The Peter Principle in Language (Paddy Principle)

(Warning - this post gets increasingly racy as it goes on)
 
The more Polish I learn, the more I realise how much I have to learn, and the less happy I feel about how much I've learnt to date. It's a Catch 22 that at times gets me a bit down.  Who said life was so unfair!

So I took a look at what I was doing and realised I had got it all wrong - I needed to be learning at my own level of cultural incompetence, the "Paddy Principle". Across the board - writing, reading, listening and speaking I was setting the bar above my abilities and more importantly, my interests. 

I was trying to translate articles about PIS and PO from Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpolitsa, dusty pieces about road infrastructure, elections and so on, and quickly getting bored. I mean, these are my interests in the UK but translating or understanding them from Polish properly and  reasonably quickly is still one port of call away

So I changed tack and became a regular reader of Fakt  - the print equivalent of The Sun - full of plotki, pregnancies, drinking, murder and sports.  Reading this racy stuff is much more engaging than some workbook's set text (and confirms my belief that in teaching English a set text/work book should be a guide only... always consume materials from the Real World). And thus the Paddy Principle was born. 

Finding TOK FM and Polski Radio news podcasts a little dry? There's always the TOK FM sex advice podcast - full of confused listeners confessing to never having masturbated or not knowing how to meet women - juicy stuff I can get my linguistic teeth into. Find them on Itunes.

Wanting to be able to talk to your young female students or just women in general? You are not alone. Try Pudelek, the lowest common denominator plotki website. The UK is saturated with this kind of trashy plotki magazines  - Heat, Grazia, Closer, Yours etc. - and having always looked down on their readers I now find that if you can't beat em, read em.

The key message though, to anyone finding this blog in the future and considering learning Polish, is this: it's a long term commitment, indeed a lifelong one, and the most important thing is consume, consume, consume. 

The outcome is equal to the time and effort put in, so live breathe and like your Polish learning. Anyway, must go, I need to find out how male hygeine works in more detail.

What does szorować mean again?!


Update: Consuming from the "real world" can also offer some surprising insights about the culture you're in. Consider this article in Fakt's Erotic Section (my translation below). 

Piszemy wam, że trzeba dbać o higienę, pracować nad poprawieniem smaku spermy, cierpliwie pieścić partnerkę językiem, aż zrozumie, że warto się zrewanżować... I tak dalej. Musicie być jednak świadomi, że są kobiety, na które nic nie działa, bo sądzą, że wzięcie penisa do ust... to grzech. 

Są święcie przekonane, że pewnych rzeczy w łóżku nie należy robić, gdyż religia tego zabrania. A tu niespodzianka! Otóż, przynajmniej jeśli chodzi o katolicyzm, pieszczoty oralne nie są zakazane. Pod warunkiem, że służą podnieceniu mężczyzny, by mógł odbyć stosunek. Po bożemu, oczywiście...

We are writing to you that you must take care of hygiene, work to improve the taste of your sperm, patiently caress your partner with your tongue, until it’s understood that it should be repaid. And so on. You must be aware, hower, that for some women this won’t work, because it’s thought that a penis in the mouth is a sin.

They are convinced  that it’s truly a thing that should not be done in the bedroom, because religion prohibits it. And this is surprising! Well, at least if she/he goes to church, oral caresses are not prohibited. Under the condition that, it is something that excites men so theyt could have sex. Because God, of course....

Can you ever imagine a British sex advice column clarifying the church's position on oral sex? Me neither. Discovering this sort of discrepancy between our two cultures is both quaint, reassuring and charming at the same time. It's also a lot more stimulating than proceedings in the Sejm!