About me (and my mission)
I just realized I don't have a page on my blog where I really introduce myself and explain why I'm doing what I'm doing. :-)
I've been writing and recording videos about language learning, Polish, and American culture for more than three years and, if you've been following along, you already know my whole story - but not WHY I do this!
(For my long-time fans: there is also a photo of me with long hair in the full article below. Check it out!)
If you don't know me, here's a quick official bio:
David Snopek is an American entrepreneur, programmer, language teacher, and language learner born and raised in Milwaukee, WI. Though his last name is, in fact, Polish (due to distant Polish ancestors who immigrated to the USA about 100 years ago), he grew up speaking only one language: English.
As an adult, David was able to achieve a rather high level of proficiency in Polish using a non-traditional method. Inspired by his success in language learning, he created Linguatrek to share the experience with others, and Bibliobird, a web application to help Poles learn English.
I was reluctant to write this article because I knew it would lead to talking about "my mission."
To be honest, I do have a mission, but I felt nervous saying so. Big corporations and politicians have missions - and, to say it nicely, they are usually bulls**t. ;-)
So, I was worried that you might think my mission is bulls**t too. But language learning is my true passion and I felt it was finally time to share this with you.
Read more for more information about my mission!
My mission
My mission is to:
- Motivate you to learn foreign languages and experience other cultures.
This can help you get a better job, broaden your perspective, get you in touch with your roots, allow you to have amazing travels, and enrich your life in general.
- Dispel the misconceptions that lead you to believe that you can't learn languages or a particular language.
Many people think you need to have "a talent for languages." Or that you have to live in the country where the language is spoken. Or that memorizing confusing grammar rules is essential. Or that some languages are drastically harder than others. Or that you're too old to learn a language. All of these things are false: anyone can learn any language!
- Show you how to learn another language in an enjoyable, fast and effective way.
There isn't only one right method for learning a language. Some methods will be more efficient than others. But the best method for you depends a lot on YOU, and your personal preferences. I want to help you find your method.
Why?
Because I've been there: I once needed the same type of help and advice!
My failures
The truth is that I failed to learn several languages before I ultimately succeeded in learning Polish.
Like many Americans, I studied Spanish in grade school and high school. For a total of six years, I played games, sang songs, learned a ton of grammar, and took some tests. I did everything the teacher said and actually got very good scores. But like most of my peers, I failed to learn how to do more than pass a grammar test. After SIX years!
I talk to people every day who had the same experience with Spanish or English or French or whatever they were learning. They studied in school for 5 or 10 or 15 years, but they still can't order in a restaurant or watch a movie without subtitles or have a casual conversation with a native speaker.
At that point, I decided that I have no talent for languages and therefore I am incapable of learning one.
And besides what's the point? Why even learn Spanish anyway? At the time I had no idea and no real motivation to keep trying.
Finding motivation
Later, as an adult, I made several Russian-speaking friends. One of them invited me to go with him to visit his family in Belarus and Russia.
I thought, Wow, what an amazing opportunity! I'll be able to see and experience life from the perspective of the residents of these countries. I'd better learn some Russian!
So I signed up for a Russian language course at the local university. I enjoyed the course, but much like my Spanish course, we learned grammar, grammar and more grammar.
After a year, I went to Russia with my friend and it was really fantastic! My language ability was terrible. However, the experience was enough for me to catch the language learning and traveling bug. When we came back, I continued taking Russian courses for the next two years.
Unfortunately, I never got very good and I was getting increasingly frustrated.
I put tons and tons of work into studying Russian. But whenever I had the opportunity to test my language abilities with my Russian-speaking friends, I found that I could only have the most basic of conversations, and only if they spoke very slowly and restricted themselves to the small amount of vocabulary I knew.
Six years of Spanish and three years of Russian and I'd only mastered grammar tests. Fluidly speaking and understanding a language was still little more than a dream.
