Tumlare's Log (Mostly but not entirely Swedish)

[Tumlare]

Swedish Week 12 update:

This week we took a little staycation and spent sometime traveling around southern Sweden. As a result I didn't spend a lot of time doing my usual language learning activities such as listening to podcasts. However, I did get a lot of reading and speaking practice done this week.

Reading: I read another 130 pages and reached the halfway mark in Glasmannen. I am really hooked, although I do wish I had waited a little longer in order to buy the paperback version instead of the hardcover. It's just a bit too heavy to comfortably bring everywhere. I also spent a number of hours reading displays at various museums in Swedish.

Listening: I only listened to 3 episodes of P3 Historia this week.

Writing: I actually wrote something!! I needed to write a letter to the editor (en insändare på svenska) for one of my classes. Writing is something I really need to be forced to do and I'm glad one of my classes has a writing component otherwise I would never do it at all.

Speaking: Lots of speaking practice! I attended my two usual speaking classes (2 hours 15 minutes) plus attended a monthly language cafe where I spent an additional 2 hours speaking Swedish. I also interacted with several people while out and about which made me feel very proud of myself because I find it hard to speak outside of the classroom/language cafe context.

I don't generally consider myself to be a shy person but I can suffer from bouts of social anxiety. I have found that living in Sweden has made that once-occasional anxiety rear its head whenever I have to interact with someone new. It is frustrating. For example, we were out at a coffee shop and my husband had a really good pour over coffee and we wanted to know what beans were used and if we could purchase a bag. I had this momentary burst of anxiety over the prospect of asking the barista where the beans were from because I thought I wouldn't be able to have that simple conversation in Swedish. But of course I did know what to say as soon as I got over my shyness and started to speak with the barista. It was a very simple conversation! I think I would have left without asking about the beans if it hadn't been for the encouragement of my husband which would have been a shame because it was really good coffee (from a roaster in Gothernburg).

When I know the people I am around I feel comfortable and have few issues talking in Swedish. Of course I still have pronunciation issues and make grammatical mistakes and don't always know the correct word, but I can speak fairly fluently without many uncomfortable pauses. Just have to believe in myself and fight through the initial discomfort.

German week 12 update:

I listened to Next Steps with Paul Noble tracks 39-45.

[Tumlare]

Swedish week 13 update:

Reading: I finished Glasmannen by Anders de la Motte this week! I enjoyed it so much I immediately went to see if the author is publishing another book in the series. No news on that front that I could find, although he seems to be publishing a book in a different series with his wife later on this year. I'm looking forward to it! After I finish my current crop of books I plan to go through more of his back catalog.

This brings me to 1490 pages read across 4 books so far in 2024. I am on track to hit my 5000 Swedish page goal by the end of the year. I am also very close to reaching the milestone of 5000 total pages of adult fiction/nonfiction read (4921 pages covering 2022-now).

Listening: I listened to 7 episodes of P3 Historia. I am almost halfway through the 2021 archives.

Speaking: Only one Swedish class this week on account of the holiday. 45 minutes of chatting.

Writing: I received the corrections from my Swedish teacher on the letter to the editor that I wrote. Mostly silly errors that I can't believe I didn't catch--for example, having a verb in the infinitive instead of present tense (for most verbs in Swedish this is the difference of one letter, r. e.g. fatta, fattar). Frustrating! I need to be better about proofreading.

German week 13 update:

I listened to Next Steps with Paul Noble tracks 46-58.

[jeff_lindqvist]

Swedish week 13 update:

Reading: I finished Glasmannen by Anders de la Motte this week! I enjoyed it so much I immediately went to see if the author is publishing another book in the series. No news on that front that I could find, although he seems to be publishing a book in a different series with his wife later on this year. I'm looking forward to it! After I finish my current crop of books I plan to go through more of his back catalog.

