Making it all child's play
It's true. I am one of the survivors who slogged through the valley of death that is learning the Polish language and lived to tell the tale
Navigating the maze of gender-determined conjugations, understanding the additional layer of aspect on top of tense and juggling seven different declinations - all without the help of an 'a' or a 'the' - was a mind-melting task for a novice like me four years ago. Finally, in order to survive, I was forced to revert to my childhood, and learned why kids have an easier time absorbing the rules of Polish participles than my disciplined self. The key I found is to make study time, play time.
Your mother told you to stay away from the boob-tube, but your Polish teacher might not. The first key to conversing in Polish is understanding what others are saying, but as a beginner I was banging my head against the wall with my inability to decipher the cacophony coming out of people's mouths at warp nine. Television commercials, however, where they speak more slowly, are surprisingly clear. Advertisers want to make sure you get the message, even if you're a five-year-old - or speak Polish like one.
And what toddler would refuse his daily dose of cartoons? With simple plots and clearly depicted stories, there's no problem figuring out what's going on. If you have cable, Cartoon Network is a gold mine. All your favorite Flintstones or Jetsons episodes can be found there in Polish. You know you remember the Scooby Doo episode with the abominable snowman, so who needs a translator? W szczeniaku siła!
You can also apply that idea of simplicity to the books you're using to study. Take your 501 Polish Verbs and throw it out the window. I learned my Polish vocabulary from The Little Soldier, The Snowman and a Peter Pan picture book. Children's stories are simple and clear, and often use colloquial vocabulary that you won't find in your textbook. Usually the books come with cassettes, so you can practice your pronunciation too. Nobody's looking, so go ahead and sing along.
Any seasoned polyglot knows there's no chance of learning a language without a pile of flash cards to make the memory more supple. True, a child would probably have nothing to do with those infernal chunks of cardboard, but that doesn't mean you can't make a game out of it. I spiced up those boring vocab necessities with a peppering of more entertaining words, such as "midget" or "flip-flop". You'd be surprised how often these words can come in handy. What's this one? 'Zabawka seksualna' - how on Earth did that get in there? These are only tips of course, and even with them one can't learn a foreign language without making mistakes - and mistakes are funny. I remember once, when referring to the fair roundabout in the center of Warsaw, I uttered Rondo Organizacji Narodów Zjedzonych. Who could have been hungry enough to eat such an enormous entity I have no idea, but my friends sure got a kick out of it. So remember, you'll catch a chuckle here and there while you're fumbling with your future tense, but don't take it too seriously. If you keep learning Polish fun, passing through the valley of death unscathed is child's play.
Navigating the maze of gender-determined conjugations, understanding the additional layer of aspect on top of tense and juggling seven different declinations - all without the help of an 'a' or a 'the' - was a mind-melting task for a novice like me four years ago. Finally, in order to survive, I was forced to revert to my childhood, and learned why kids have an easier time absorbing the rules of Polish participles than my disciplined self. The key I found is to make study time, play time.
Your mother told you to stay away from the boob-tube, but your Polish teacher might not. The first key to conversing in Polish is understanding what others are saying, but as a beginner I was banging my head against the wall with my inability to decipher the cacophony coming out of people's mouths at warp nine. Television commercials, however, where they speak more slowly, are surprisingly clear. Advertisers want to make sure you get the message, even if you're a five-year-old - or speak Polish like one.
And what toddler would refuse his daily dose of cartoons? With simple plots and clearly depicted stories, there's no problem figuring out what's going on. If you have cable, Cartoon Network is a gold mine. All your favorite Flintstones or Jetsons episodes can be found there in Polish. You know you remember the Scooby Doo episode with the abominable snowman, so who needs a translator? W szczeniaku siła!
You can also apply that idea of simplicity to the books you're using to study. Take your 501 Polish Verbs and throw it out the window. I learned my Polish vocabulary from The Little Soldier, The Snowman and a Peter Pan picture book. Children's stories are simple and clear, and often use colloquial vocabulary that you won't find in your textbook. Usually the books come with cassettes, so you can practice your pronunciation too. Nobody's looking, so go ahead and sing along.
Any seasoned polyglot knows there's no chance of learning a language without a pile of flash cards to make the memory more supple. True, a child would probably have nothing to do with those infernal chunks of cardboard, but that doesn't mean you can't make a game out of it. I spiced up those boring vocab necessities with a peppering of more entertaining words, such as "midget" or "flip-flop". You'd be surprised how often these words can come in handy. What's this one? 'Zabawka seksualna' - how on Earth did that get in there? These are only tips of course, and even with them one can't learn a foreign language without making mistakes - and mistakes are funny. I remember once, when referring to the fair roundabout in the center of Warsaw, I uttered Rondo Organizacji Narodów Zjedzonych. Who could have been hungry enough to eat such an enormous entity I have no idea, but my friends sure got a kick out of it. So remember, you'll catch a chuckle here and there while you're fumbling with your future tense, but don't take it too seriously. If you keep learning Polish fun, passing through the valley of death unscathed is child's play.
