Tumlare's Log (Swedish and a little French)

[jeff_lindqvist]

Now that I think of it, that kind of ”first name as the 3rd person” also happens to me now and then. Sometimes someone even addresses me by my last name. And I remember addressing (or referring to) a few in school by their last name. Never ever their first name.

[Tumlare]

Week 20 update:

This week was a little out of the ordinary with traveling to Uppsala and Stockholm so my typical language learning routine was thrown off. It was a fun week though!

Swedish update:

Super Challenge Listening: 275 minutes Cumulative total: 1090 minutes (6.06% complete)

I didn't watch any TV but I did listen to quite a few P3 Historia episodes, finishing the 2022 episodes. The last episode was quite disappointing--I had been looking forward to the Viking episode for quite sometime but unfortunately it was a promotion for a different podcast instead of their usual format.
P3 Historia Aristoteles (59 minutes), Zarah Leander (60 minutes), Hatshepsut (55 minutes), Billie Holiday (55 minutes), Vikings (46 minutes).

Super Challenge Reading: 143 pages Cumulative total: 307 pages (3.07% complete)

Long train rides meant that I was able to catch up a bit on the reading portion of the super challenge. I finished Döda kvinnor förlåter inte. Overall I enjoyed it, although it took me longer to get through than I was expecting given the relatively high number of unknown words and the heavy subject matter. The author has at least two more books in the series planned with the next one scheduled for release this coming fall. I look forward to reading it.

Speaking and writing: Nothing of note this week aside from incidental speech in stores and restaurants.

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German: Nothing this week

French: Learn French with Paul Noble 21 +22; Assimil #27 + 28

My other languages fell by the wayside as I expected given the travel. While I was in Stockholm I visited the large Akademibokhandlen near the central station which has a pretty good selection of language learning books. I was excited to find several books that were geared towards Swedish students learning French but my enthusiasm died when I saw the price. Because they are 'textbooks' intended for high school students they were more than twice the price I would expect for a similarly sized book aimed at the self learner. I hate inflated textbook prices! I couldn't justify the cost to myself when I already have the Assimil book.

[DaveAgain]

Swedish update:

Super Challenge Listening: 275 minutes Cumulative total: 1090 minutes (6.06% complete)

I didn't watch any TV but I did listen to quite a few P3 Historia episodes, finishing the 2022 episodes. The last episode was quite disappointing--I had been looking forward to the Viking episode for quite sometime but unfortunately it was a promotion for a different podcast instead of their usual format.
P3 Historia Aristoteles (59 minutes), Zarah Leander (60 minutes), Hatshepsut (55 minutes), Billie Holiday (55 minutes), Vikings (46 minutes).

French:

Radio France have two good Billie Holiday series, a radio drama, or a documentary.

[Tumlare]

Radio France have two good Billie Holiday series, a radio drama, or a documentary.

Thank you! I will check this out once I get further along in my French revival efforts.

[Tumlare]

Week 21 update:

Swedish:

Super Challenge Listening: 453 minutes Cumulative total: 1543 minutes (8.57% complete)

Just when I thought my listening skills were getting to be pretty decent... In addition to continuing my run through the P3 Historia archives, yesterday I watched the 2015 Swedish film En man som heter Ove (A man called Ove). Now, I realized after the fact that Netflix defaults to the 5.1 audio track and I don't have the speaker set up necessary for that to work, and I also know that sound mixing issues have lead to the vocal track being somewhat muffled in movies in my native English, but I still wasn't expecting to have as much difficulty as I did making out the dialogue. A humbling experience to be sure. Overall, I did enjoy the movie and I was able to follow everything, just missing some sections of dialogue. I might try watching it again using the standard audio track and see if that helps my comprehension.

P3 Historia: Sigismund (58 minutes), Victoria Bennedictson (59 minutes)Ludvig van Beethoven (55 minutes), Dante Alighieri (54 minutes), Anne Bonney (60 minutes), Claudius (56 minutes)
Film: Man som heter Ove (111 minutes)

Super Challenge Reading: 96 pages Cumulative total: 403 pages (4.03%)

This week I began reading a book I had been looking forward to for a loooooong time: Män som hatar kvinnor by Stieg Larsson, better known in the English speaking world as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I had read the original three books in the series in English and I really enjoyed them, but that was 10 years ago and I've forgotten pretty much all of the details aside from a couple memorable scenes. The first three books were oddly difficult to find in my local bookstores, given that the series is one of the best-selling book series in the world and that the most recent entries (by different authors) were published in 2019 and 2022. Unfortunately for the Super Challenge, I've decided to read the first book intensively, and between the word look-ups and the smaller than usual font (and therefore more words per page), my reading pace has slowed appreciably. It's the first month of the challenge and I am already behind...