Learning Polish
When it came time to learn Polish, I started by taking another college-level course. I enjoyed it quite a bit, mostly due to the professor, who told great stories. But, after a year it was obvious I that wasn't going to really learn Polish, just like I never really learned Spanish or Russian.
I asked myself, "Do I want to learn how to pass grammar tests? Or do I want to actually speak Polish?" Obviously, I wanted to speak Polish!
It was time for a drastic change.
So I stopped going to my Polish class and started doing a ton of research on how the human brain learns languages. I also began experimenting with a method that involved reading and listening to Harry Potter in Polish.
At first it went very slowly. It took me four months to read my first book. But only a year after starting, I managed to read all seven Harry Potter books!
I went from struggling with the most basic conversations to being able to:
- Talk with native speakers on almost any topic
- Read and listen to books
- Watch movies
- Write emails, letters and articles
Plus, I did it relatively quickly, studying primarily on my own (not in a course and without a teacher), and while living here in the USA. It was a profoundly enjoyable and life-changing experience.
A year and a half after starting this new method, my wife (Carrie) and I moved to Poland for a year. Immediately, I was able to:
- Handle Polish bureaucracy entirely in Polish, including the immigration office, the tax office, the post office, etc
- Interview for jobs in Polish
- Find and rent an apartment
You can do it too!
Frequently, people respond to my Polish videos with comments like, "Wow, you speak great Polish. You must have a talent for languages. I wish I could speak English as well as you speak Polish, but I have no talent for languages."
Hey, I don't have talent for language learning either!
If I did, I would have also easily learned Spanish and Russian by now. When I learned Polish, I was still the same talentless person I was before. The only thing that changed was my approach.
As long as you're able to gather together the ingredients to successful language learning, you can learn any language, and to a high level of proficiency!
What's your story?
Now that you know about me, I'd like to learn more about you!
I'd be very grateful if you'd introduce yourself in the comments below and tell me YOUR language learning story.
What is your language learning story? What language are you learning and what will your life be like once you learn it? Don't feel like you have to write a novel - I just want to get to know you. :-) Please write a comment below!
English
Polski
How I learns English? It's simple. Actually I have very good dictionary. In this are past words numers levels e.g. A1,A2,B1,B2.... so first I learn easier words and when I pick it up I pick up level but it's not the same is when I'm talking with people who use English every day because I don't know when use a specyfic word at a time (It's mean situations). What else? I listening miusic a lot of, often with lirics. I watchs film with English subtitles, sometimes with Polish subtitles becouse I'm not too good with English enough like I wanna be. I buys magazine "English metters" (Are other leanguages this firm www.colorfulmedia.pl) I found out last about it. I sometimes watchs Jamie Oliver in Internet or other chefs. I reads about culture in English and USA, history USA and English. I wanna learn French but I don't have enough money on course. I love cooking and evry movies about food. One day I watched great film "Julie & Julia" it's about cooking so I found out informations about Julie Child and I'll wanna buy book "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" rade in 1961 but on this time is too expensive for me. How is my metod learing English leanguage? Firstly I studies everything what me iterested.
Hi Paweł!
Thanks for sharing. :-) It sounds like things are going well with your English! Listening to music, talking with people, watching films, reading magazines - these are all great ways to learn. Just keep it up and you'll definitely acheive your goal!
Best regards,
David.
Hi David!
Your notes are fantastic.
In my live I never take seriously language learning.
Of course I learn school material, but after 12 years I can not use english in daily life abroad. Now I want to learn english with your advice.
Best regards
Marek
Hi Marek!
Thanks for your kind words. :-) I hope that the advice on my blog (and in my ebook) will be helpful for you!
Best regards,
David.
My story of learning English has not yet begun. I'm starting to lern English .
I'm really lazy .
Here in Poland, you need a lot of selfcontrol , that I was missing.
My buisness do not require English.
But I will try.
I am a farmer, but I have only 4 months to stay in Poland.
I'm such a modern farmer.
The last 3 trips spent winter-vacation in Florida, now I know how to live : half a year in Florida and a half years in Poland.
