Glada vappen!*
I started writing this update already a month ago, but never finished it.
I originally wanted to mention my thoughts on how to continue Swedish after the course I had at that time. That's because I think it would make sense to focus more on writing, now that my speaking skills really improved. (Thanks to this course, that I have already been taking for about a year.) But I liked the course, the topics change according to the current situation, so it's not too much the same stuff all over again and again and I still think it's better to do something not perfect than not doing anything at all.
One thing I was curious about was how this course would be in real life. So in the end I registered again. Total costs for this one: 33€ for 7*90min (yes, that is 4,71€ per 90min).
The previous was 51€ for 12*90min. I feel like it makes sense to mention the costs at times, because when reading the forum I get the impression that many think that courses are always really expensive. But they don't always are. At least the public ones here are really cheap. There are definitely more expensive ones in Finland, too (90€ for summer university courses, up to 90€/month for private schools).
I searched for fun what would be about online evening courses from Sweden and the ones I found were about 3450kr, which should be about 350€. I was kinda shocked. Is Sweden really that expensive or was it just, that I didn't now how to find the cheaper stuff?
(My thought was, that since I already use a book published and used in Sweden, I may increase the chance of finding a good course, if I consider online courses from other locations, too. But that price would be a no-go for me, especially for an online course.)In March I was also looking for some audiobook in Swedish and decided to try the
Hobbit. I ended up searching a long time in the library in order to find it. Though I knew it was in a shelf somewhere at that library. I had somehow forgotten about the youth section of that specific library since it's almost completely separated from the rest. Had been there before once... so I could have known. When I finally found it audiobook I couldn't resist and take the Lord of the Rings, too.
At home I realised that the Hobbit was still quite difficult to understand, so I headed out to hunt down the printed book at another library. It really took me two visits to acutally find it. This time I was aware of the fact that I should be more careful when searching and that I should check the shelf code more carefully in order to search in the right section. But this time I felt like either there was something wrong in the system or the person putting the book into the shelves made a mistake, because there was no hint to search for the book in the childrens section. (I did search in the youth and adult section this time.)
Yes, I could have asked, but...
Anyway, I made it already through the whole audiobook! Though it was sometimes quite tiring, because I needed to concentrate a lot to follow the story. Sometimes I had to re-read parts in the book, to make sure that I understood, what I heard. Listening to Harry Potter (4th book) had definitely been easier.
Maybe I should not continue with the Lord of the Rings, but take an easier book instead. Luckily there's plenty of content available in Swedish.
Otherwise, I have again realised how huge the difference between my Swedish and Spanish skills still is. I had thought that they would be at a rather similar level right now, but when it came to writing something or listening to the Hobbit... It's clear my Spanish is definitely much better.
I was able to practice Spanish a bit. Attended the language café, had a visit from my friend from Spain around Easter and watched a few episodes of
Friends and
El Ministerio del Tiempo. (Did I ever thank Cavesa for mentioning it in her log?) My friend and I wrote another short story in Spanish, meaning that we were coming up with the storyline together with the help of the Story cubes, but then it was mainly my friend telling me what to write. Interesting practise and really interesting to see how a native is composing the sentences.
Things in the world have changed. When I wrote the post about choosing a new language in February, I mainly considered Basque and Estonian as new languages, now - although it may seem counterintuitive - I'm again considering to start Russian. It's not that this language has never been of any interest (tried out some online material in 2013, choosing between Russian and Swedish in 2017, ending up in a workplace where Russian is one out of three languages used, having friends who also learn Russian...). I don't have to travel there to use it. Ukrainian could be another option, but considering the factors above, Russian would make much more sense in my case.
*(I learned this week that you use this expression only in Southern Finland. I had no idea.)
Image: This library has nothing to do with my search for the Hobbit.
Oodi.jpg
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.