Polski

With the journ department pushing us all to do something we’ve never done before, I thought it best to do something really constructive! One hour doing something you normally wouldn’t do, was the task. It seemed trivial to me at first, almost immature, as thought the department was being lazy and couldn’t think up anything interesting for us to do, but it all makes perfect sense to me now.

I chose to learn a foreign language for an hour! Being a language lover and a linguistics student, a new language is always attractive to me. So I got myself onto the internet and I found a lovely little site called http://www.apronus.com/polishlessons/lekcja01.htm . Here I found ten free polish lessons, and after having to quickly look up how to pronounce the different characters, I was well on my way.

Before beginning my task I felt excited and eager. As a language enthusiast I was only happy to embrace a new one. I had just finished reading The Pianist and so my knowledge of Warsaw during the Second World War and of Polish culture was at an all time high. With high spirits and an open mind I sat myself down and started studying.

Fifteen minutes in I began to struggle. Not only was it getting hard to concentrate but I was beginning to realise how important it is to have someone with you who can ACTUALLY speak the language. I kept it going for an hour, but by the end of the experience I had realised that learning a new language is not something you can do on a whim. You need the help of an institution or an actual teacher.

The one valuable phrase I did learn was “Czy pijesz teraz mleko?” – Are you drinking milk now?