[Tumlare]

Ran out of time when making my last post but here is the rest of the week 21 recap:

German: Language Transfer 36-41. I should finish Language Transfer this coming week and I'm not sure what I should do next. I have been meaning to try Nico's Wag but I haven't managed to successfully slot it in to my daily routine. An audio course would work better as I already have the habit of doing a bit of German audio each morning. I have just over 2 months before my trip to Austria. Perhaps Pimsleur would be a good resource for touristy vocabulary? I suspect Michel Thomas would have quite a lot of coverage overlap with Paul Noble and Language Transfer.

French: Learn French with Paul Noble tracks 23-27 (out of 36 total). Assimil lessons 25-35.

Up until yesterday I wasn't convinced that I was learning anything with Assimil. I've been dissatisfied with the lack of 'scaffolding' around each dialogue, for lack of a better term. I wish there was a separate word list included with each lesson for ease of reviewing the vocabulary as well as additional (and more varied) exercises to put the new vocabulary and grammar to use. I will admit that I haven't created any flashcards or spent time purposefully memorizing vocabulary outside of taking notes during the lesson (and doing the two included exercises). I also haven't spent enough time listening to the audio tracks-- listening 4 or 5 times isn't enough to really internalize them. However, when I was translating the review dialogue yesterday it struck me that I could understand all of it-- aside from one idiomatic phrase I needed to review. So even with my relative laziness I do seem to be learning some French!

[Tumlare]

Week 22 recap

Swedish

Super Challenge Listening: 401 minutes Cumulative total: 1944 minutes (10.80%)
On one hand, I am absolutely crushing the listening portion of the Swedish Super Challenge. I signed up for a double challenge, and in order to hit that I need to listen to 900 minutes a month and I more than doubled that during the first month. On the other hand, I am failing at my stated goal to watch more TV and movies. I'm just not much of a TV or movie person and it's easier to turn on a podcast while I go for a walk or do mindless chores. I have fewer than 30 episodes left of P3 Historia though so I will have to expand my horizons here pretty soon... (I did watch a few episodes of Bluey in Swedish as well as some news clips but I didn't keep track of them.)

P3 Historia: Rikard Lejonhjärta (59 minutes), Barbro Alving (60 minutes), Katarina av Argonien (60 minutes), Galileo Gallilei (57 minutes), Yngsjömörderskan Anna Månsdotter (60 minutes--an interesting episode about a famous murder in a small town in Skåne, felt more like a true crime podcast episode), Edith Piaf (60 minutes), Jakten på nazibödelm Adolf Eichmann (del 1, 45 minutes)

Super Challenge Reading: 73 pages Cumulative Total: 477 pages (4.77%)
In contrast to listening, I am behind on reading, failing to reach 500 pages in May. I'm enjoying Män som hatar kvinnor quite a bit but it is taking too long to look up each unknown word as I read it. One of my greatest frustrations has been feeling like I can't quite hit the right balance between intensive and extensive reading. If I read intensively, I start to get impatient with how slow I am progressing through the story. If I read extensively, I feel like I am "leaving words on the table". Realistically, I know both are valuable and the best thing to do would be to do a mix of both but for some reason I find that hard to do. Or I could get an e-reader with Swedish dictionary support, which would at least cut down the amount of time it takes to look up each word...

Speaking: I had a dentist appointment this week that was entirely in Swedish. I was pretty proud of myself.

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German: Language Transfer 42-45

French: Learn French with Paul Noble tracks 28-34. I finished all the new material and just have a couple review tracks left before I move on to Next Steps. I also did Assimil 36-42.

French Super Challenge Listening: 13 minutes (0.29%)

I dipped my toes into the Super Challenge this week for French! I started with a YouTube video geared towards learners (topic: how to start reading in French advice: read and listen at the same time). 13 minutes isn't anything to write home about but it was the first time I watched something entirely in French with French subs. Baby steps!

On Sunday I spent some time playing Final Fantasy XIV with French audio during cutscenes. One of my goals with French is to be able to play games in it so I was pleased to start towards that, even if I kept the subtitles in English and understood only some words and the rare sentence.

