Soffía's Icelandic log

[Soffía]

I really feel like I've made some sort of leap forwards recently. Perhaps it's not that much of a leap but I seem to have reached a point where I'm keen to use (simple) native materials without feeling like it's a great, difficult endeavour that has to be approached with care and reverence.

I was reading "Englar Alheimsins" the other day at lunch in a cafe, and enjoying it very much.

I've listened to three episodes of the podcast "Vísindavarp Ævars" and watched the first season of the TV show, "Ævar vísindamaður." (Which makes about five and a half hours all told.) If I had the time I could probably sit down and happily watch through the whole second season in a day, but that would be excessive!

I was getting worried about what I would do when I ran out of Ævar, but poking around the RÚV children's site I've discovered another podcast called "Saga hugmyndanna" (the history of ideas), which looks like it's aimed at a similar level and has, or will have, fifty episodes! That will keep me busy for a long while, and then maybe I can start searching out adult podcasts.

It does seem like all of this is sinking in. At least I've developed an inclination to talk to myself in Icelandic around the house, which seems like a good sign. Maybe it means I won't be completely tongue-tied (for a change) on the course next summer...

[Soffía]

2015 has been a very satisfying year for me in Icelandic learning terms. This was finally the year that I got a bit of a foothold on being able to use Icelandic practically, both in terms of reading and listening (if not speaking). In April I managed to finish reading my first novel in Icelandic. After that I lost some momentum, but I gained a huge amount of motivation from the advanced Icelandic course that I took in August, and I managed to hold onto that until the end of the year.

After I came home from the course I decided to sign up for the half Super Challenge in Icelandic. Reading 2500 pages in that length of time would have been pretty ambitious for me, and indeed I didn't succeed, but I did read just under 1500 pages and I'm very happy with that. As well as romance novels, and two volumes of Jón Gnarr's autobiography, I read 'Englar Alheimsins' and was thrilled to finally be able to cope with (simple) modern literary fiction.

I've also been regularly checking the news on RÚV. There's something cool about first finding out the news of some world event in Icelandic.

My listening comprehension seemed to have made some progress in August despite my not doing much listening. Since then I've done a bit more, mostly thanks to Ævar, though I haven't been as faithful with my podcasts as I would like to be.

I did have a crisis of faith moment when flying home for the holidays via Icelandair. People were chatting away around me in Icelandic and I had this moment of complete incomprehension: "help, this is really a foreign language, what have I been doing for the past four years?" But I was really tired at the time and should have cut myself some slack!

My main goals for 2016 are to carry on with what I've been doing - reading novels and practicing my listening. This year I'm aiming to hit 2500 pages, which ought to be achievable. I've just started reading "Hafnfirðingabrandarinn," which is a great young adult novel, and relatively easy - I only need to look up a few words per page, not that I have been. In a cheating sort of way, I've also been reading "Sjálfstætt fólk," which is not exactly an easy read even in translation. I've been doing a paragraph in Icelandic, the paragraph in the English translation, and then reading the Icelandic again. Good fun, much more than just reading the English! (To start with I'd meant to re-read it in English but then I got dissatisfied and wanted to have a look at the original...)

Happily I'll have more options for reading in the New Year, as Forlagið have put some of their catalogue onto Amazon: http://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/culture_and_living/2015/12/20/over_100_icelandic_e_books_on_amazon/

Still wondering whether or not to take the advanced course again this summer. As said it was really good for my motivation last year, but I feel I should probably do something else with my summer vacation once in a while! If I do take the course I should probably do some focused work on my speaking first - I've been thinking of taking some private lessons over Skype, although they are rather expensive.

The other question in my mind is when to start learning French properly. I've done a bit of playing around with Duolingo and Lingvist, and actually bought the Assimil course though I haven't started using it yet. I feel like I could develop a reading comprehension of French within a relatively short timeframe (maybe within the year?) and I'm terribly tempted to just pitch in with Harry Potter. But it seems like it would probably be more sensible to spend another year solidifying my Icelandic first - even though it would be great to be learning a language that other people on the forum are actually studying...

[Elsa Maria]

Soffia, I often have that same crisis of faith when I hear two Danes are speaking to each other. I really struggle if I just encounter a random conversation. The classes you have been attending sound wonderful!

I am hoping to make my first trip to Iceland this coming summer. Looking forward to following your log

[Soffía]

Good to know that other people struggle with this, Elsa Maria. Honestly Danish pronunciation is so difficult that I'm impressed you can understand it at all!

I hope you have a good trip to Iceland this summer - let me know if you have any questions about the country.

