Missouri in Mazury

I enjoy learning languages, and I'm also good at it. I get frustrated when people hear me speak English and immediately assume that I can't speak Polish (or German). Or assume that their English is better than my Polish. With B, I don't speak Polish and I don't want him to speak it with me. He'll sometimes translate for me if someone is speaking Polish, which I'm okay with and think is funny (I know, I'm a hypocrite). However, I'm sometimes not sure if B occasionally speaks Polish to me because it's easier at the moment or if he's practicing (showing off to me that he can).... or if he knows my fear that he won't speak​ English like a native and is just trolling. Today, he turns to me: Patrzcie Leon! At least I can be happy in the fact that his Polish is improving. We both have a lot to learn, though!

Viva Warszawa - Polen für Fortgeschrittene (Viva Warsaw - Advanced Poland) is a book by Steffen Möller about Warsaw, the capital of Poland, and his love and admiration for the city. The author is German and has lived in Warsaw for years, appearing on television. I have no idea who he is, but apparently most Poles do and say I should watch  M jak Miłość (L like Love), which is some kind of soap opera. Sorry, I like your books, though. When I lived in Germany, one of my host families was originally from Poland and recommended I read  Viva Poloni a, which is also by this author. I did, and I very much enjoyed his perspective on Poland. His perspective is quite different from my own, as I've been connected to Poland for a much shorter time, and I also belong to a different generation.  Obviously this particular book caught my attention, because I'm also a foreigner in Poland. I lived in Warsaw for a year before moving on to Mazury and eventually Wrocław. I also ador...

I read this book in Polish, mainly because the cover is gorgeous. To be completely honest, if I had been presented with the English cover, I probably would not have read the book. The English language cover makes the book look like a cheesy romance novel, whereas the Polish one just looks much cooler; it looks more like a novel with a badass female lead, and less like a novel that's solely about the romantic aspect of her adventures.   I think it's the face that makes the difference. This is the story of Aladdin, but with a twist. Instead of the main character being the male thief, it's the female genie. In this version of the story, women are powerful. There's no princess who needs the thief to show her a "whole new world" with the help of a male genie who's just there for comic relief; instead, the princess is a powerful rebellious force with an army of strong women to back her up, and the female genie has a past that she's fighting hard to ov...

As you might've gathered from reading other posts, we are raising B and L to be bilingual. We've also tossed around the idea of adding yet another language, as I also speak German. So far we've still been hesitant, since it complicates things a bit: when would we speak English and when would we speak German? Wouldn't it confuse them more? Eh. Today we decided to just dive in a try it out, so I began speaking only German to B, using a lot of hand gestures. At one point: B: No! Me: Nein? B: ...ten. As he was leaving, I got a "tschüß", so I'd call it a good start.

Who knew having a baby would be so time consuming and would leave so little time for reading!? Ha ha ha. My adventure with Jasper Fforde's books started last year with The Eyre Affair (highly recommend!), and because my library doesn't have any further books in that series, I started on the Last Dragonslayer series . The Eye of Zoltar is the third book in that series that revolves around Jennifer Strange. She is an orphan who runs Kazam, an employment agency for magicians in a time when magic is weak and fading even more. In this book, the Mighty Shandar (the most powerful wizard ever) is back. He has a beef with Jennifer, who ruined the progress he'd made on a deal from long ago. In order to make amends, Jennifer must bring him the Eye of Zoltar. Unfortunately, the journey will be a very dangerous one into the Cambrian Empire, where their tour guide estimates their survival rate to be around 50%. If you haven't read other books by Jasper Fforde, read them....

I read this book, because everyone I know seemed to be going crazy about it. I borrowed the Polish/English version and would give a big thumbs up to the translator, who did a fantastic job.  As for my review of the original works, I wrote a poem in the style of the book to sum up my feelings on this one: if i write without capitalization and punctuation but add line breaks at random moments that don't add meaning to the actual poem did i just write a poem I enjoy poetry when it's well written, but I didn't like this book of poetry. I felt it was overrated and not original. There were definitely a few poems I liked, but it was disappointing to read essentially the same poem over and over - there were very few new ideas between each poem and also very few new ideas in the book as a whole. I was extremely disappointed in the quality of the poems themselves. I expect poems to be lyrical and to express a different idea - it may be along the sam...

Learning English, or any language, can be so funny. B: L got shot. M: L got *a* shot. B: Mama did it. Thank goodness we're not in an English-speaking country.