed and each new exception to the exception to the grammatical rules made me laugh out of frustration. I thought I bombed the exam at the end of the third course but was pleased to learn that I actually did pretty well. Despite the overflow my brain was feeling, I considered continuing immediately into the fourth course (because I knew I would not be able to take classes in the fall and was afraid that a long gap without classes would cause me to lose any knowledge I had built up). But then two things happened that turned out to be very good.
Firstly, the school determined that the class I wanted would not be offered during the summer. The school I have been going to will only have a course if a minimum of five students sign up. There were nine of us in course three and only two of us were willing to study in the summer - so the decision was taken out of my hands.
Secondly, my teacher recommended some books for self-study and one turned out to be perfect for the way I learn. The book illustrates that there are actually logical patterns underlying the exceptions to the exceptions to the exceptions. I understand better the dozens of ways to say "to go" and how the words are formed. I have not yet seen any logic as to why past tense is different for men and women, or why plurals are differently constructed for 2-4 of something than for any other numbers, at least the language seems to be consistent in that regard and there are rules you can follow (provided you memorize them).
One net result has been that I am studying less, although I am still studying. My current technique is a mixture of approaches: I try to do an hour of self-study per day, reading through that grammar book a second time now, or watching Polish television or skimming a newspaper while also mentally translating all of the signage I see on the street.
A second net result, oddly enough, is that I seem to be understanding more despite studying less. Similar to when I was learning Armenian, things started to seep in when I stopped pushing myself so hard. If I eavesdrop, I still can't fully follow a conversation but more words are getting through now. If I skim a newspaper, bits and pieces break though. When I watch a movie in English and look at the Polish subtitles, I am starting to identify when translations are not literal, and sometimes understanding why they aren't. When I go to a restaurant, my Polish is still met with English responses, but when I persist in replying in Polish I make some headway and it becomes a mixed conversation. I now know enough to realize when I have made a grammatical mistake even when nobody points it out to me.
My biggest problems are still (1) listening comprehension and (2) vocabulary. The first is getting somewhat better as I understand the rules more and my ear gets more attuned to the Polish sounds. The second just requires me to knuckle down and do some regular repetition study - or try using words in real life. I confess that I have not done much of either but that is the next step after my second spin through my grammar book.
=================================
In addition to honing my learning techniques, I also paid a visit recently to the future of the past (or maybe it is the past of the future).
The Palace of Science and Culture was given that name for a reason. Beside housing a movie theater, three live theaters and a concert hall, the building also has the Museum of Technology and Industry. At the time it opened (1955) I am sure it was intended to showcase the wonders of science that the good Communist people were producing. The collection there has been broadened somewhat, but the setting doesn't seem to have changed.
The museum has sections devoted to transportation - with two halls of motorcycles (most Polish made), and another with cars and some life-size models of early aviation - as well as mining and metallurgy, computers, space exploration and music (phonographs, jukeboxes, etc).
The place is pretty run down and it seems that some of the employees have been there since opening day. Regardless, it is an interesting opportunity to see how the idea of "new and exciting" changes constantly.
The most popular exhibit the day I went was about video games. Along with their collection of seemingly every generation of computers there were video games for each system and they were available to be played. Adults were reliving their youth or showing their kids what technology was in the age before smartphones.
I suppose that the museum doesn't draw too much of a crowd since the state-of-the-art Copernicus Science Center opened a few years ago. But it seems to me (seeing as places like this put one into a mindset of thinking about the future) that the Copernicus Center could one day seem as quaint as the Muzeum Technniki looks now. As a colleague of mine told me, he used to have his parents take him there all the time when he was a kid but he hasn't been in many years (his kids want to go to the Copernicus Center all of the time). Perhaps what I saw at the Technical Museum was not only the presentation of what used to be the future, but also the future of what is now the view of the future.
Now I am getting so deep that my head is hurting the same way it does after my language classes....
As I have written before, it is very easy to not learn Polish when you live in Warsaw. As I have also written before, Polish is notoriously difficult to learn (even for Poles). The combination of both those factors makes it challenging to get motivated to study, and when I attend a class I always have a headache by the end (and I get tired when I do homework or do self-study).
