Fluent Swedish by 2013 | My language mission and my log | Forum

Stumbled across this great site today called Memrise after seeing a video Moses McCormick just uploaded about it (see video here). It's a really fun way of adding words to my vocabulary as well as testing myself by both recognising them and reproducing them when asked. I like it.

I also have had a lot of people ask me why I'm learning Swedish. Some popular reasons why it's a waste of my time include: It's ferociously difficult, nearly all Scandanavians have near-perfect English anyway, Swedish doesn't have an especially large number of native speakers, it sounds childish.

I find this extremely annoying. I just sort of smile and dismiss their claims (especially the one about it being difficult, since it's one of the easiest for native English speakers to learn) but I still find it almost insulting. No one would bat an eyelid if I said I was learning Mandarin or Spanish since they're "useful". Anyone have any tips for getting people to shut up and open their minds to "different" languages?

Good luck Fluorescence! Like Blueslant, I'm a Dutch learner, although I luckily haven't gotten much of that sentiment yet. I think a good thing to keep in mind is that something like 95% of languages have less than a million speakers. Even "small" "insignificant" languages like Dutch and Swedish are in that top 5%! And that's not even considering all the extinct languages out there. I'd say relatively, they're wildly succesful and significent. And it's not like you're going to stop there, you can learn "important" languages alongside "unimportant" ones; you want to learn French alongside Swedish and Irish, and I've learned decent Spanish alongside my preferred Dutch and Urdu.

But yeah, blueslant hit the nail on the head with the second point. There's a world of media out there in Swedish, Dutch and Irish that's innaccessible to Anglophone monoglots. I guess it's less than Korean or French, but how much can you read, watch or listen to in a lifetime anyway? It's not like we're talking about Pitjantjara or Maasai, and even then I wouldn't give someone strife for wanting to get to know those cultures. As an Irish person, you know that there are dozens of European languages with many fewer native speakers than Swedish.

What do you think about the band Movits!, by the way? I think they're pretty good. I've never had much of an exposure to Swedish before hearing their stuff, but I like it (the language and the music itself):

contz said:

Hi Fluorescene,
 

I think it's great that you are going to learn Swedish (my native tongue) and I wish you the best of luck.
 

My advice on how to learn Swedish is to focus on the similarities with English since they both are Germanic languages the difference in words is mainly the words English has from the Roman times.

Let me give a few examples on words that are similar and really easy to learn

[….]

I hope this might help you with your quest to learn Swedish, I think it's an very achievable goal and my advice to you is to focus on the similarities you can acquire a huge amount of vocabulary without a lot of effort!

Best of luck! 

That's very helpful, thank you. I have definitely noticed a lot of similarities myself, like varmt = hot (warmth) and kallt = cold.

blueslant said:

Hey fluorescence! In regards to your last question – I think all you can really do is explain, at that moment, why you want to learn Swedish so much and show those doubters your enthusiasm for the language. Most people you're talking to probably haven't ever learned a language for fun and legitimately don't get it.

True that.

I was sort of in the same boat this past year. I was learning Dutch, which also has a reputation for being difficult (dunno why), also arguably doesn't have many native speakers, also apparently sounds silly, and also can be perceived as not being very "useful" because the vast majority of Dutch people speak very good English.

When I'm asked why I'm studying Dutch I usually just say that I genuinely like how the language sounds and I like Dutch people, so it was a no-brainer for me. But if pressed further on any of the objections you mentioned, I have ready responses for those too.

- It's difficult – Not as much as you would think. Swedish (and Dutch!) and English are all Germanic Indo-European languages.

- Nearly all [insert nationality here] speak perfect English anyway – Yeah… to English speakers. But not to each other. Learning the language opens up that secret world of [Swedish/Dutch/Afrikaans/etc.]-speakers to you.

- It doesn't have a large number of native speakers – 9 million people is still a lot of people. Am I going to even talk to 9 million people in my lifetime? Probably not. Big enough for me.

I'm sure it's very frustrating to have your language of choice constantly questioned, but hopefully you can help your friends see all this in a different light.

