Lately I've been putting some extra effort in trying to improve my Polish. Oddly enough, in Poland I haven't had too many opportunity for conversation with normal people about normal topics. Mostly I speak Polish with the officers of various government offices. There is a lot of bureaucracy in Poland and for the last 6 weeks or so we've been to at least one office a week, primarily the tax office.

Anyway, one of my efforts to speak more normal Polish has been recording YouTube videos in Polish. I've recorded one every Sunday for the past 4 weeks.

Here they are in chronological order:

March 20th, 2010

March 28th, 2010

April 4th, 2010

April 11th, 2010

As some people may know, I have studied Polish language mainly on my own and mainly by reading and listening to books.

While I can't say enough about how well this approach has worked for me, one of the problems has always been the lack of a large selection of books in the Polish language and the cost of purchasing them. In the States, only a few books (really popular ones) are available in bookstores and only old, obscure books are available at the library.

However, this afternoon, I was at the most amazing place in Poland so far... the library! ;-) There are thousands of books in Polish and they are all for free!!

I just got my library card and a few books. Life is good.