Stara Praga

From a suggestion of one of my students, I decided to take a few pictures today during our walk in Old Praga and post them. I'll post a few with short explanations (yes, hopefully in Polish!) soon. Here a pre '89 milicja motorcycle. Photos taken in the Fabryka Wódek Koneser (vodka factory) on Ząbkowska. There is a small exhibition in an interior hall with antique vehicles of all sorts.

Są małe, kolorowe samochody. Czarne, żółte i kremowe.

The exhibition of antique cars was put on by the Muzeum Motoryzacje i Techniki, which we have not visited. We were impressed to find a black Volga lurking in the shadows . . .

Czarna wołga była złowroga . . . Weronika bała się!

I was about to write a detailed summary of our excursion in beautiful Polish, but Jarek woke up earlier than us this morning and posted a perfect summary in his comment below. Thanks Jarek!

Kiedy byłem mały

Kiedy byłem mały w Kanadzie 'Halloween' nie był ważny dzień. Normalnie, miałbym na sobie coś głupiego albo strasznego. Popularny kostiumy był: czarownica, strach na wróble, duch, i tym podobne. Jeden rok, (jednego roku – but I don't know why) miałem na sobie niebieską sukienkę, i szarą perukę babci. Też miałem ślicznego naszyjnik i wysokie obcasy. Nie pamiętam jaki kolor były. (jakiego koloru były – but I don't know why) Zawsze najlepszy w Halloween był cukierek. Wszystkie dzieci poszły w dzielnice i mówili 'trick or treat' do sąsiedzi i dali cukierek.

Koniec.

Plateau

I'm not working very hard at learning Polish these days. Morale in the Polish department is low. Basically I've realised that if I am to make real progress in this language that I need to spend much, much more time working on it. If I continue with my current approach I may speak decent Polish in a few years. Not good enough!

As things are, I spend only two or three hours a week doing Polish homework (including time posting here, as you can tell from my recent post frequency). I do about two hours of great conversation with my teacher each week. The conversations are great for my morale and my teacher helps me say all those things I'm dying to say in Polish. I usually go in feeling a little scared, wondering what tough questions she will ask me, and feeling embarrassed when I ask the same stupid question the 100th time. I leave each week feeling like if I just keep it up that I will get there . . . but I know once a week is not enough. It's no surprise - unless you speak the language you're trying to learn every day, you're not giving yourself the best chance to learn.

I know it may sound bizarre that I don't speak Polish every day, living here in Warsaw. But it's true. I listen to the radio in Polish every day and sometimes have a pretty good idea what they are talking about. Other times I really have no clue. Listening to family conversations on topics and stories with with I'm already familiar I can follow along relatively well. Really, I miss most of what I hear. In new situations with new people and unfamiliar topics, I understand basically nothing. It's pretty hard on the morale, having been here for so long and to still have such rudimentary skills.

This week I'll seek out another (additional, not different!) teacher so I can speed my progress some in the next months. In January I'll get back into a group course . . . I've heard good reports (and seen some real results) from a friend of mine in Warsaw who has made fantastic progress in a short time. He studies . . . !

More posts in Polish coming soon. I know that's what you come here for - I'll do my best to deliver something this week!

Basic Verbs of Motion II (Examples)

My recent foray into the blog world has caused me to be filled with admiration for you bloggers out there that are able to maintain their blogs with regularity. The thing that makes me glad is that, given my level of Polish, I am not going to run out of material worth writing about any time soon. The flip side is that, given my level, coming up with examples and explanations of this stuff is 1) exhausting and difficult, and 2) takes forever. I left off last post with a hint that I would post some examples using the basic verbs of motion I introduced last time. Here they are:

Iść: (to go on foot)

• Już idę do domu. (Now I am going home.) - on foot
• W piątek, idziemy na imprezę w centrum. (On Friday we are going to a party downtown.) In this case we are not strictly going on foot - we will probably take a tram, but we choose 'iść' because if we use jechać people will think we are traveling much further.

Chodzić: (to go on foot - regularly or frequently)

• Zawsze chodzę na lekcje wcześnie. (I always go to my classes early.)
• Rzadko chodzą do Włoskiej restauracji. (They rarely go to the Italian restaurant)

Jechać: (good for wheeled transport)

• Jadę do Gdańska na spotkanie w weekend. (I am going to Gdańsk on the weekend.)
• Jedziesz ze Stanisławem do Zakopanego na Święta? (Are you going with Stanisław to Zakopane for Chritsmas?)

Jeżdzi: (wheeled transport - regularly or frequently)

• Często jeżdzę do Sopotu z Piotrem, ale wolę jeżdzić z psem. (I often travel to Sopot with Piotr, but I would rather travel with a dog.)
• Weronika jeździ do Otwocka na zupę i kanapki dwa razy w miesiącu. (Weronika goes to Otwock for soup and sandwiches twice a month.)

Examples with pójść and pojechać coming. . . This is a slow process for me! My recent revelation was that by right clicking in the 'compose post' window, I can select a language from the list for the spell checker to use. Spell check in Polish and English! Great! Apparently this works in my Firefox wherever I am on the internet, but I hadn't noticed until now. The number of words in a Polish spell check dictionary must be immense (more than English, surely?) with all the possible endings/przypadki.

Basic Verbs of Motion

There's no part getting too far into other matters if I don't understand the basics. I absolutely need to master the basic verbs of motion in their imperfective and perfective forms. It is not as simple as learning the single verb 'to go.'

The basic Polish verbs of motion:

• to go on foot (non-vehicular)
• iść (infrequently)
• chodzić (repeated, frequently, or habitually)

• to go go by car, train, etc. (vehicular)
• jechać (infrequently)
• jeździć (repeated or habitually)

In the perfective form, the distinction between frequent and infrequent actions is lost. The perfective forms are as follows:

• iść (imp.) and chodzić (imp.) --> pójść (perf.)
• jechać (imp.) and jeździć (imp.) --> pojechać (perf.)

In a post coming soon, I'll try a few examples which will hopefully also shine some light on the perfective/imperfective distinction.