Polish Online

Are you serious, world? I've been living in Poland for four weeks, struggling my way through language classes because I couldn't find ways to learn Polish at home. Low-and-behold, there's this AMAZING Polish language resource online at UPitt's website. My roommate told me that I should go to the Pitt website (evidently their Polish-English dictionary is the best on the web).

While looking for books on Amazon (about the Polish language, of course), I came across a review for a book that said (basically), "Why buy this book? The up-to-date version is online. Along with a computer program you can use to do drills that will correct you."

It will be frustrating to do by myself, but at least I have another resource so I won't lose everything I'm learning here.

Post Offices and Postcards: On repeat experiences

I just did the math, and I've spent approximately 60 USD on buying and spending postcards since I've been in Poland. Sending a postcard to the US cost 3.2z. Sending one to England costs 3z. This most recent trip to the post office resulted in 28 mailed postcards. Meaning, if you don't get a postcard, I either don't care about you or it was lost in the mail. Whichever you'd prefer.

Anyway, before going, I wrote out my post office vocabulary for easy reference as I tend to freeze in real life situations. I'm not sure if it was that or the fact that it was a repeated experience (since the last time I was mailing postcards) that made it so successful.

I asked for 28 stamps, with my postcards in front of me.
She saw that they were postcards and asked if they were international.
I said yes.
She asked if they were going to Europe.
This is where I froze. I should've said. Nie. Dwiescie siedem USA. Jeden ... England (Angliki? Angleterre? Angsomethingortheother). Instead I froze. She grabbed my postcards and started going through them. Except I hadn't written "USA" on two. And two others still haven't been addressed. Another reason I should've spoken up at this point!
Alas, she finally gave me back the postcards (Priority, of course) and the required stamps (How come it's 20g more for across the Atlantic? International is international...)
Then, when she said the amount it costs... I understood her. And paid.
And it was awesome.

So, maybe it was the ability to look down at my cheat sheet when she said "international" and know what she was asking. Or maybe it was just knowing the process. (Perhaps this is why I progressively got better at ordering my large piwo w sokiem and my apple juice and vodka: repetition!)

Polish Mass and Music

One of the mainstays of my time in Poland is karaoke. As such, I'd love to learn some Polish music, but I have no idea what is popular, how to find lyrics, and how to translate them. Luckily, there's at least one site that has a few songs up. They aren't all currently popular (and they aren't all to my taste), but this site has a rough translation from Polish to English along with a short English biography of the singer and a youtube video of the song.

Maybe I'll learn this one for next week's karaoke.

Anyway, today I figured I'd better brave Mass, even though I still haven't memorized the Ojcze Nasz. It was fine, except I was largely confused. I'm having a real hard time finding parts of the Mass online in a Polish-English translation. Also, not everyone went to communion! My mother said that she believed that the Polish people take confession much more seriously than we do at home. So perhaps I was sitting in between the sinners...

It frustrated me a bit because I felt like I missed the important part of the Mass. However, the odd bumps that appeared on my hand while in Warsaw diminished while I was at Mass. Perhaps God was recognizing my attempt!

Journal Four: The Weekend after Krakow and Hitting the Proverbial Language Wall

Krakow was amazing and gorgeous. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to go this past weekend. Even though the heatwave is killing me.

Perhaps it was a combination of exhaustion and frustration with other people, but the beginning of this week, I hit my wall. I feel like I'm not learning enough. I'm frustrated by that. I'm tired. I'm not even wanting to go out and explore the city. I really need to push past this feeling. We were finally assigned real homework for the first time - talking about how family and their professions. I was happy about the opportunity to try out forming sentences by myself instead of the fill-in-the-blank sentence formation we do in our workbook. When it came down to time, though, I was just completely lost. We never learned the phrase for "stay-at-home-Dad" or "actuary."

I need to reorganize and define my language goals and find a way to meet them. I'm feeling like I have so much to do - being in class from 8 am to 8 pm with only a small gap in between for exploring the city, catching up on stuff for university at home, and doing homework. Then there are the optional events at night. Things just really add up. I've even stopped going out as much at night. I'm in a real language funk, and I can't figure out how exactly to get out of it.

Journal Three: Exploring Poland and the Language

This past weekend, we went to Kazimierz Dolny, a nearby artsy colony. Our weekends are so full with the fieldtrips of various kinds. We also had a walking tour of Lublin. The program doesn't leave you with much time to explore your own Polish skills.

I don't know exactly what I expected as far as language acquisition. From classes, I'm learning the "My name is..." "I'm from..." side of the language. However, I need to go out and learn more of the day-to-day interactions. Instead, I focus on the magic word of Polish "prosze" for my daily needs.