All very good points. Thank you (Tack!). Dutch is on my own wishlist too, after a brief trip to Dutch-speaking areas of Belgium last summer. It's a really great language :D

Saim said:

Good luck Fluorescence! Like Blueslant, I'm a Dutch learner, although I luckily haven't gotten much of that sentiment yet. I think a good thing to keep in mind is that something like 95% of languages have less than a million speakers. Even "small" "insignificant" languages like Dutch and Swedish are in that top 5%! And that's not even considering all the extinct languages out there. I'd say relatively, they're wildly succesful and significent. And it's not like you're going to stop there, you can learn "important" languages alongside "unimportant" ones; you want to learn French alongside Swedish and Irish, and I've learned decent Spanish alongside my preferred Dutch and Urdu.

That's a good point too. I will at some point in the future be learning Mandarin, which everyone seems to consider "The" language to learn right now (there are lot's of university courses popping up in Ireland now that combine Chinese and Business for example). I can't imagine anyone will find that one strange :P

But yeah, blueslant hit the nail on the head with the second point. There's a world of media out there in Swedish, Dutch and Irish that's innaccessible to Anglophone monoglots. I guess it's less than Korean or French, but how much can you read, watch or listen to in a lifetime anyway? It's not like we're talking about Pitjantjara or Maasai, and even then I wouldn't give someone strife for wanting to get to know those cultures. As an Irish person, you know that there are dozens of European languages with many fewer native speakers than Swedish.

That's true. Although, to be fair most Irish media is available in both Irish AND English. And a lot of English-only Irish people consider Irish to be an utterly useless language. Which is a damn shame.

What do you think about the band Movits!, by the way? I think they're pretty good. I've never had much of an exposure to Swedish before hearing their stuff, but I like it (the language and the music itself):

They're new to me, so thanks for the link! :D I've mostly been listening to Melissa Horn for Swedish music, and singing (very badly) along to get my pronunciation and intonation better. I must listen to more of their songs!

Thanks everyone for your replies. Lot's of new information to take on board now

Stuff I did today:

Shadowed this song a couple of times,and copied and pasted the lyrics into Learning With Texts. Pretty fun.

I also added 40 new words/phrases to my vocabulary using Memrise, as well as using my flashcards to learn all the various question words in Swedish on my bus journey in and out of college

I'm still waiting for all my stuff to arrive in the post so I'm just doing general stuff like this until then. I won't have a dictionary for some while yet as the store I ordered it from are still "Processing" over a week later. The Colloquial book has been shipped though, and I'm guessing it will arrive Friday or next Monday. I also ordered 3 fantasy novels from Bokus, but I don't expect to be able to read them for at least another month yet (possibly longer depending on how much time my other interests require). I just couldn't believe how inexpensive they were compared to Irish prices 

I'm fairly happy with the small amount of progress I've made so far. One thing I really really want to start doing more of is listening to lots and lots of radio. At the moment I'm only learning pronunciation of individual words using the Google Translate audio (which is FAR from ideal), which doesn't give me any real idea of how the sounds flow together in actual sentences. Intonation seems to me to be quite important in Swedish since it's a rather musical "sing-songy" language. Not like tones in Chinese or anything, but still merits a fair amount of consideration. So I'll be working on that more.

As always, feel free to weigh in on anything that interests you!

Wow that is a lot of tips. Tack så mycket . I love reggae, so I'll definitely check those bands out. Is the southern accent the one that would be prominent in Stockholm?

I had no idea either that The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo or Let The Right One In were originally made in Swedish. I must hunt those down too. Guess ya learn something new every day.

Also the SVT player seems to work here. Huzzah! *does happy dance*

In other news, my fantasy novels from Bokus arrived today! I don't anticipate being able to read them for at least another month or two yet, but I'm still pretty excited. Books are awesome. Plus they smell great

fluorescence said:

I got a bit bored earlier so I tried writing a few sentences about my dog using the small amount vocabulary I know. It's probably completely awful grammar, but the idea of the exercise was to try using the bits I know to create new phrases instead of just memorizing stuff by rote. Not exactly Joycean, but it wasn't meant to be perfect!

 

My attempt:

Mitt hund heter Suzie, men hon svarar till "Hund" och "Du". Hon är svart och vitt. Hon är tio år gammal och hon kommer från Irland. Hon talar inte. Hon sover mellan bilen och trädet – nej, hon sover på trädet. Hon gillar solen genom fönstret. Hon spring långsamt. Jag vet hon gillar inte blommor.

 What I intended it to say: 

My dog's called Suzie, but she answers to "Dog" and "You". She is black and white. She is 10 years old and comes from Ireland. She doesn't talk. She sleeps between the car and the tree – no, she sleeps in the tree. She likes the sun through the window. She runs slowly. I know she doesn't like flowers.

