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...