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[Neurotip]

Flott! (as Alaric is fond of saying). I hope you find Colloquial Icelandic fun - and do let us know how you find it, I'll be very interested. Many moons ago I worked through Colloquial Czech* and at various times I recall owning Brazilian Portuguese, Urdu and probably others. My impression was that they went quite deep rather fast, but there are ways around that.

And +1 for enjoying what you do and doing what you enjoy.

* and shortly afterwards bumped into the guy who wrote it and accidentally seriously embarrassed him by expressing my enthusiasm for his book in front of a group of his friends who had no idea he'd written it

[Elenia]

So, everyone who has read books in their TLs: your first book took you forever, too, right??? At the pace I'm moving I doubt I'll be finished by year's end Mini-crisis-of-faiths keep occurring, like, why am I doing this? Am I sure I want to do this? Is this the right book to do this with? What is the point of any of it? Why can't I download Swedish into my brain Matrix-style already? I would use the laughing emoji again but I want to resist using too many in a single post. Maybe I've crossed that line already.

I still haven't finished the first book I started in Swedish

[tiia]

So, everyone who has read books in their TLs: your first book took you forever, too, right??? At the pace I'm moving I doubt I'll be finished by year's end Mini-crisis-of-faiths keep occurring, like, why am I doing this? Am I sure I want to do this? Is this the right book to do this with? What is the point of any of it? Why can't I download Swedish into my brain Matrix-style already? I would use the laughing emoji again but I want to resist using too many in a single post. Maybe I've crossed that line already.

I still haven't finished the first book I started in Swedish

I think the first book in Finnish that I consider seriously as a book I read* took me three years. I started seriously reading Finnish much later.

* There where two children's books before with only 60 pages, large script and lots of pictures etc. -> I don't count those. The first one I count was written by Astrid Lindgren, so still for children/a younger audience. Then there may have been an attempt in between with another book, which I couldn't read at all, when I bought it. I read it actually six years later, when I had already read a few books.

[iguanamon]

...So, everyone who has read books in their TLs: your first book took you forever, too, right??? At the pace I'm moving I doubt I'll be finished by year's end Mini-crisis-of-faiths keep occurring, like, why am I doing this? Am I sure I want to do this? Is this the right book to do this with? What is the point of any of it? Why can't I download Swedish into my brain Matrix-style already?...

Your first second language is always the hardest. What you've laid out here has to do with getting used to the language. Ironically, one of the things that helps a learner get used to a language is reading that first book.

When we do our courses, we learn how the language works in a basic manner, but we don't get exposed to the language nearly as much at one time in a course as we do in a book. One of the reasons I like courses with as little English as possible is that it helps me to stay within the language. In a straight up TL book, there's no English to help you. You have to figure out what's going on with the language at the same time you are trying to follow the story. That's normal, but it's not done "with ease".

My first real book in Haitian Creole was a translation of "Robinson Crusoe". I was familiar with the story. I'd read the book a long time before in Portuguese translation. It still was a lot. It seemed like I was looking up words right and left. Nautical vocabulary can be esoteric in English, let alone in TL. It can be overwhelming and lead to a sense of inadequacy and a "crisis of faith". Persistence is the key, as long as a learner has an adequate enough of a foundation in the language with basic vocabulary and grammar along with a good inner voice. I had that foundation and I struggled at first. I stuck with it. Sometimes I would struggle to get through a page but I kept going. I remember the book getting much easier after I had finished 3/4 of it. At the end of the book, I looked back with pride at what I had accomplished. Had I given up... I perhaps could have given up on the language altogether.

Some of our biggest battles in learning a language aren't vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. The biggest challenges are often within ourselves- perfectionism, self-doubt and being overly self-critical can wreck a learner as surely as not knowing an idiom or a verbal construction.

We all wish we could learn enough of a language first to make reading a book as easy as in our native language. That's not reality for most of us. Reading at first is a struggle, but the more you do, the easier it gets. One day it becomes almost as easy as reading in your native language... after you've read a lot more. Hang in there, Morgana, and good luck!

[Elenia]

So, everyone who has read books in their TLs: your first book took you forever, too, right??? At the pace I'm moving I doubt I'll be finished by year's end Mini-crisis-of-faiths keep occurring, like, why am I doing this? Am I sure I want to do this? Is this the right book to do this with? What is the point of any of it? Why can't I download Swedish into my brain Matrix-style already? I would use the laughing emoji again but I want to resist using too many in a single post. Maybe I've crossed that line already.