Our son is now 13 years old, and we want next year from September to one year to rent a house in Florida around Boca Raton. He go to high-school in Florida.
And let studying medicine in Poznan.
If we will continue to lucky in Florida, we want to buy a house or condo.
Regards from a cold Poznan .
Thanks for sharing your story! Being lazy isn't necessarily bad - it just means that you have to find something REALLY motivating and interesting to you to learn from. :-)
My grandparents used to live in Florida and we'd go and visit them every year or so. I very much like it there!
Anyway, I wish you the best of luck in both Poznań and Florida!
Regards,
David.
Hi David:),
actually I've been learning English for many years now. It's not sth I can say I stopped doing mainly because every time I think I'm really good and know a lot of stuff (e.g. vocabulary items, grammar rules etc) sth/sb proves me wrong :)
I first started learning it when I was a child. It was a compulsory subject in the primary school. The tendency of changing English teachers all the time was however a reason why my knowledge was so poor.
Then, in high school I attended advance course but what is kind of sad, my teacher didn't like me very much :)) Till date I still don't know why I was bothering her so much ( I was a polite and diligent student, believe me:))) She just didn't like how tall I was (she told me that in various forms several times:))) and that was it. So in a way, because of her attitude towards me, I stopped enjoying learning English and had some troubles. After some time I started having tutor lessons and my tutor ( who had nth against me being tall :)) ) got me out of the woods:)
When it comes to methods : they were using communicative teaching method all the time, but to tell you the truth I don't like it at all. I know I know, it's all about speaking from the very first time, but for me, there's nth better that good, old grammar translation method :)) There's more to live than fluency, accuracy matters as well :))) (not that I'm that good, I know I'm not :) )
Nowadays I really enjoy your method. I have just bought an English book together with its audio version and when it's delivered, I'm starting reading and listening to it right away :))
Hi Kornelia!
Thanks for sharing. :-) Language is very interesting in this way: we're never really done learning, even with our native language. We can always get better!
I hope that my method will be helpful for you! Please let me know how it goes.
Best regards,
David.
Hi David,
Like many Polish people, I studied English in learning school. After two years study, I have wonted to continue further learn english because I still can,t to write emails, conversation with my customers. Recentlly I have finded your blog and I read your story and I have started study again.
Thank you for your good job. Wish me a lot motivation for farther study.
PS. Sorry for mistakes:)I,m still learning.
Hi Sylwia!
Thanks for sharing. :-) You're written English is rather good! And, of course, I wish you lots and lots of motivation on your English learning adventure!
Best regards,
David.
Hi,
My name is Monika :) I'm Slovak and I'm married with Portuguese guy. We live in Portugal. I've been studying slavic languages (linguistic) and literatures, but I had to learn portuguese when I was 25 years old. I'm fluent in 4 languages (slovak, czech, english, portuguese), now I'm learning German. Unfortunately, my husband is not very into languages learning, even if he wants to learn Slovak, well, traditional way is not very for him, he is engineer, so I have to find a way how to pass to him information and how to make it happened :) However, because of my background and my studies, I want to have multilingual family, we already are multicultural :)
So as many ideas as I can find, and as many real life experiences with language learning will help me to get more ideas and new wind :)
If I didn't needed to work and win money, I would study languages all my life :)
Hi Monika!
Thanks for sharing your story here. :-) I really hope you can find a way to help your husband learn Slovak! Like I mentioned via email: he already has an advantage because having a spouse with a given native language is an EXCELLENT motivation. ;-)
Me too - if I could just spend all my time learning new languages and traveling, I would!
Best regards,
David.
Hey David and all,
I came to the site because I've been living in Poland for a year and a half now, and I still don't speak any Polish. When I first came here, I went to an international school, so I was forced to learn English and that went surprisingly well. I mean, it's not like I'm really good at it, but I speak fluently, about practically any topic. And after having spent more than a year here, I feel like I really should speak Polish... The problem is, I understand a lot (not everything), but I'm extremely shy. So far, I tried to speak Polish only once, but then my classmates were correcting my grammar and pronunciation, and were laughing at me, so I rather left it off. I don't really know what to do now, I don't want to make a fool out of myself and I have a really low confidence, but I really wanna learn Polish finally...
