Languid Language Learning

[MamaPata]

Congratulations! You both look very happy. Hope you enjoyed your honeymoon. Where did you go in the UK?

The Swedish course sounds like a really beneficial thing, despite the negatives. I keep looking at a similar one for French but it's so expensive!

[brilliantyears]

Congratulations! And what a wonderful photo You both look so happy!

[Elenia]

Thank you all for the congratulations! Here's hoping to years of continued large, goofy smiles

@eido - I'm hoping to be a bit more active around here once again! It's good for me, I even felt a desire to do some targeted German study while reading Jeff's log earlier, so clearly you guys are all a huge source of motivation

@Peter - Well, I wouldn't hold your breath... never say never, but I don't have any plans for kids. I'm more likely to adopt, but even that is highly unlikely. My poor mother she wants a grandchild that's hers by blood!

@Ani - I'm hoping it will work for me! I wasn't a very good student of French, when I studied that the traditional way, but I'm far more optimistic about Swedish. I believe the first part of the course will be much easier for me, but I'm sure the difficulty level will ramp up soon enough! I'm trying to get ahead now, so that I'm not too stressed out by, say, November.

@Morgana - The more I think about it, the more certain I am that it will be of benefit to me even outside of being eligible for programs taught in Swedish. Obviously, it will be of benefit, when applying to jobs, to be able to say that I have achieved C-level Swedish, but I think it will also make me more confident and comfortable using Swedish in different situations. The one worry I have is that too much academic focus will make it even harder for me to use Swedish socially, but I'll just have to find a way to balance it out. På Spåretkvällar will definitely be one way of redressing the balance!

@MamaPata - Sweden is really good about teaching the language to newcomers. This particular course is offered by Lund University, which is why I was able to apply for it. It's also free, which is a huge plus, and part of the reason why I didn't just try for TISUS again.

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Speaking of the course, I've already received some of the course literature and started reading it. Two larger text-based textbooks, and then Avancera Gram and Avancera Läs, two textbooks that I've been coveting since about forever! Respectively, Advanced Grammar and Advanced Reading. For the interested, the other two are Muntlig Interaktion and Språkporten 1 2 3. The former is geared at preparing students to use the kind of language that might be needed at university. So far, it seems somewhat... bloated. I keep on waiting for the first chapter to start, before remembering that I'm already several pages in. It's slow going for that reason. I am sure in classes we will be more focused on the exercises at the end of each chapter. The latter book apparently corresponds to the C levels. The first text, which I read a bit of, seemed pretty easy but one of the latter texts was definitely a challenge, so I look forward to working my way through this book and slowly building up my vocabulary.

[Elsa Maria]

Congratulations!! The photo is so lovely.

I have very fond memories of attending the language school when I lived in Denmark. It is also free there, and was very effective.
I wish that I could have kept going all the way through to the C levels, but life intervened. Oh well. Considering that I started at A0, I can't complain. I got a lot out of my time at the language school.

I hope you will let us follow along through your log!

[iguanamon]

Anytime two people who love each other get together it's a wonderful thing. I hope you two will have many years of happiness together. Congratulations and all my best wishes! It's good to see you around here again.

[Elenia]

You've worked with one of the Avancera series texts before, haven't you? Ord, maybe? Or maybe I've remembered incorrectly. I could swear it was your log where I came across the name before. Anyway minus Muntlig Interaktion I'm quite excited about these texts myself Please do continue to share your thoughts/experiences working with them! I'm a ways off from anything C-levels, but I've coveted that Språkporten 1 2 3 for a little while regardless.

I haven't worked with the Avancera series before, but I may well have mentioned them before. It's also entirely possible that someone else mentioned the books in my log, which is how we both found out about them. I've had only the quickest of flicks through them so far, so can't say much about them except that they're both amazingly slim volumes! Språkporten is much weightier (and far more costly, too!) The first section has only texts written by the author of the book, which is a shame as I'm not a huge fan of her style. This may be because she was writing text intended for learners, I am not sure. But each section is quite large, and alternates between readings and very respectable-looking exercises. It looks to be a very good resource indeed.

Text i fokus 2 arrived today. I'm refusing to look at my digital version to see if they are indeed the same. I'm pretty sure that they are, but not all of the bibliographic information matched up, or I couldn't find it (I had the same problem with Form i fokus C). They weren't super expensive, but they also weren't cheap. I already know I like the format of Text i fokus. I'm not sure about the other one - I PM'd* and insisted on starting with the first one, that is way below my level.

Congratulations!! The photo is so lovely.

I have very fond memories of attending the language school when I lived in Denmark. It is also free there, and was very effective.
I wish that I could have kept going all the way through to the C levels, but life intervened. Oh well. Considering that I started at A0, I can't complain. I got a lot out of my time at the language school.

I hope you will let us follow along through your log!

Thank you! I'm hoping I have similar success with the course I'm taking. It supposedly condenses two years of Svenska för invånare into one semester of study, so I'll need lots of luck and encouragement, methinks! But I am more excited now I've had a look through some of these textbooks!

Anytime two people who love each other get together it's a wonderful thing. I hope you two will have many years of happiness together. Congratulations and all my best wishes! It's good to see you around here again.