[wallflower]

One of my greatest frustrations has been feeling like I can't quite hit the right balance between intensive and extensive reading. If I read intensively, I start to get impatient with how slow I am progressing through the story. If I read extensively, I feel like I am "leaving words on the table". Realistically, I know both are valuable and the best thing to do would be to do a mix of both but for some reason I find that hard to do. Or I could get an e-reader with Swedish dictionary support, which would at least cut down the amount of time it takes to look up each word...

I, too, feel the need to look up every unknown word. I read using a Kindle, which does not have a Swedish dictionary (not sure any e-reader does?). Years back I found this dictionary (also on Amazon US here) that I put onto my Kindle and may or may not have had to change some settings to get it to be my main dictionary (can’t remember). It’s not that good of a dictionary, but better than nothing, and besides Kindle also has a Translate feature that is also not amazing but between the two I get enough meaning to understand the word/phrase I didn’t know.

But if neither the dictionary nor the Translate feature are able to tell me what I want to know, I highlight the sentence and it is saved on my Kindle in the "Notes and Highlights" tab, which I can review later and/or export it to my laptop (somewhat handy if one were to make flash cards). Each lookup takes just a few seconds to either get the meaning or not, and I move on.

[Tumlare]

I, too, feel the need to look up every unknown word. I read using a Kindle, which does not have a Swedish dictionary (not sure any e-reader does?).

I haven't found one that does. Even Swedish e-book/audio book apps like Storytel and Nextory don't advertise having dictionary support which is so strange to me since I consider the ability to easily look up words to be a core feature of an e-reader. I guess I'm just spoiled by the Kindle. (To be fair, I haven't tried out those services personally. Maybe there is a secret dictionary feature that they aren't mentioning on their app page.)

My issue with using Kindle is getting Swedish ebooks. I'm resistant to purchasing them through a different ebook provider and then having to use a program to convert them to a Kindle-readable format and then figure out how to upload them to my account (I don't have a physical Kindle, I just use the app on my computer/phone/ancient ipad). The process is just annoying enough to stop me from bothering, even though in would definitely save me time as I was reading. I'm aware I'm being somewhat irrational here.

[Tumlare]

Week 23 recap

Swedish

Super Challenge Listening: 480 minutes Cumulative Total: 2424 minutes (13.47%)

Another good listening week, despite listening to only 4 podcast episodes. June 6th is Sweden's National Day (although it only became a public holiday in 2005 and is greatly overshadowed by Midsommarafton/Midsommar which occurs on a Friday/Saturday between June 20-26). I spent a few hours during the holiday watching a miniseries on Netflix, En helt vanlig familj (aka A Nearly Normal Family in English) about a family whose daughter is accused of murder. I enjoyed it, and had much better listening comprehension than with A man som heter Ove from a couple weeks ago.

P3 Historia Podcast: jakten på nazibödelm Adolf Eichmann (del 2, 46 minutes; del 3 48 minutes); Fredrik den större (60 minutes), Sojourner Truth (53 minutes)

TV: En helt vanlig familj (6 episodes, 273 minutes total)

Super Challenge Reading: 82 pages Cumulative Total: 559 pages (5.59%)

I've reached the halfway point in Män som hatar kvinnor. Still loving it, but man is is slow going. To feel better about my pace I counted words on a random page and found there were more than 350 (an average paperback has around 250 words per page). It's nice to know the reason why it's taking me so long to get through each page (in addition to unknown word lookups). I'm going to have to find some light, breezy books to read after I've finished the three books I have from this series if I want to have any hope of catching up to where I should be on the Super Challenge.

Speaking:

I went to a meetup this week and spent a couple hours speaking Swedish.

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German: Nothing! I changed my daily schedule a little bit and the time I had set aside for a bit of German practice evaporated. I'm thinking of pausing a bit for June and then picking things back up in July before my trip just to review the tourist phrases I've learned.

French: I finished Learn French with Paul Noble and started on the continuation, Next Steps with Paul Noble. I finished tracks 1-12 (for some reason this audiobook is broken into a large number of short tracks, as opposed to the prior one where each track was 25ish minutes long). I also did Assimil lessons 43-49. Next week starts the active wave!

French Super Challenge Listening: 37 minutes Cumulative total: 50 minutes (1.1%)

For shits and giggles I listened to an episode of Inner French (37 minutes). I have absolutely no business listening to a podcast geared towards intermediate learners but I was curious as to how difficult it would be. I understood around 40% which was much greater than I thought it would be. Of course, this is probably due to the large number of French/Latin words in English that I could recognize but still, I was surprised and encouraged.