I've been good about getting lody, groceries, or stamps by myself. It's easy to cling to the people in the program with better Polish skills than I have - to make them come out with me. It's also easy to only converse in English - but if they were to converse in Polish, I would be completely lost... So I'm not sure what to make of that.

Language classes are getting harder. Especially as we're trying new cases. No longer are we just saying nominative, but we're adding in the instrumental. I'm frustrated at the limited quality of my language ability. Especially the lack of past tense...

Journal Two: End of the First Week

I'm still going strong with the "having fun times in Poland" and enjoying the cultural differences. I'm trying to go out and be independent. However, some of the things I'm doing are a bit harder. It's a bit difficult, and I run into language problems.

I had a failure today. I went out alone after lunch. I went to a couple bookstores, but I didn't know for sure what the books said. I think I want to pick up a children's book on Polish legends and fairytales. I then went to the tourism center. Which didn't have many brochures. You had to talk to the people for info, and I didn't really need anything. So, I bought my postcards quietly. Which was good because I broke a 50 and got more change. They're big on change here. The postcards were maybe 50-80gz, which is like 15-30 cents.

Anyway, I then found this open air market. I saw a stall that had perfumes that were name brand, and I thought maybe they'd have very cheap Yves Saint Laurent Opium. She asked me some question, and I said, "Nie Rozumiem" which translates to "I don't understand." So she repeated the question! But it didn't help, because I didn't mean that I didn't understand her question!

So, after that failure, I scampered away with my language tail between my legs. So, I braved an ice cream stand next. Where the exchange went as well as possible:

(In Polish)
Hello.
Hello.
I don't speak Polish.
Oh! Good.
Which type would you like?
Strawberry.
Ah. Strawberry.
How many scoops? One, two?
One.
That will be 2z. Thank you.
Thank you.

So, I think she said at some point that I was doing OK for not speaking Polish.

So, it was a success. I feel pretty good about that exchange.

Journal One: Arrival in Poland

My experience with culture shock began right away with a complete inability to contact "the outside world" since my departure on Saturday...

Today, I received a temporary password which will only allow me on the computers in the basement of the dorm (which you can only get into with a key you have to ask for at the front desk) and in the university (which are propped up to about the height of my belly button. Two of them are near ledges low enough to sit on and of course those are the most commonly used). I would've had a real password yesterday except for the fact that they miss-entered some of my information for the IT guys, resulting in no internet for me. No one in the dorm has quite figured out the connection, but I hear they'll give you the cords. I would've received one by now, but they give you one when you turn in your paper that has personal information about your computer (ipconfig sort of stuff). I cannot get this personal information about my computer because the fuses in our room blew. (At first I thought my computer cord had broken, until I tried my ipod in the kitchen and it began charging, but I didn't have time to fully charge it, so it's not even of entertainment use). I went to the fuse box, and it was locked.

The people in the entryway of my building don't speak English, so I have to ask for my room key in Polish. The rooms are very small. The pillows are 3x a normal pillow size. It takes about 20 minutes to get from the dorm to class.

Arriving in Warsaw, I heard a Rod Stewart cover on the plane, which made me miss my former roommate, a big Rod Stewart fan, and by proxy, America. The airport was fine, and the passport control didn't even ask me any questions!

The computers at the university. keeps correcting my spelling. It thinks I should type in a British manner.

Also, on the first day of class, the pronunciation chart they gave us for Polish used British pronunciation, so it was awful. There was a handout, thank goodness with American pronunciation.

Two women from Bolivia are in my class. I'm drawing on my 7th and 8th grade Spanish to communicate, but it's rough since I mostly just remember the Padre Nuestro.

The Europeans largely all speak French and English, so communication isn't impossible.

The dorm has no a/c and no screens on the window, so I opened up wide and just hoped the mosquitoes don't bite.

I must still be in the "I LOVE IT HERE" phase. Classes are awesome, but I wish there were more. I love it. I have class from 9-12:15. There's a lecture from 12:30-1:30 in English. Then there's lunch. Between lunch and 5 I'm free. Then I have a conversation class at 5, which is helpful for the hard words and a review session from the earlier class. Dinner's at 6:30. On Wednesdays they take us out to a Polish restaurant or show us how to make Polish food. Then we eat. Every other Monday is a Polish sing-a-long, starting two Mondays from now. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings they review the Polish news. They arrange field trips of museums around here and Polish movie nights.

The weather is good. It's been hot - maybe in the 80s. It rained the first night here and a bit yesterday, but when I was inside. Today it's nice and cool. It gets bright here at like 4 am, though. Very annoying for my sleep pattern.