—

[Neurotip]

(Shh, I haven't told Swedish about any of this.)

Be careful. Swedish and Icelandic hang out together and it'll be hard to hide. 'Hey why are you trying to inflect my adjectives?'

[smallwhite]

From the café to the cinema. The romance goes on.

So whose husband is she going out with? And who is the father of that child? The neighbours can't wait to find out!

[jeff_lindqvist]

1. Hon och hennes man gick på bio igår kväll.
2. Hon gick på bio med sin man igår kväll.
3. Hon och hennes man gick på bio och deras barn stannade hemma.
4. Hon och hennes man gick på bio med sina barn.

? (I just made up these sentences, I hope they aren’t somehow wrong and thus taking away from my point about the pronouns and word order.)

Sentence 1, hennes because it’s part of the subject, sentence 2 sin because it’s the object. Sentence 3, deras barn (and not sina barn) because it’s a new subject (och attaches the two main clauses). Sentence 4, sina barn because it’s an object. Here’s hoping. Word order! Understanding the word order lets the pronouns come on their own. I hope.

Well done! You've summarized it better than I could have. I can now retire.

[Neurotip]

Great explanation about 'sin' - very helpful. Thinking about 'och', would I be right in saying...

5. Hon, hennes man och sina barn gick på bio.

...because 'och' is joining phrases here rather than clauses?

Hennes, hans, och deras only show up under the possessive column but sin, sitt, and sina are under both. So I’m not any clearer on that distinction.

Do you mean 'both possessive and reflexive'? If so yes, that's right. You can think of 'I, you, him, her, himself/herself' as separate 'persons', and each has subject, object and possessive pronouns -- 'jag, mig, min' is parallel to '???, sig, sin', just that the reflexive pronouns have no subject ('jag, du, ...') form.

By the way, if you feel like tackling Icelandic, I wouldn't let the similarity to Swedish put you off. The pronunciation and grammar are quite different, and the shared vocabulary is more of a help than a hindrance. It shouldn't be too hard to find separate brain-spaces for them.

[jeff_lindqvist]

So. The pronouns. I did look up whether they are reflexive or possessive, but the textbook actually splits them up as possessive pronouns or reflexive possessive pronouns. Hennes, hans, och deras only show up under the possessive column but sin, sitt, and sina are under both. So I’m not any clearer on that distinction.

Sin/sitt/sina are both possessive and reflexive - typically they're used to "reflect" the subject (like the reflexive pronoun "sig" - herself/himself/itself/themselves). They also remind us that the "possessed" object is their own, and not somebody else's.

Applied to your sentences:

2. Hon gick på bio med sin man igår kväll. (Her own husband, not her friend's; "Hon gick på bio med hennes man igår kväll" - if Alice went to the movies with Barbara's husband, this is a perfect sentence.)
4. Hon och hennes man gick på bio med sina barn. (Again, their own children, not their neighbours'; "med deras barn" works, assuming "Hon och hennes man" are going to the movies with somebody else's children.)

5. Hon, hennes man och sina barn gick på bio.

No, it doesn't work according to the subject rule (sin/sitt/sina don't work that way, and och has created two main clauses). It has to be deras (which of course can mean their own children or somebody else's - context is king).

Too add fuel to the confusing fire, sin/sitt/sina can start a sentence - if it's an object. I'd say that those cases sound very constructed, e.g. "Sina barn tog hon med på bio, men mannen stannade hemma." ("(As for) her children, she took to the movies, but the husband stayed home.")

[Neurotip]

Congratulations on giving in to the urge! Looking forward to hearing how you get on.

I forgot this gem: https://youtu.be/lYiqc0cqrnM

Isn't it wonderful? - if a tad contrived. I think I've heard three or four versions and all of them have different last lines (if memory serves, the Viltu læra íslensku version ends by pointing out that c, q and w are *not* in the alphabet, a fact that Icelandic seems curiously proud of). When my six-year-old son heard me singing it to myself the other day he confidently pointed out that I'd got it wrong as there was definitely no cow in the alphabet.

Icelandic spelling is not much more troublesome than Swedish, I would say. There aren't a lot of exceptions, but there are a lot of rules!

Finally, remember: one does not simply dabble in Icelandic ...

[Elenia]

LR is not going well. I guess I like learning the same lesson over and over (that I don't like LR). It doesn't help that the translator took some liberties in leaving out phrases, whole sentences, even a paragraph here and there, as well as playing with word choices for whatever reason. And I'm only a few chapters in. What else makes it un-fun is my vestibular disorder. (I'm not going into more details on that but if you're unfamiliar and curious, here you go.) I need a different strategy other than torturing myself for a couple of hours everyday to the degree that only LR seems to torture me.

[...]

It feels flaky changing course so early on, but I'm unapologetic. It's only me I have to answer to

Yep, you are only answering to yourself. You don't need to enjoy LR or even find it useful just because others have done. I am sure there are others who feel the same (and who probably feel empowered to let themselves drop it after seeing you do so). Just like every method, it doesn't work for everyone and that's okay. At the end of the day, your learning is self directed and for your own enjoyment. It's good to give different techniques a fair trial, which I would say you have more than done with LR. It's not the only method to improve listening or grow your vocabulary, and many people have gotten along just fine without it.

You may find or feel that at a later stage you want to reincorporate some aspects of LR - maybe without the L2R1 stage (which is something I tend to skip over more often than not). Now you've tried the method a couple of times, you'll be able to say what hinders rather than helps if ever you wish to modify the method for yourself. Or you may happily never think about LR again. It's a means to an end, not the end itself. I like LR, but in practice I often read a book and then listen to the audiobook at a later stage, or the other way round.

Anyway, good luck going forward!

[Elenia]

Isn't it amazing to just let yourself go where your interests take you? There's definitely a place for the hard core note taking and textbook study, but being able to just enjoy the language, and enjoy being in contact with the language is so very important.

[rdearman]

Don't forget that you can do half challenge as well.

[jeff_lindqvist]

I've oscillated about how to handle Anki, about whether to stop adding to it or to continue, are 50 new words/day too many or should I reduce it, should I restrict my reading to my maximum new words/day on Anki or should I read past... Worrying about the details and not seeing big picture, probably. I have a feeling regardless of what I do with (or without) Anki, I'll be just fine and will make progress. It's a lot of mental work to get out of traps one sets for oneself, usually without even realizing they are traps.

In any case I've dropped it to 30 new words/day because I'm just not retaining enough of the 50/day to have that be worthwhile time spent.

Whatever the number of cards you add, make sure that Anki will show them in the same session or next. You don't want a deck full of unseen cards just because you keep adding a lot everyday. Nowadays, my daily additions to two language decks are between 10 and 20 - that's OK, because according to my settings, Anki shows up to 50 new cards.

See also:

Huge anki decks
Goldlist vs Anki