Ah, I thought it was the third volume in the Morden på Österlen series, but apparently it's the first one from yet another series - Mord under solen. I'll make sure we purchase a copy or two for the libraries in my area ...

[wallflower]

Listening: I continued to listen to P3 Historia (8 episodes) and reached another milestone: I finished the 2020 episodes which means I am about halfway through the backlog of this podcast. Although I am enjoying the podcast I think my listening skills could benefit from adding in another podcast with a more chatty, conversational style. I guess my assignment for next week is to try and find one in that style that I can actually stand. As someone who doesn't like podcasts in general this is a tough assignment!

This is a few weeks old now, but I didn’t see you mention in more recent posts having found a “more chatty, conversational style” podcast. If you have indeed not yet found one I recommend giving a listen to Talkshow i P1: https://sverigesradio.se/talkshow-i-p1

Great log btw

[dubendorf]

I share your feelings of social anxiety even when having relatively simple conversations in public. Sometimes I'm feeling confident and I can have a whole interaction ordering in a cafe and never slip up, and other times I will get self-conscious and mumble and the person doesn't understand and switches to English even though I know how to say this. It's amazing how speaking up and acting confident fundamentally changes how you sound, it's hard to fake it though!

I saw in your first log post that you are working on your accent in Swedish. One thing that has helped me with this in Norwegian is shadowing audio of native speakers. (i.e., listening and repeating at the same time). That lets me try to match their pronunciation, their cadence, and their pitch. Norwegian is so bouncy and sing-songy that I think trying to match pitch and cadence helps a lot with sounding "Norwegian." Another piece of advice I have received is to exaggerate pronunciation by consciously exaggerating the mouth position when making certain sounds. For example, when pronouncing the Norwegian "y," pushing my lips out in like a kissy face. Or when pronouncing the Norwegian "i" and "e" making a big smile and showing my teeth. "If you feel like you're exaggerating, it's probably just right."

Anyways, I dunno if that's helpful or advice you've heard a million times before, but thought I'd share what has worked for me. Lykke til!

[Tumlare]

I share your feelings of social anxiety even when having relatively simple conversations in public. Sometimes I'm feeling confident and I can have a whole interaction ordering in a cafe and never slip up, and other times I will get self-conscious and mumble and the person doesn't understand and switches to English even though I know how to say this. It's amazing how speaking up and acting confident fundamentally changes how you sound, it's hard to fake it though!

I saw in your first log post that you are working on your accent in Swedish. One thing that has helped me with this in Norwegian is shadowing audio of native speakers. (i.e., listening and repeating at the same time). That lets me try to match their pronunciation, their cadence, and their pitch. Norwegian is so bouncy and sing-songy that I think trying to match pitch and cadence helps a lot with sounding "Norwegian." Another piece of advice I have received is to exaggerate pronunciation by consciously exaggerating the mouth position when making certain sounds. For example, when pronouncing the Norwegian "y," pushing my lips out in like a kissy face. Or when pronouncing the Norwegian "i" and "e" making a big smile and showing my teeth. "If you feel like you're exaggerating, it's probably just right."

Anyways, I dunno if that's helpful or advice you've heard a million times before, but thought I'd share what has worked for me. Lykke til!

Thanks for the tips! One thing I've noticed when speaking is that I tend to get lazy with my mouth positioning if I'm not actively focusing on it--so my 'y' sounds more like 'i' because I'm not rounding my lips enough. The book I read on Swedish pronunciation said that it was common for native English speakers to not round their lips enough for the rounded vowels. Guilty as charged!

Norwegian and Swedish pronunciation is pretty similar, depending on the dialect of course. Certainly closer than spoken Danish!

[jeff_lindqvist]

I saw in your first log post that you are working on your accent in Swedish. One thing that has helped me with this in Norwegian is shadowing audio of native speakers. (i.e., listening and repeating at the same time). That lets me try to match their pronunciation, their cadence, and their pitch. Norwegian is so bouncy and sing-songy that I think trying to match pitch and cadence helps a lot with sounding "Norwegian".

