I'm alive!

Hey, it has been a long time since I wrote something to the blog. I have been extremely busy with hmm, life :D I will continue the series what I like here in Poland, but now I would just like to tell you some things I have been up to while not writing anything to here...

I'm doing my internship at the same time that I'm studying. I have time for everything and I love my internship but now for the end it is getting harder as all the exams started at the University. Maybe I stress more than the reality really is, I will have time for everything :) So while I haven't been writing here, I have been working and studying+ some fun of course!

I'm so exited as I already booked my tickets to come to Finland for the summer! I will be relaxing near the lake, swimming, grilling, going to sauna and watching football. PERFECT! :D I will also work in Finland so my summer wont be only a holiday but it is nice to change the place for the summer and see all people important for me from Finland!

Last weekend we had the last school meeting before the summer with the Finnish school in Wroclaw (I don't know if I told, but I'm a teacher now!) after the school meeting we had a picnic for all the Finns living in the area. The picnic was organized by the Finnish school in Wroclaw and by our Honorary Consular from Wroclaw. It was a great day to spend outside as the weather was so nice, company was perfect and the food was amazing!

During last weekend we also went to Bolesławiec with our friends. We spend some time trying to find nice polish pottery for us. This city is famous about the polish pottery, and the shops were everywhere! We found something nice for ourselves and some gifts too. Our friend was more willing to shop and in the end he had two huge boxes of pottery :D After shopping we went to the city center for a while. 

-Camilla

Learning Polish!

In the very beginning when I came to Poland my language learning started well. Before the University started I was in a Polish class for foreigners for 2 weeks (organized by the University for exchange students and foreign full time students). After this I knew some basics and it felt that my learning has started even when the pronunciation is beyond difficult. Pronunciation is hard and specially when my first teacher was concentrated to the correct pronunciation. After the 2 weeks course real University started and I started to attend obligatory Polish classes once every week. In the beginning we went through the same things than during the 2 weeks course.

This obligatory one-year Polish course was maybe too easy. We moved forward too slow. The reason might be that all other students were not so active. Sometimes I was alone with the teacher and when the others came we needed to repeat everything.

The most I have learned through my friends. I’m listening when they are talking, talking in phone and then I'm just reading the situation. I’m able to understand surprisingly… a lot but when it comes to speaking I can only put words after words so that they are not in the correct form (as the grammar is so different from English or Finnish). The most important thing for language is communication, I’m not worried if people can understand what do I mean. 

I should get more motivation to learn new Polish words to be able to understand even more and to use the words by myself. My motivation has been lost after the year obligatory Polish course. I needed to start learning German for my studies but I would have loved to continue Polish. It is weird that I only had 2 semesters of Polish but now I need to learn 3 semesters of German. I will try to learn German and Polish at the same time, learning the words I need for German classes but also learn the same things for myself from Polish. All the languages are mixed in my head, I wouldn’t be able to answer for simple question in Swedish :D Even when my level in Swedish is better than in Polish or German.

I bought these word cards to learn Polish. It is nice and easy way to learn as the hardest part is to get motivation to start learning and with these cards I don’t need to use so much time. I can only pick few cards and continue to do something else. I promise to myself (and to my friends here) that during the summer I will step up my game with Polish ;)

-Camilla