Traces of Poland in American movies
Today we have an interesting article from Marcin at sprachcaffe.com, which offers language courses and camps abroad. It's a mix of tourism and language learning. :-)
(Note #1: I don't receive any kind of payment for publishing this article or the links to their page - I only received this awesome article!)
(Note #2: I translated this article from the original Polish version.)
We all know that watching films in English helps us learn the language. We also know the surprise that comes with seeing traces of Poland in them!
Any reference to Poland in American films usually suprises Poles... postively or negatively. Here is a quick overview of Polish references found in American films.
Read more to find out about them!
Results of the survey! (the winner is very surprising)
Thanks so much to everyone who responded to the survey from last Saturday about our upcoming paid language learning product!
The responses were really great for two main reasons:
- I was looking for an honest reaction and I got one! Many people put a lot of emotion into their survey comments. When asking for opinions, there is always the risk that people will just say what the person asking wants to hear. This was not the case with this survey!
- I was completely surprised by the results! Every time I do a survey, I have a preconceived idea of how you're going to respond, because, well, I've talked with many of you extensively via the comments, sometimes Skype, and especially e-mail. And every time I'm completely wrong!
Today I'm going to tell you about the results of the survey and the final format and price we've decided on for our upcoming paid language learning product.
Like always, we need YOUR help deciding even more details for the first product!
Read more to find out the results!
Learning a foreign language is all about time!
Today I have the pleasure of publishing a guest post from Wojtek Ryrych, a long-time reader of my blog and a frequent commenter. He already contributed an article to the blog a few weeks ago when I published an e-mail from him about a great dual language Polish-English reader that he had recently bought.
Wojtek is a web developer and designer. You can visit his website at ryrych.pl, which is still under construction but he hopes something will appear there soon. As the saying goes, "The cobbler's children have no shoes." :-)
In this short article I would like to share some things with you that many of you probably haven't thought about. I'll tell you a particular truism.
Here it is:
To achieve success you have to practice.
Practice a lot. Some people claim that you have to devote 10,000 hours.
Is it true? Read on!
Finally - our FULL product idea (I need your help with the price!)
In my last article on Tuesday, I told you about our plan to create a paid language learning product. But I didn't actually tell you what the product is!
Someone commented on that article, saying:
"Polacy zazwyczaj nie kupują kota w worku"
In English, that's literally: "Poles generally don't buy a cat in a bag." It means that Poles don't buy something without seeing what it is first. I think intelligent and rational people of all nationalities behave this way. :-)
Sorry for being so mysterious about this!
I wasn't trying to be deceptive; I simply wanted to explain it just right. In fact, I have to warn you in advance that I think this is the longest article I've ever written! It even includes a video to help illustrate the idea.
This project is extremely important to us. If it's successful, we'll be living our dream! If not, well ... it's back to the drawing board. :-)
Today I'm FINALLY going to explain our FULL idea for the paid language learning product!
But we need YOUR help deciding many important details for the new product, including what format it will take and the price.
In this article, I'm going to share EXACTLY what we're thinking (including the potential prices). Please help us design this product by filling out the survey at the end!
Read more and tell me (honestly!) what you think of our idea!
My next BIG project after the ebook!
I know that a lot of new people have subscribed to my blog recently. I want to assure you that I usually write articles or record videos with language learning advice or information about Polish or American culture. :-)
Today is going to be something much more personal.
My Pa (father) likes to say:
Everything takes twice as long as you think it will - even if you take that into account.
Back in March, I told you that my wife and I wanted to quit our jobs and work full-time to create a paid language learning product.
To celebrate this HUGE decision and to thank all of you for your continuous support over the years, I decided to write a FREE ebook about language learning for you. I really thought I'd publish it 2-3 weeks after that announcement, but it wasn't completely finished until May 10th (exactly 6 weeks after the initial announcement).
It seems my father was right!
In general, the ebook project was much more difficult than I thought was going to be. I was a little disappointed with how long it took. But when I finally published it, many people were amazed that I accomplished all that in even 6 weeks. :-) It seems they thought it was going to take me even longer!
In any case, I needed a few weeks after the ebook to rest. But now I'm ready to start talking about our paid product!
