As the title says ... I have just completed the Polish course on the lowest level.
So what have you learned, Dorothy? To be honest, probably not very much. I couldn't hold even the most basic conversation, let alone write any of this in Polish. 
The most important thing is perhaps that I like the language. I rather like the sound of Polish, especially the nasal sounds and the various "sh" like sounds (rz, cz, sz etc.). Polish orthography is hell with these weird diacritical signs, but I roughly understand their purpose and why they are needed. I mostly used the word bank for the lowest level and will leave any more active forms of language learning for later. Having spent considerable time on Russian, I could often guess the right answers. I guess it is a bit like learning Dutch when you know German, or vice versa. There is enough difference so that you don't understand much at all at the beginning, but once you start learning a lot of similarities pop up. One of the most surprising things I learned is that Italy is called "Włochy". "Italia" is probably one of the most pleasant sounding words one could come up with. Double "a" and "i", the very mellow sounding consonant "l", and then the sound "t" just to offset all those smooth sounds. Whereas "Włochy" sounds shockingly similar to my younger self having had that one beer too many. 
I am not sure yet where this journey will ultimately lead me, but so far I have enjoyed it.
- polnisch 2.png (80.56 KiB) Viewed 882 times
/ using 
/ learning 
/ once learnt 
/ trying to understand at least a bit 
L1 
Advanced beginner 
