(ataraxia post continued)
I have studied the Rosetta Stone course for 409 hours this year (I keep count on my calendar) and that works out at two hours every day. However, I started haphazardly in October 2009 when I got the course, probably about another hour each day till January 1.
I find the course excellent and feel I've had great value for money. Of the three levels I'm now into the third and get 90% minimum in all my reviews, usually 100%.
I now have about 1,200 words, or more, in my Polish vocabulary, but, don't get me wrong, I still can't converse in the language. However, I can make up sentences.
I was sitting in a pub in Dublin one day and a Polish girl started talking to me. She asked me if it was ok to put her pint of beer in front of me as if it was mine; she was waiting for her boyfriend who objected to her drinking pints, so she had another half pint in front of her! After about ten minutes conversation, a young woman came on the TV. I said to the girl in Polish: "Młoda dziewczynka ma na sobie niebieskie kapelusz, czerwony sweter, i czarny płaszcz." "The young girl is wearing a blue hat, a red sweater, and a black coat". Well! I've never seen anyone so surprised! She nearly dropped her pint! And I, a Scotsman who has been in Ireland for 45 years, felt as if I had won the lottery. I had a great feeling of achievement.
I bought a children's book the other day, Little Red Riding Hood, and, together with the illustrations, was able to read a lot of it. A breakthrough. I think that in another year I'll be able to read a book in Polish. That's my goal.
Rosetta Stone is interesting, like doing Sudoku if you like that, working things out. The pictures are excellent in quality and I think there's probably about two years work there, not counting the audio CDs which I haven't started yet.
The downer. For someone who hasn't as much time as I have, whose brain is more active, or is in a hurry, I would say the 409 plus hours that I have spent would be better spent studying the language from books and tuition. But not so interesting. Incidentally, my Polish friend says my diction is really good. The trick is to learn the continental way of saying the alphabet, very different from our ABC. Unlike English, it never varies in Polish and you can pronounce every word, even though you don't know the meaning.
Good luck.
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