I can't wait to hear what you think! Please read this article and tell me honestly if this is something you'd be interested in.
Read more to learn about our upcoming paid language learning product!
Vlog: Koszty życia w USA - Mieszkanie
Ludzie ciągle pytają mnie o kosztach życia w USA. Zdecydowałem nagrać filmik o kosztach powiązanych z mieszkaniem z mojego doświadczenie w moim mieście. Jeśli spodoba Wam się, mam pomysły na inne filmiki w tej serii.
Równiez trochę eksperymentowałem z nagraniem w tym filmiku - czasem udało mi się, czasem nie. :-) Od razu przepraszam, że kamera tak dużo się rusza!
Proszę podaj mi poprawki w serwisie Lang-8!
Czytaj transkrypcję poniżej!
LinguaTrek got 7th place among the top Language Learner Blogs of 2012!
For the past five years Lexiophiles and bab.la have organized an annual contest recognizing language blogs. Last year was the first year LinguaTrek participated and we managed to get the most votes (thanks to Wykop!) and 12th place!
This year there were 935 blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts nominated, including 200 blogs in LinguaTrek's category. This time around we didn't do as well in the voting, but LinguaTrek still got 7th place in it's category and 50th place overall!
Many fantastic blogs that I admire highly participated in this contest! Congratuations to everyone! I'm simply thrilled that LinguaTrek could be among such great company. :-)
Thank you everyone for voting and your support!
Do I NEED to speak from day one?
This is topic widely discussed and disagreed upon in the language learning community. One of biggest advocates of speaking immediately is Benny Lewis, author of the Fluent in 3 Months blog and creator of the Speak From Day 1 video course.
In the FAQ for that product, he writes: (some emphasis added)
Rather than read through the guide and watch all the videos to find out my one major 'secret', I can tell you right now: you need to speak the language immediately.
No years of studying grammar, no expensive and complicated software, no "magic pill" to master a language while you sleep, you just need to speak it. Speak it regularly, speak it confidently, and speak it immediately. The more you speak, the quicker you will improve.
Now, I'm a BIG fan of Benny. He recently gave me the amazing opportunity to write a guest post on his blog.
But in this particular point, I disagree. I don't think you NEED to speak from day one.
Read more to find out why!
"Czytamy w oryginale - wielkie powieści" - great material for learners of English or Polish
(If you haven't voted for LinguaTrek yet in the "Top 100 Language Learner Blogs" contest, only two days remain! The voting last until May 28th at 5:00pm CST (or midnight Polish time). If you have a free minute, please vote!)
Wojtek - a reader of my blog who regularly comments - just sent me an e-mail about a very interesting product which matches the learning methods I describe in my ebook very well!
Wojtek writes: (translated from Polish - see the original here)
I'd like to inform you about some excellent materials for learners of English and even those wanting to learn Polish.
„Czytamy w oryginale – wielkie powieści” ("We're reading in the original - great novels") it is a recently republished series of simplified novels (graded readers) for learners of English. So far 2 parts have been published - in total 10 classic stories. Today I just received my copies in the mail. The price for one part is 19.99 PLN (around $6).
Read more, to see the rest of Wojtek's e-mail!
3 super simple "speaking strategies"
In the introduction to my FREE ebook, I talked about the three steps to speaking a language "fluently" (although, I'm not fond of this word!): (1) get the language in your brain, (2) overcome your fear of speaking and (3) practice speaking. (Like I mentioned in the ebook, these steps can be done simultaneously)
Because the ebook discusses only the first of those steps, I've decided that I'm going to spend some time on my blog covering the next two. Today, I'm going to talk about #3: practicing speaking.
In this step, the goal is to develop and practice "speaking strategies" like circumlocution (for when you don't know a word), various conversational phrases to keep things flowing and even non-verbal tricks to make people more comfortable when speaking with you.
Silence is the one of the most uncomfortable things that can happen in a conversation, both for you and your speaking partner.
As a learner you might sometimes need a little extra time to process what you've heard or to form your response. But if the train conductor says, "Could you show me your ticket?" and you stare at them for 15 seconds without saying anything, it could get pretty awkward. :-)
In this article, I'm going to describe 3 super simple speaking strategies to avoid silence!
Read more learn what they are!
English
Polski
