Useless Polish

(Edit: sorry this ended up really long!)

So, I have to be honest, my start with Polish was pretty rocky. The point where I started to actually get somewhere with it was when I bought the Teach Yourself Get Started In Polish book and cd (I recommend a cd when starting Polish but you won’t always need one). It keeps a good pace throughout the book and it doesn’t get very grammar heavy (which if you’re like me, is good when starting Polish). I will note that I think the book overestimates what level you will finish at; it claims B1 (CEFR scale) but I would say it’s more of an A2.

Then I found Colloqial Polish in a charity shop and after the first few chapters it got waaay to grammar heavy for me, and I didn’t like the lack of actual English translation (Teach Yourself had an English translation all the way through, but after a few chapters Colloqial Polish switched to giving vocab that was in the text), so but that on a back burner.

Then I joined lang-8 to start working on actually formulating some Polish (I’d been learning Polish for several months and basically never written or spoken my own sentences which was not too great). Which, if you’ve never used it, you should not be scared of! Everyone there was really nice and gave me thoughtful answers if I didn’t understand one of the corrections.

Then I found a Polish person! We worked at the same place and I went almost every day to his office for a half-Polish half-English chat (the few months I was there I took up so much of his time I genuinely wonder how he even kept his job). I tried to keep it all Polish but I knew very little and kept switching to English out of frustration. Though I always went home and looked up words that I remembered wanting to use, and practised imaginary conversations with him with this new vocab. It was around this time that I realised my grammar was sorely lacking and took another look at Colloqial Polish. It was so much more helpful now that I actually wanted to learn more grammar and had a bit more vocab. I also started reading Harry Potter in Polish to get a bit more vocab. And memrise courses!

Then came Poland. I went to Poland for two months (I would have stayed longer but I had exams) and spoke nothing but Polish. I got quite frustrated, not because I didn’t have the words I wanted (though at the beginning I often didn’t), but because I was staying with family and the two adults there basically only spoke to me in English. I kept quiet on how much it irritated me but it really did. Especially since I didn’t feel comfortable just saying ‘in Polish!’ like I used to do with my work colleague when we were speaking too much English. Anyway, I went to a Polish course there as well (IKO) and by the end of my stay I was apparently at a B2 level according to them. Phew.

So, language blogs:

Polish learners/speakers:

speutschlish 

learning-polish (native)

uselesspolish (native?)

wordfully (native)

languageowl (native)

dependsoncontext (native)

I’m sure I’ll have missed some out…

general:

lavidapoliglota

linguisticsyall

speutschlish

laperiphrase

jaimetalangue

languagesarerad

ikealanterns

languageloser

I like loads of other blogs obviously but I don’t have time to write them all out! 

So Polish resources are pretty rare tbh, and mostly only for beginners. But here are a few:

ba ba dum (vocab only but I like it)

babbel

livemocha

digital dialects

ipolish

polishpod101 (they have a podcast and can email you a word of the day)

this list

and this one (smaller)

blue bottle fly (Calliphora vomitoria)

(via useless-slovenian)

Polish: mucha plujka

Dżdżystym rankiem gżegżółki i piegże, zamiast wziąć się za dżdżownice, nażarły się na czczo miąższu rzeżuchy i rzędem rzygały do rozżarzonej brytfanny a w wysuszonych, sczerniałych trzcinowych szuwarach sześcionogi szczwany trzmiel bezczelnie szeleścił w szczawiu trzymając w szczękach strzęp szczypiorku i często trzepocząc skrzydłami.

BUT WE ALSO KNOW THAT A SIGNIFICANT PART OF TUMBLR USERS ARE NOT NATIVE SPEAKERS

Here’s the deal: my first language is Italian. I know plenty of people on this website whose first language is Italian. Nevertheless, when we’re interacting with each other on Tumblr, we speak English.

I am not objecting to this system, it’s actually good practice for some people, to be able to speak a second language extensively.

BUT I HAVE A PROPOSITION FOR YOU.

Why not have a “Speak Your Own Language Day” where all of us exclusively speak in our native language?

I’m proposing Wednesday 7th May, so the post has a chance to do a couple more laps and more people get a chance to participate (French Friday sounded hilarious, but I don’t wanna wait until next friday and this friday seems a bit too soon).

How it’ll work:

If you’re native language is something other than English, speak that!

If you have multiple languages you can pick from the choice is yous friend, speak all, speak one, whatever’s best for you

You’ll blog in your language all day: text posts, replies, tags (except triggers and organizational tags), the whole nine yards. Regardless of what language people choose to speak to you, you answer in your own.

Midnight to midnight according to your own time zone

English native speakers, if you wanna participate maybe you could practice a second language you’re learning

If anyone makes fun of anyone else for their language (and I’m including English native speakers that might choose to speak a second language on the day) I’m gonna come for you (◕‿◕✿)