I still haven't finished the first book I started in Swedish

I think the first book in Finnish that I consider seriously as a book I read* took me three years. I started seriously reading Finnish much later.

* There where two children's books before with only 60 pages, large script and lots of pictures etc. -> I don't count those. The first one I count was written by Astrid Lindgren, so still for children/a younger audience. Then there may have been an attempt in between with another book, which I couldn't read at all, when I bought it. I read it actually six years later, when I had already read a few books.

My first finished Swedish book was also by Astrid Lindgren - Mio, min Mio (Mio, my Son in English translation). I had also previously read and/or listened to some Pippi Långstrump stories that I found on line. It helps of course that I like Astrid Lindgren and children's books anyway. I have a collection of letters written between her and a fan that I'm looking forward to reading.

[NoManches]

You can find the motivation you need to drop Anki by looking at iguanamon's posts and his log.
Everytime you think about Anki, just remember that you will always forget words and you will always see those words again someday.

I used to be an Anki-addict! I dropped it after receiving some advice on the forum and I'm glad that I did. I will say this though: Anki served as a sort of replacement for my lack of reading. I accumulated a rather large Anki deck and never missed a single day. The result was a very solid vocabulary for the words I had in Anki, which were always accompanied by an example sentence. Instead of reading the same words and sentences over and over again each day, I would have rather read a ton of books or magazines to reinforce my vocabulary.

As long as you replace Anki with something, you will be fine. Ditch Anki and replace it with reading!

I haven't used Anki since March of 2017 (so over a year) and I don't think my vocabulary has diminished that much. As a matter of fact, I'd say my passive vocabulary is still really good. There are times when I really want to learn a few words and know that Anki would allow me to put them in my active vocabulary in no time. But then I think about how addicted I was to Anki and how much time I spent organizing, adding, and studying cards. I'd much rather use that time to read or watch something in my TL. Also, if you increase your reading you will be shocked at how often you come across the same words. This is real life Anki and it can't be beat!

[eido]

I used to be super obsessed with the Scandinavian countries because of an anime. There was an Icelandic app, QuizUp, where I was like in the top 5 in my state for Nordic trivia. Now, I didn't do much more than ogle so I didn't have a lot of knowledge, but I got that score from purely extrapolating from what I did know. This relates to me and Faroese sparsely - I roleplayed as the personification of Iceland and the Faroe Islands for at least three years. I named them Erik and Jakup, respectively. If I had the chance to learn both places' beautiful tongues, I would. They are so pleasant to the ear. They make me smile. I am ready (hopefully) to approach learning these languages with a more mature sensibility but with the same childlike wonder of seeing the Blue Lagoon or Hallgrímskirkja for the first time. So yes, I am interested in Faroese. Keep up with your Icelandic studies. I might join you someday.

[zjones]

Some thoughts:
[list][*]Being a beginner sucks, when one wants to get somewhere in a hurry. (I don't, anymore.)
[*]There are a lot of ways to get from A to B and one will guaranteed get caught up in trying to figure out which way is "best."
[*]The beginner stages are rife with insecurities and impatience. It will be a conscious effort at first to try and quiet them.

I love these thoughts, thank you! I want to write them down for when I'm having a bad language day.

Strategy is to wean myself off of Anki a bit, re-assess in one month, and see how well I am retaining all the vocabulary I encounter that I haven't had the opportunity to Anki, because I am not letting myself Anki it.

Awesome experiment, I never considered that one might become dependent on Anki, but it makes sense. Are you weaning off Anki for both Swedish and Icelandic? If you don't know a word, will you be using a dictionary to look it up?

[eido]

How did you download Alaric Hall's course? I found the Google Drive folder where you could download the lessons, and I've downloaded the first one twice, but when I try to unzip them it gives me this message:

ziperror1.PNG

I like to think I'm a computer-savvy millennial, but obviously not. If it helps, I copied the downloaded file folder to my jump drive like an article on the Web told me to. It said to move it to a different location and then extract the files. I'm also having trouble deleting files from my download bin - every time I right click it gives me the blue loading circle, so I'd like to save re-downloading for the last resort if possible.

Thank you to anyone who responds, if you do.

[eido]

I think I figured the problem out. I had to boot my computer (Windows 8 OS) into safe mood to delete some files and rearrange things. I posted to the Microsoft forums and got the answer. Booting into this mode seemed to fix the glitch that was happening on the regular mode. While in safe mode, I extracted the files to my jump drive just fine. Don't worry that you didn't know anything - I never know when I'll run into a computer whiz so I just thought I'd ask about my problem. I don't know if this was the right place, though. Sorry for jacking your log