I realise that I haven't posted anything for a while however (3 months, but who is counting?) that doesn't mean I haven't been doing anything. In fact it's quite the contrary, I've been too busy to post. Well maybe it's a mixture of working too hard and being too lazy. I believe they call that an oxymoron.
So what have I been doing? Firstly, getting to grips with the language. For those of you who have tried to learn Polish, you will know it's quite a tricky language to say the least. I think it's important when you learn any language to study the basic grammar rules. There are people who say they learned a foreign language without ever attending a lesson and without ever looking at a text book, don't believe them. You can learn a lot from going to a country and immersing yourself in the language but you still need some structure, especially for grammar. Vocabulary and expressions you can learn from every day situations, watching TV, listening to music etc, but grammar needs to be taught to some degree. With this in mind I have been making more of a concerted effort to master some of the basic Polish grammar structures.
I have also been reading a bit, especially Polish literature [in English however :( ]. At the moment I'm reading a book by Ryszard Kapuściński. If you like non-fiction and in particular travel writing then Kapuściński is your man. As one of the only Polish journalists able to travel during the socialist times, his stories are unique to say the least. I can honestly say that reading him has encouraged me to re-start writing on this block.
Finally I have done a wee bit of travelling. I visited the famous salt mines of Wieliczka outside Krakow. I also went to Germany for the first time to visit Berlin. By the way it is true what they say about German effeciency. I am also planning to visit the Ukrainian city of Lwow which was once part of Poland, the Berwick of the East.
Spring time has arrived in Poland and it has brought good weather and inspiration so I'm sure this post won't be my last for another 3 months.
1 comment:
Jamie! how nice to read from you. You're right about grammar,studying it makes you improve faster, but i think you can learn a new language just by speaking and hearing it, at least to have an easy chat.
by the way, i loved the next post, its pretty funny in my opinion...now poland its a party country? should visit... ;-)
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