By the end of my last language class, I was feeling somewhat overwhelmed and each new exception to the exception to the grammatical rules made me laugh out of frustration. I thought I bombed the exam at the end of the third course but was pleased to learn that I actually did pretty well. Despite the overflow my brain was feeling, I considered continuing immediately into the fourth course (because I knew I would not be able to take classes in the fall and was afraid that a long gap without classes would cause me to lose any knowledge I had built up). But then two things happened that turned out to be very good.
Firstly, the school determined that the class I wanted would not be offered during the summer. The school I have been going to will only have a course if a minimum of five students sign up. There were nine of us in course three and only two of us were willing to study in the summer - so the decision was taken out of my hands.
Secondly, my teacher recommended some books for self-study and one turned out to be perfect for the way I learn. The book illustrates that there are actually logical patterns underlying the exceptions to the exceptions to the exceptions. I understand better the dozens of ways to say "to go" and how the words are formed. I have not yet seen any logic as to why past tense is different for men and women, or why plurals are differently constructed for 2-4 of something than for any other numbers, at least the language seems to be consistent in that regard and there are rules you can follow (provided you memorize them).
One net result has been that I am studying less, although I am still studying. My current technique is a mixture of approaches: I try to do an hour of self-study per day, reading through that grammar book a second time now, or watching Polish television or skimming a newspaper while also mentally translating all of the signage I see on the street.
A second net result, oddly enough, is that I seem to be understanding more despite studying less. Similar to when I was learning Armenian, things started to seep in when I stopped pushing myself so hard. If I eavesdrop, I still can't fully follow a conversation but more words are getting through now. If I skim a newspaper, bits and pieces break though. When I watch a movie in English and look at the Polish subtitles, I am starting to identify when translations are not literal, and sometimes understanding why they aren't. When I go to a restaurant, my Polish is still met with English responses, but when I persist in replying in Polish I make some headway and it becomes a mixed conversation. I now know enough to realize when I have made a grammatical mistake even when nobody points it out to me.
My biggest problems are still (1) listening comprehension and (2) vocabulary. The first is getting somewhat better as I understand the rules more and my ear gets more attuned to the Polish sounds. The second just requires me to knuckle down and do some regular repetition study - or try using words in real life. I confess that I have not done much of either but that is the next step after my second spin through my grammar book.
=================================
In addition to honing my learning techniques, I also paid a visit recently to the future of the past (or maybe it is the past of the future).
The Palace of Science and Culture was given that name for a reason. Beside housing a movie theater, three live theaters and a concert hall, the building also has the Museum of Technology and Industry. At the time it opened (1955) I am sure it was intended to showcase the wonders of science that the good Communist people were producing. The collection there has been broadened somewhat, but the setting doesn't seem to have changed.
The museum has sections devoted to transportation - with two halls of motorcycles (most Polish made), and another with cars and some life-size models of early aviation - as well as mining and metallurgy, computers, space exploration and music (phonographs, jukeboxes, etc).
The place is pretty run down and it seems that some of the employees have been there since opening day. Regardless, it is an interesting opportunity to see how the idea of "new and exciting" changes constantly.
The most popular exhibit the day I went was about video games. Along with their collection of seemingly every generation of computers there were video games for each system and they were available to be played. Adults were reliving their youth or showing their kids what technology was in the age before smartphones.
I suppose that the museum doesn't draw too much of a crowd since the state-of-the-art Copernicus Science Center opened a few years ago. But it seems to me (seeing as places like this put one into a mindset of thinking about the future) that the Copernicus Center could one day seem as quaint as the Muzeum Technniki looks now. As a colleague of mine told me, he used to have his parents take him there all the time when he was a kid but he hasn't been in many years (his kids want to go to the Copernicus Center all of the time). Perhaps what I saw at the Technical Museum was not only the presentation of what used to be the future, but also the future of what is now the view of the future.
Now I am getting so deep that my head is hurting the same way it does after my language classes....
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