Great site, thanks for sharing your advice!:)
Hi!
Thanks for sharing. :-) Congrats on learning English! That's a shame that your classmates actually laughed at you. :-/ This is NOT very common! I've never had anyone laugh at me when speaking a foreign language, even ones I'm pretty terrible at. ;-)
It sounds like you've got a strong fear of speaking. Here are several articles with advice:
http://www.linguatrek.com/tags/fear-of-speaking
But in short: I recommend that you find someone you DO feel comfortabe speaking with, and practice with them (in a private, comfortable place) as much as possible. Speaking in groups is the hardest. After you've built up your confidence with this one person, you can take that confidence with you when attempting to speak in a group setting.
I hope that helps!
Regards,
David.
Hi David!
I am very thank you for sharing the method with others. It is a noble deed :)
I am 23 and live in northern-eastern part of Poland. I have learned English for many years but I could not manage achieve a satisfying level. Writing tests in class is not difficult, language usage is.
In order to make my language learning story complete, I should mention Japanese language. Japan culture is very interesting to me so that I started learn the language. I realized that I developed skills considerably during 3 years. I was amazed... why English is not so absorbing? There is a motivation to learn it too. Even in Poland good English is required for well paid job.
So lately I have searched a new method of learning languages and tried to answer questions: why my adventure with Japanese was different and how make studying more efficiently.
Regards
Charlie
Hi Charlie!
Thanks for sharing your story!
I think you've got exactly the right idea: you need to find out what was different between learning Japanese and English.
Here is my theory (but of course only you'll be able to know for sure): there are several types of motivation. Motivation for getting a job is external and pretty weak. But a love for Japanese culture is internal and much stronger.
I wrote about this in this article:
http://www.linguatrek.com/blog/2013/02/jak-znale%C5%BA%C4%87-motywacj%C4...
I hope that helps!
Best regards,
David.
Hi David!
My name is Jola. I,m Polish. I was learn English in school for 4 years in Poland but it was a long time ago. I don't remember almost anything. Now I live in Chicago and my English is still bad. I understand what people say but I have a lot of trouble with correct grammar and i don't know sometimes how to say or write something. I think I must start from the beginning. I was looking something helpful at internet and i found your blog. I believe that is the best way to learn English. I'm sorry for all mistakes:)
Best regards:
Jola.
Hi Jola!
Thanks for sharing your story here and having the courage to write it in English. :-) In fact, you write in English very well and made very few mistakes!
I wish you success with your English!
Best regards,
David.
Cześć David!
Many thanks for your blog and for your e-book. I found the content to be very interesting and inspirational, with lots of useful resources.
I'm studying a formal course in Polish at the moment with the help of a (paid) native Polish teacher in the UK. But I am very interested in using natural methods alongside the formal course. I've begun with listening to Polish music on Youtube and obtaining the lyrics for translation and vocabulary memorisation.
I'm interested in translating a book. I've obtained a copy of the first Harry Potter book (I'm also a fan) in Polish with the audio files but it is way too advanced for my level (I guess I'm bordering A1/A2 level).
Can you please suggest an e-book in Polish of a lower level that I can start with, that is also supplied as an audio book? I've tried doing my own research but my Polish is not really good enough to translate the Polish book sites I've visited. I can identify e-books for younger readers but I am struggling to identify those books which are also supplied as an audio book.
Can you help me?
As an aside, I genuinely admire the effort you have put into learning Polish and with this blog. If there is anything I can ever help you with, such as research, testing etc then please feel free to ask.
Thanks,
Alex
Hi Alex!