*PeterMollenburg'd, for the uninitiated

Thank you, iguanamon! It's good to be back

[jeff_lindqvist]

I'm hoping to be a bit more active around here once again! It's good for me, I even felt a desire to do some targeted German study while reading Jeff's log earlier, so clearly you guys are all a huge source of motivation

I never thought my log would inspire anyone to learn German.

Congratulations, by the way!

[Elenia]

I'm hoping to be a bit more active around here once again! It's good for me, I even felt a desire to do some targeted German study while reading Jeff's log earlier, so clearly you guys are all a huge source of motivation

I never thought my log would inspire anyone to learn German.

Congratulations, by the way!

Well, the closest I got was a bit of Clozemaster today... but that's closer than I've been in a while! And thank you

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So far, so daily. I've read more of Muntlig Interaktion. It's still a slug. I don't know how we'll be working with it for the course, but I would really like to be ahead of schedule. I may skip over to one of the other resources instead, though. They are literally all of them more interesting to me. The only reason I started with MI was because it was the first one I received.

In other news, I started reading an exchange of letters between Astrid Lindgren and one of her fans today. I had started reading it once before, but went back to the start today. I'm really enjoying it. The fan, Sara, was twelve when she sent her first letter, and it was hilarious. She has already moved on, two or three letters in, to poignancy. It's a really enjoyable read thus far.

Today, I recommend sctroyenne's post on getting to C2 French in gsbod's log. I have recommended it before, I'm sure, but here it is again. It's very heartening to have such a road-map. It breaks the task down into something achievable. I feel most of the time like a good B2 Swedish speaker, with some C2 inflexions. I'm finding more and more that certain words come first to me in Swedish, then in English, but that is probably because I spend more time speaking to Swedish speakers these days. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to happen when my interlocutor is a monolingual anglophone. None the less, a wider, more precise and, above all, usable vocabulary has been something I've wanted for a while now. I have returned to working on my excel document of words and phrases, and I have some ideas for doing even more work with the words I collect there. I have also realised that my boyfriend husband (!!! I'm still not over this!) has at least a few non-fiction Swedish books that would be of interest and use to me. I was reminded of this again when rereading the above post. I'm looking forward to hopefully working with them in the future.

[IronMike]

OMG! Congrats! Welcome to the club.

So glad you're back and look forward to reading your log again. I would have responded sooner but it's been a very busy week. Anyway, welcome back Mrs. Elenia!

[Elenia]

OMG! Congrats! Welcome to the club.

So glad you're back and look forward to reading your log again. I would have responded sooner but it's been a very busy week. Anyway, welcome back Mrs. Elenia!

Thank you and no problem, I'm only very slowly catching up with the forum. I can't read too much at one time, my head starts to hurt*, so it's gonna take a while (especially Expug's and Rick's logs. You guys write so much!).

*change that 'can't' to 'shouldn't'. More accurate.

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Today, more reading, PLUS some reading in German! Jeff, this is thanks to you again! I remembered German after reading your post above I really want to go to Germany again. I had some hopes of being able to go this year, but those are all dashed. Next year, instead. Next year, incidentally, is become bloated with travel plans. Germany, France and Portugal are all places I'd like to go to, plus (as always) England at some point. Norway seems fairly likely and Denmark doesn't even count. I'd like to go to the gathering, wherever that may be. When will I have the time? More importantly: the money?!

Ahem. I appear to have gotten distracted. I read more of MI today. Slowly but surely, I'm getting towards the end of the first chapter. I shipped an unimportant couple of pages, and found that they express exactly my sentiments about my Swedish currently:

Antagligen är du osäker emellanåt när det gäller att välja rätt formulering i ett visst sammanhang. Det är en frustrerande känsla att vilja uttrycka något som man saknar den språkliga dräkten för. Du kanske vill uttrycka något artigt eller humoristiskt eller smart och märker att det du säger låter klumpigare än du skulle vilja.

Yep. Me, me, me. My jokes often miss their target, which is in part because the people I talk to don't necessarily understand my humour and in part because I still can't joke in Swedish. I don't need to become a comedian - I can't make jokes in English most of the time, either. But it would be nice to get laughs about as regularly as I usually can when speaking to friends in English. In one of Systematiker's posts from a while ago, he complained that it can take several revisions for his 'voice' to come through in German. I'm not sure my voice ever comes through in Swedish. If it does, it's only for the occasional phrase or sentences. Oh, complain, complain. I know what I have to do to get better. I just have to do it.

In the category 'Doing It', I now have 169 entries in my 'words and phrases' excel spreadsheet, and 167 examples. Not all entries have an example, but some have as many as four. When I've got a few more, and probably when I've gotten into the exercises of my textbooks, I'd like to start doing some deep work with the words. I'm talking proper dictionary lookups in a paper dictionary, finding out synonyms and figuring out nuance and usage. I might try some etymology work, as that might be helpful, but if it's neither helpful or fun, I won't stick with it. I'll add examples to the entries, if they are missing, and I'll try my hand at writing a few example sentences myself. Please, feel free to remind me about this noble plan in about a month's time, when I am sure to have forgotten it

I have lot's more to talk about (it's been a few months, after all), but I should probably get back to MI. I'm ready to move on to Språkporten, only my own stubbornness is holding me back!