Some pages to recommend

Hi, everyone!

Today I would like to share with you some web pages which talk about Polish culture and language and they are addressed to Spanish speakers. I found them in differents periods, when somebody asked me about details I didn't know or about a site where they could learn Polish, also with recordings, they are quite important at the beggining. Let's start! They are four.

1. The first one is AmaPola which in Spanish means poppy. But the name has also other hidden meaning. The first part, Ama, can mean to love (he/she loves, an order or incentive: Love!). The second part, Pola, can be a abbreviation of polaco, Polish or of Polonia (we omit 'oni'). So together it's like an invitation: Love Poland/Polish! AmaPola is a project of Polish people who live in Mexico. They spread our culture, informe about events connected with Poland and Polish there, first of all in Mexico City. If I'm not confused, they collaborate with the Embassy of Poland in Mexico City. They organize also language courses, cooking workshops and others.

http://amapolamexico.blogspot.mx/

2. One of my favorite is the site Habla Polaco (Speak Polish). There you will find 35 lessons with recordings. Some of my friends learned a lot already with the materials of this page. It's for this reason that I recommend it very much. The pdf archives are professionally prepared, the students count too with an introduction which consists of pronunciation rules of Polish letters and groups of letter.

http://www.hablapolaco.eu/

3. The worst one maybe is Polaco.net. In my opinion is an unprofessional project with some curiosities and basic data about Polish grammar, literature, dialects, history, sign language and jargon.

http://www.polaco.net/

4. The last page is a blog. It's an excellent source of Polish grammar. Aspects like adjectives, nouns, verbs, adverbials, pronouns and articles are described there. One of the hardest to learn, the cases, are there too. The truth is... That sometimes I peek at it too, I never remember the order :D

 http://saberpolaco.blogspot.com/

Soon I will put the links also in the right part of the blog, maybe they will useful for somebody :) Have a nice Wednesday!

Let's know Poland and Polish for the WYD Cracow 2016

First of all, I want to tell you I got a message from my new carrer's dean's office with some info about the first meet. It will be the 28 and 29 of March. I knew it would be like that, but... It astonished me that the classes take up a whole day! Saturday they last from 8.30 a.m. until 19.15 p.m.! With some rests of 15 minutes... Great :D The names of the subjects are also interesting for me. I don't know if I'm able to translate them well. Polish language among languages of the world. Grammatical system od Polish language against the background comparative. The icons of the Polish culture - literature. For me, it sounds great, really! :D

The official logo of the WYD Cracow 20216

And now, let me talk you something about an activity which maybe pushed me into thinking about the career I just start. In July of 2013, in Rio de Janeiro, the pope Francis said to youth of all the world that the next World Youth Day, in 2016, would take place in Cracow, Poland. You can imagine how much it made me happy! My country will be flooded by believer of different continents showing theirs faith, being testimony that God is love, that Jesus Crist rised from the dead for me, for you, and we can go ahead despite your sins, because he had overcame all the sins before we commited them.

For this reason, with some friends we decided to prepare a blog in different languages where we describe Poland, our language, traditions, gastronomy, patrons saints. The main objetive was to help to the pilgrims to know the culture of Poland and give them some instructions of what to do, how is more easy to organize themselves here during the event. The fruit of our early involvement is this site: 

www.wyd2016-polska.blogspot.com

You can find it also in the right part of this blog. Actually, I said "early involvement", because now we don't have time to still write there. My last post is from the end of August od 2014... It was like a flash in the pan. I really would like to publish more texts (I'm responsable for the version in Spanish, of course), but I have got too much duties at the university, in my job... I just hope the posts already published will be of use for somebody :) It was a nice experience, we colaborated in group, we invited other people to write and we promoted the blog in other pages and in Facebook. In this way I knew foreigners from Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela and other countries of my interest. Nowadays we exchange opinions, know ourselves more and more, and, of course, we wait together for the WYD. We hope meet in Cracow! :) This project teached me that all the good you give, will come back with double power! :) From the people I knew I got more that I gave (it was especially thetime necessary to write). I recommend you to do something that nobody demand you. You will see it's fantastic :)

A new folk adventure

I'm disappointed with myself. After Cristmas I went only one time to the dance class and I saw that I had already backlog. I didn't know the new steps... And, as I hadn't other dance experience before, I didn't know mobilize me, convince that it was nothing, that I could catch up. I gave up...

Happily, there is a new opportunity for me to still have a contact with Polish culture, folk culture too. As you remember, I study Spanish philology and I love my studies, belive me. However, always when I talk with my latin and Spanish friends I realize that they know a lot about their culture and that I don't know answer their questions about my country and my language. At the University I read and learn all the time about Hispanic world. I consider myself a person who is very involved in the classes, so in the house I spend my time in talk in Spanish, know more facts, dates, curiosities in the field of my interests. And when is the time to know my own culture?

For this reason I decided to start a postgraduate studies in teaching Polish to foreigners at the same University, but in other department (how you can guess, it's the Department of Polish and Classic Philology). The inconvenience is that I should pay for every semester... But I don't care about it. Fortunately, I have a job and my parents don't have to pay it instead of me, I always knew I didn't want they to help me in it. I'm sure it will be an awesome adventure. On the one hand, I can explore the Polish grammar, learn how to teach it (many people ask me to teach them, but I have no bases to do it, it is not enough to be a native) and on the other hand, I will have classes of Polish literature, folk dances, maybe history... All the subjects I think I neglected a little bit in the high school.

I know I want to teach Polish to foreigners for many years and finally me dream come true!!! :) The first class will be in the last weekend of March. After, the group will meet every two weekends.

Other folk adventure starts!! :)

How different people treat folk

When I started to assist folk dance clases, my friends was looking at me surprised and almost...  shocked, I could say. I can understand it because nowadays it's more popular to go to the zumba classes or to a hip-hop dance course. I remember that some years ago the dance was very in fashion. In the television appeared programmes like You can dance or Dancing with the stars and movies, international and Polish productions about dance: Kochaj i tańcz (Love and dance), Step up (1,2) or Take the Lead. Sure, any of these movies and programmes support of promote folk dance. Ok, tango from Take the Lead can be considered folk dance, it's connected with the Argentine identity, but in general, the idea is to give the chance to the dancers that practisise jazz or another modern form of dance.

In this context, you can aware that folk dance is consider pretty old-fashioned, especially in the developed countries. It's only a minority that consists of freaky people who love what they do and at the same time they cultivate national culture that step by step... Is disappearing.

On the other hand there are countries where folk is just breathing with the air. I'm sure you have everybody an image of Cuba, Mexico or Brasil. In general, latinamerican countries are more willing to be near to the tradition and theirs roots. And it's for this reason that samba or salsa are so famous. They are also folk dances, but they are cultivated so they neither needed promotion. It's sufficient to go there and see that people live dancing their own, local dance, try to learn it and take it to your country. Undoubdetly, it was the factor that helped spread of salsa, samba and rhytms like bachata from Dominican Republic.

In my huble opinion, if Polish oberek or krakowiak were danced with the frequency of disco polo or other typical genres from a Polish disco, musically speaking we would conquer other continents!