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 Language Learning Forum : Members profiles |  | |
| Mauritz Octoglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 5059 days ago 223 posts - 325 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, EnglishC2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Esperanto, French Studies: Old English, Yiddish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Korean, Portuguese, Welsh, Icelandic, Afrikaans | Message 1 of 8 22 August 2011 at 12:58am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi everyone!
I've been a member of this forum since early January and figured that I should post an introduction of myself. I've mainly been posting on and off in the game threads in the multilingual forum, but this might be the start of a more active participation on this board. Most of you probably don't know of me, so here's a short presentation to you all. Anyway, my name is Mauritz and I'm from Scania, the southernmost province of Sweden. This is something that is very central during my language learning; we pronounce R's like in French and German, not with the tip of the tongue – a major hindrance for gaining a good pronunciation in most languages. This was mostly true when I started learning languages and it killed a lot of motivation, but I overcame it and became much better at pronouncing this incredibly vicious positioning of the tongue. Language learning is a relatively new phenomena for me, going back only a few years, but I've grown to be what my family and friends call “extremely passionate” about it. This is even better illustrated my the fact that I'll begin studying linguistics at the university next week, hoping to eventually became a professor in that very subject. Without claiming to be an accomplished polyglot in any way (I'm astounded by a lot of you guys!), here's a list of the languages that I've come into contact with (in a somewhat chronological order): English – I started learning this in first grade; like most Swedes, I consider myself to speak it rather well and recently got a CEFR C2 in it. French – My first experience of really studying a language and I did so for six years. It was a mostly terrible experience and I grew to loathe it, only to appreciate it after finishing my studies. I can write and read it, but speaking and listening are skills that I desperately need to brush up. Spanish – The language that made me hate my dialect of Swedish. The rolled R's really made me dislike this language, but I kept studying it for three years. As with French, the experience was not to fantastic and I never really learned it. My interesest has recently grown, though, and I'm now determined to become more proficient in it. Esperanto – The initiator of my love for languages. The simplicity and clarity of Esperanto helped me not only to learn the language but also all my future languages. I'm also a member of the Swedish Esperanto Association. Arabic – After a sudden interest in Arabic, I tried to learn it by myself at home. The differences in structure compared to my previous languages amazed me and my love for it grew. I managed to get some time with an Arabic teacher each week for a couple of months, followed by two years studying with native Arabic speakers. Russian – At this point my teachers noticed my interest in languages, and I with their help I managed to get a grant. The only condition was that the money had to go to the study of a language in a European country. Trying to avoid my old enemies French and Spanish, as well as my lack of interest in German and Italian, the choice fell on Russian. I stayed in St. Petersburg for three months, living with a Russian family and studying the language every day. Mandarin – I had to chose a new subject in school and being the only language on the list of choices, this was an obvious language to learn. I got a really good start, but I have a long way to go before I can read a novel. Yiddish – This was as sudden urge, as I felt that I just had to learn this clever and amazing language. The amount of culture that is packed into Yiddish is incredible and it is really interesting to learn. Afrikaans – I don't know why I mention this one, but I have wanted to learn Afrikaans for a while. I studied it for a while, but I doubt that knowing little else than the phrase “ons het 'n padda opgesny” counts as knowing a language. I'll get back to it as soon as possible! Italian – As I've already mentioned, Italian was for a long time not on my hit list. Wondering about that, I decided that it couldn't be possible for me to actively dislike a language. I therefore pushed myself to learn it on my own. Based on my previous knowledge of French and Spanish, it was not particularly difficult and I now know it better than either one of them. Icelandic – Like the feeling I felt for Yiddish, I got a sudden urge to learn Old Norse. Learning and earlier stage of a language that I know (in this case Swedish) is very appealing to me, but I decided rather quickly that learning Icelandic would probably be a better experience. A fun language and the first one that was rather close to Swedish. Turkish – I was planning a trip through Europe with a friend and decided that we would finish in Turkey. For this reason and the fact that I have a friend there was good enough a reason to learn Turkish. Being a very structured and logical language, it was and still is very interesting to learn. Swahili – I began learning this just a week ago. I thought that it was time for me to learn another one of the most spoken languages in Africa. I'm just getting started, but noun classes already make me excited! I just realized the extreme length of this post, so I won't make it longer and more tedious. I'd just like to tell you all how great this forum is and how incredibly fun it is to meet people with the same interest as yourself. Sometimes I may feel a bit odd and lose some motivation, but nowadays I now that I can turn to this forum for inspiration whenever I want. I often feel that I underachieve and often try to hide my interest in languages, so that is perfect! Best regards, Mauritz 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4850 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 2 of 8 22 August 2011 at 2:17am | IP Logged | ||
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Impressive list (and another person with C2 certification, aaarghhh, I become jealous, really!). Paradoxically, it's good to read that also people who have achieved such success in learning languages also give up sometimes (currently I experience some travails and I'm in spe that it's only temporal). Underachieve... You've just taught me a very useful word, which can describe my situation perfectly, especially if it comes to languages.