 
Very silly and rudimentary, I know, but it was just a bit of fun to see how much Swedish I could produce after a few days study. If any Swedes are hanging about and wish to tidy it up I'd be grateful, but I was mostly aiming for vocabulary production without prompts (a true test of language knowledge, I think).

First, I'll answer your question about the accents. When I say southern accent I mean the way they speak in "Malmö" and the region called "Skåne" in Sweden. I'm from Stockholm so I would make fun of thier accent and say that they speak like the Danes, which isn't really true but we got a love/hate relationship in Sweden.
They make fun of me for being from the capital the same kind of jokes I guess you have in many countries about people from different regions.

I think your written Swedish is good and it's a good way to practise your Swedish.

Mitt hund heter Suzie, – Min hund heter Suzie

, men hon svarar till "Hund" och "Du". This sentence is correct and it makes sense when you read it, however, if you say it out loud it sounds a bit wired to say "du" (you) even in English.
You could rephrase it to "Hund" eller "Du" ("Dog" or "You"), sorry if I'm being so picky.

Hon är svart och vitt. Correct!
Hon är tio år gammal och hon kommer från Irland. Correct!

Hon talar inte. I can understand this but I would probably phrase it as "Hon kan inte prata" but when I look at the English version you wrote I would say it's a accurate translation it just sounds a bit off for my Swedish ears :)

Hon sover mellan bilen och trädet Correct!

- nej, hon sover på trädet. "- nej, hon sover i trädet" prepositions are difficult but as a rule of thumb you can say that "på" = on and "i" = in. So what you wrote would translate to "she sleeps on the tree".

Hon gillar solen genom fönstret. Correct!

Hon spring långsamt. Correct!

Jag vet hon gillar inte blommor. "Jag vet att hon inte gillar blommor." You need to have the "att" there. It kind of translates to, "I know that she …" then just switch "gillar" och "inte" around.

There are just minor mistakes and I have no problems understanding it.

 

Inga problem!

Those damn Norwegians, stealing all the glory.

I wish I could help you with finding a job in Sweden but I haven't lived there for 3 years so I don't really know what's available. You could try to find a job as an English teacher if there are any summer schools or something.

I plan to spend my summer without a job living in Stockholm for two months (bumming of my parents).
So if you're in Stockholm this summer let me know and I can introduce you to the Swedish tradition of "fika" as long as you do it "lagom" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagom).

Two good words to know, especially lagom.

Lycka till!
 

fluorescence said:

Lagom makes me think of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. Must have been a Swede who wrote that! :P

Isn't that an English story?

I should get some fantasy novels in German!

Good luck

Merry weekend everyone!

The novel is going slowly. Verrrrry slowly :P I'm just reading and rereading the first chapter at the moment.

I also now know how to count in Swedish! Give me any number and I can say it I made a set of flashcards with cardinal numbers on them to do on the bus, and it was extremely easy. They had 1-20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 1000, 1,000,000, 1,000,000,000 and a few random ones like 25, 78, 101, 300, 1959, etc. Easy as pie. I always found numbers hard to remember in other languages for some reason, so I was pleasantly surprised by how simple they were to pick up.

In other news, I'm finding it quite annoying that I don't have a working mp3 player right now. I keep finding lots and lots of little gaps in my day that could be filled with listening to Swedish (which, once noticed cannot be un-noticed) and it's frustrating. The earliest delivery estimate for my new Zen is on Thursday, but it could be next Wednesday before I actually receive it

I also finally got Anki and have begun reviewing sentences. Woo

Not too much else to mention right now. I spent 2 hours last night watching Borgen (which is in Danish, but hush) and I absolutely love it. I'm hooked on it! Great show. I can't help noticing words that are common with Swedish, and how different the accent is, but it's fun. I'm dying to see next week's installment!

My new Creative Zen arrived in the post today (2 working days – damn impressive) You know what this means, dear followers. From this moment on it’s All Swedish, All The Time. I’ve put my Movits! cd on there already and I’m currently getting all the podcasts I possibly can. I also have a €10 voucher I got with the Zen to buy music with, so that’ll be funky Swedish stuff too. WOOT!

I am slightly concerned that I haven’t received my Colloquial book or my dictionary yet from the Book Depository. It’s pushing 3 weeks now since I ordered them

In other news, yesterday I watched the entire Millennium trilogy in Swedish. It was awesome