Thanks. :-)
That's great that you're doing so much to study Polish! Unfortunately, I don't know many books at an A1/A2 level. For beginners, I usually recommend Real Polish:
http://realpolish.pl/
Piotr regularly posts content with text and audio. He's also got some paid courses. Anyway, it's really great stuff, created by a native speaker, always has text and audio.
I wrote a review a while back:
http://www.linguatrek.com/blog/2011/05/real-polish-excellent-polish-cont...
Here are some stores I found (via Google) with audiobooks for children (finding the paper version will be relatively easy):
http://merlin.pl/download/audiobooki-dla-dzieci/download/category/223,15...
http://www.calapolskaczytadzieciom.pl/ksiazki-z-kolekcji-cala-polska-czy...
http://maleksiazki.pl/katalog/audiobooki/
(This one lets you search by age range, which I think is pretty cool)
I was also able to find this simplified reader online, but I've never tried it:
http://www.amazon.com/Polish-beginners-bilingual-speakers-English/dp/145...
I hope there's something helpful in there!
Best regards,
David.
Hello David!
My name is Ilya. I am from Russia. It was great to read your article about yourself. I am studing English language about 11 years, but I ain't able to know it perfectly. Anyway this is very interstingly to watch american movies without translation and understand what characters are talking about. However with subtitles is much easier to understand whats going on.
In last month I have started to learn Polish language. I found out that this language is very similar to Ukrainian language. I usually travel to Ukraing to my grandmother and grandfather whom are living in there. In this case learning Polish language a little easier than learning English. ;)
Well I heard about you (my polish friends said that you is very great in teaching language) and decided to wtite you a gratefulness about that point that you motivated me to prepare for BEC exams which will in 2 weaks from 14 April 2013. You are really great man that believed in yourself and learned the most difficult language very well :) I hope I can understand English perfectrly and able to read academic articles without google translater (Ye English is profiling course in my university and in that case I must to read a lot of academic researches and articles on Englsih).
Ok I think I wrote a lot of words in this letter, so I wish you success in your future works.
Best regards or how Russians usually says Всего наилучшего! :)
Ilya.
Cześć David!
I'm a 19 years old danish guy. I'm going to study polish at the university after the summer holidays and stumpled upon your article when i was looking for people in the "same situation" as me, learning polish.
I've been going with the thoughts that you mention in the article about polish being a hard language ect. "I couldn't learn french or german. Will i be able to learn polish?" and so on, and i must say that your article inspired me a lot! I'm not 'afraid' of the studies anymore and i'm only looking forward to begin with pure excitement :) polish is a beautiful language! My interest in poland started after i were on vacation in Krakow with a friend, were i made a lot of polish friends that i'm still in touch with.
So thank you for the great inspiration! :)
Hello David,
Great to our read about your experience with languages. I too am interested in learning languages, travel, meet people. I already know English, French and some German...and have been working in India. I am thinking of doing CELTA, and move to Poland for some time. Any advice or guidance from you would be wonderful. :)
Thanks,
Roopali
Hi Roopali!
Thanks! I wrote a little about our experience with teaching English in Poland here:
http://www.linguatrek.com/blog/2011/07/teaching-english-in-poland
You can write specific questions in the comments on that article and I'll answer them if I can. :-)
I wish you best of luck with languages and travels!
Best regards,
David.
Thanks David. I have been reading your blog all day, and continue to do. I'm very interested in learning Polish and this seems like a great way to do it! I have a great interest in other languages, I'm not sure if it's something related to programmers ;-) In school I thought I was very poor at english, because I never manage to remember all the grammar rules, even in Danish (I'm a native Dane) I can't remember the rules at all. Later when I started to travel a lot on my own, and start having friends abroad, I have realised how it's not very important to understand it to the perfection. More people should be taught that. I'm currently trying to learn Spanish, because I have many friends in Madrid and Polish because it's now a special relation to me. The 4 languages I want to master. Russian and Japanese has also come to my attention, mostly because Russian will be helpful in great parts of the world and Japanese because it's very different from my own. What I can use all this knowledge to later, I don't know, but traveling is a pleasure :-)