[Soffía]

Feeling a lack of reading motivation at the moment, probably due to falling between Super Challenges. Though I know this probably shouldn't matter, I don't like the idea of my reading for the next four months not 'counting.' So I think I'm going to do a modified version where I aim to read 2500 pages in 2016 and another 2500 in 2017. That seems reasonable, doesn't it?

[Soffía]

Still reading "Hafnfirðingabrandarinn," the YA novel that I got for Christmas. At 430 pages, it's the longest novel I've read so far – and though I'm in the home stretches, I'm really just ready to finish it! There have been days where I've been reading it really keenly, to the point that I was reluctant to put it down in the morning to go to work. And there have been moments where I look at it and feel, emotionally if not rationally, that it's just about incomprehensible. At the moment I'm somewhere in between, mostly just getting bored with it. Still, there are only 90 pages left and I can read 50 pages a day when I'm on a roll, so the solution to this is clear. (Next I'm going to try something shorter for a change. Maybe even rip through one of the short romance novels that I still have lying around; I could use a quick win.)

The saviour of my Icelandic exposure currently has been Ófærð, AKA Trapped, currently airing on BBC4. It's a great mystery which I would have enjoyed watching if it had been in any other language, but I'm particularly loving the Icelandic. There are moments when a turn of phrase makes me laugh out loud with delight, which I'm certain must bemuse my non-Icelandic-speaking housemate. There's something about watching a show like this that makes Icelandic seem more alive, something you encounter in the course of day-to-day living and is actually useful, rather than a distant thing that you learn theoretically out of books. I'm really grateful for that reminder of the vitality of Icelandic.

In that vein I've booked to go and see Hrútar, which is playing at my local cinema! What a luxury - I even saw a poster for it on the Tube a couple of weeks ago. Looking forward to doing my bit to support the Icelandic film industry... and a friend of mine who's already seen it says it's a really good film as well.

[Soffía]

Hrútar was a good film, very Icelandic but sadly also very mumbly. Not certain if it was the sound engineering or just gruff, taciturn farmers, but there you are.

Also Trapped has come to a close. So sad! That I found much easier to understand and I can't wait till it's available on DVD so that I can watch it with Icelandic subtitles by way of a change.

Just finished another one of my apparently endless supply of Icelandic romance novels. I was going to read something else for a change, 'Krabbaveislan,' but it's just a bit too stream of consciousness for me at the moment. Run-on sentences make the likelihood of my correctly parsing syntax much, much lower.

So I seem to have picked up another romance novel. They are really legitimately horrible pieces of literature but they're readable without strain and give me a sense of achievement when I get through them, which I can do quickly. So I think that's enough for the time being.

[Iversen]

It is quite interesting to read about your exploits into modern Icelandic films and literature, and it's surprising how much you have found at RÚV. I have not yet visited its homepage this year, but to me it seemed that most things were inaccessible, except the news broadcasts. My own preferred Icelandic fare is definitely the articles of Lifandi Visindi, and to be honest I haven't listened to any spoken Icelandic for quite some time now. But I have had a CD with Egils saga lying on my desk for almost a year...

[Soffía]

It is quite interesting to read about your exploits into modern Icelandic films and literature, and it's surprising how much you have found at RÚV. I have not yet visited its homepage this year, but to me it seemed that most things were inaccessible, except the news broadcasts. My own preferred Icelandic fare is definitely the articles of Lifandi Visindi, and to be honest I haven't listened to any spoken Icelandic for quite some time now. But I have had a CD with Egils saga lying on my desk for almost a year...

Thanks Iversen, glad you're enjoying it!

RÚV is a mixed bag, and less is accessible than used to be. But there's still a lot of non-drama/factual programming that is streamable from outside Iceland - stuff like "Landinn," "Kastljós" and "Eldað með Ebbu."

If you like Lifandi Visindi, you might possibly enjoy Vísindavefurinn: http://www.visindavefur.is

And I've probably mentioned it before, but RÚV offers several sagas for free as podcasts, if you ever finish with Egil.

[Soffía]

Nearly bought a copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban from Foyles yesterday, but a friend talked me out of it. The books in the series were from £21 to £32, and of course the one I wanted was £32. On the one hand this is a lot more than it would cost in Iceland; on the other hand, it means I don't have to have it shipped, and in terms of reading time it probably still ends up being a good deal. I've decided that I'll buy it, if I still want it, once I've finished reading another book or two. Due to enthusiastic buying in the past, I still don't have a shortage of Icelandic literature.

There was also a book of poems called Norður that looked intriguing. Cost? £26. I suppose that's the price you pay for being able to pick it off the shelf in London.