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 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6900 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 8 22 August 2011 at 9:06am | IP Logged | ||
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Not the usual bunch of languages... (English, Spanish, German, French...). Nice to see a fellow Swede on the forum!
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| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6650 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 4 of 8 22 August 2011 at 9:54am | IP Logged | ||
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Jippie! En till svensk, mer sådana! Välkommen :D.
(Yay! Another Swede, more of those! Welcome :D) Though I thought that most Scanians could do the rikssvenska Rs actually. But, I’ve never thought much about it since you usually speak your own, slightly alterd, dialect when in other parts of Sweden (i.e. not using rullebôr and spiddekauge :P). How is it when it comes to pronouncing pure vowels and not making them into diphthongs? Most English speakers seem to have a hard time doing long e:s (most often making them into /ei/; does this applies to hard core Scanian speakers too? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mauritz Octoglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 5059 days ago 223 posts - 325 votes Speaks: Swedish*, EnglishC2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Esperanto, French Studies: Old English, Yiddish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Korean, Portuguese, Welsh, Icelandic, Afrikaans | Message 5 of 8 22 August 2011 at 6:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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@prz_: Thanks a lot! Keep working and you'll attain a C2 in no time! Motivation is at times difficult to find, but
perhaps the lack of it is just an indication of a need to relax and stop studying languages for a while. @jeff_lindqvist: Thanks, it's nice to be here! @Hampie: Haha, tack så mycket! (Haha, thanks a lot!) I have no idea if I'm just unusually bad at pronouncing those R's, but I've heard that it's a problem for at least some when studying Spanish. Pronouncing pure vowels has never been a problem for me; I guess that pronouncing different vowels doesn't force a lazy Scanian tongue to weird places in one's mouth. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alexander86 Tetraglot Senior Member United Kingdom alanguagediary.blogs Joined 4972 days ago 224 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, Catalan Studies: Swedish | Message 6 of 8 05 September 2011 at 2:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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Welcome, you really have a great selection of languages there. And well done on the grant for language learning, it's
good to see that language learning can pay off =) (I similarly received my PhD funding in part due to my language skills) Which part of Skåne are you from? Have you started your linguistics yet? I'm sure the university offers lots and lots of language courses for you! (I have to stop myself from signing up to too many courses here...) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mauritz Octoglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 5059 days ago 223 posts - 325 votes Speaks: Swedish*, EnglishC2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Esperanto, French Studies: Old English, Yiddish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Korean, Portuguese, Welsh, Icelandic, Afrikaans | Message 7 of 8 11 September 2011 at 2:19am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks! I've started my linguistics now and the university sure offers a lot of language
courses! I'm considering giving Latin a try, but I'll probably apply for another interesting language next spring. To answer your second question: I'm from Trelleborg, the southernmost city and municipality of Sweden. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4819 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 8 of 8 19 September 2011 at 8:57pm | IP Logged | ||
Hello, Well, a lot more English people have now heard of Skåne than used to be the case, thanks to the books and TV series "Wallander". (I hope you are not fed up of hearing this). I have to say that it was thanks to Wallander that I made my first trip to Sweden, although it was another factor that caused us to make a spectacular timing error, weatherwise, and arrive during the earlier-than-usual snow last November! We'd taken a train from Copenhagen to Malmø then hired a car to drive to Ystad. We'd planned this ages beforehand, not dreaming that there might be snow on the ground. It wasn't too bad in Malmø, but got steadily worse as we approached Ystad. Still, we got there ok, and had quite a nice time (except the friendly owner of the B&B we stayed in thought we were mad to have come at that time, and I couldn't really disagree). On one occasion, we tried driving out to the place where Wallander's father was supposed to have lived. We turned off the main road to take the smaller road (I forget the name of the place now), and it just seemed to disappear into the snow completely! We stopped by the side of the road and wondered what to do. Meanwhile, a lorry (the only vehicle we saw on that road) overtook us, and carried on along a route that I certainly would not have predicted the road to be on. What with that and the danger of snow-blindness, we decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and headed back to the relative safety of Ystad. We didn't regret having gone there. The locals said that it was unusual to get snow that early and that heavily, and I gather that some years, they don't get any at all. (We got plenty in England later on, as it happened). But next time, we'll go in summer! (The timing of the trip was because we were combining it with a trip to Norway for the last-but-one-ever "a-ha" concert in Oslo, but that's another story...). Edited by montmorency on 19 September 2011 at 8:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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