I think you're on to something. I'd also suggest shadowing, and possibly also chorusing (à la Olle Kjellin). Both involve imitating native speakers, but not isolated words. Especially the sing-songiness of both Norwegian and Swedish — on sentence level, that is — is something that I doubt one can grasp without this kind of practice.

[Tumlare]

This is a few weeks old now, but I didn’t see you mention in more recent posts having found a “more chatty, conversational style” podcast. If you have indeed not yet found one I recommend giving a listen to Talkshow i P1: https://sverigesradio.se/talkshow-i-p1

Great log btw

Thank you! I will definitely check that out.

[Tumlare]

Swedish Week 14 update:

This weekend I went to a small museum with my husband in a nearby town which only had Swedish signage. My Swedish is advanced enough that this wasn't an issue for me but I did have to translate into English for my husband (he is learning Swedish but is only around an A2 level). Real-time translation (i.e. speaking out loud the sentence in English as I read it in Swedish) is exhausting!! I don't know how interpreters do it for any length of time.

Reading: I accomplished a pretty fun milestone this week: I started and finished a book in just 6 days! Granted, the book was only 250 pages, less than half of the length of the last book I read, and I did spend 4 hours on a train reading in addition to my usual reading time. But it still felt like a nice accomplishment! I read Den store konstnären (The great/big artist) by Emmy Abrahamson & Hanna Jedvik. The plot revolves around two reporters with clashing personalities who've been given the assignment to produce a podcast about a famous painter that has recently died and in the process solve a mystery. Typically I find these sorts of oil-and-water conflicting personality dynamics to be a little trite and therefore tedious to read--even in a book I otherwise enjoy. But in this case I thought the authors did a fantastic job of bringing the characters to life in a way that made their personality clash seem inevitable instead of contrived. The mystery was predictable but the story was amusing (and downright funny in parts). Overall I enjoyed it.

I have officially crossed 5000 lifetime Swedish pages read (1740 for the year!)

Listening: I listened to 8 episodes of P3 Historia and started listening to 1 episode of P1 Talkshow that wallflower recommended.

Speaking: 2 hours and 15 minutes of speaking classes this week.

Writing: Nothing but I have to write some Swedish poetry this month for one of my classes... Wish me luck.

German update:

I finished Next Steps with Paul Noble (79 tracks in total)! I have enjoyed both of the Paul Noble German courses. Too bad they are so short!

Not 100% sure where to go from here. Maybe Nicos Wag A1? I am just dabbling here ahead of my summer travels so I don't want to invest in a textbook/tutor/class at this point.

[Tumlare]

Swedish Week 15 update:

Reading: To follow up last week's reading binge, this week I managed to read a whole... 23 pages. I started reading
Döda kvinnor förlåter inte (Dead women don't forgive) by Katarina Wennstam. The book is set in Stockholm in the late 1800s. I haven't gotten far enough into the book to have an opinion on it, aside from noting that historical fiction tends to be more of a slog to read in Swedish and this book is no exception. In historical fiction, the author has to spend more time describing the setting in order to give the reader a better sense of time and place, and the words they use are more obscure (different types of horse-drawn carriages, for example). I'm hoping this book won't be too painful to get through.

Listening: I listened to 7 episodes of the P3 Historia podcast, finishing the 2021 archives! As of today, I have 57 unplayed episodes.

Speaking: I went to my two speaking classes as usual. In one class I had to give a ~15 minute powerpoint presentation which went fairly well, aside from when I tried to extemporaneously describe the theory that Ales Stenar may have been an astronomical calendar based on the stone positions.

Writing: Nothing this week

German week 15 update:

I listened to several episodes of Language Transfer German (episodes 1-15). I don't enjoy it as much as the Paul Noble course. The structure is similar, but I find it frustrating to have a student responding (and making mistakes) instead of a native speaker as in the PN series.