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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| pbromide Bilingual Triglot Groupie United States Joined 4549 days ago 76 posts - 98 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish | Message 25 of 92 23 August 2012 at 3:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Remember that little transcription I made of "So Much Better" when I started this log?
I decided to look at it again and lo and behold, I find myself understanding it a little more now! It's not a big accomplishment, but it makes me feel like I'm making some sort of progress. Here is the link to the song so you Swedes can look at it and laugh at my hilarious inaccurate transcription (my personal favorite is "dinri.") Also for you musical theater fans who like uplifting songs from silly musicals. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHMG4J5IaJY Tänk att jag trodde på att det blivit så att du älskade mig att jag skulle få respekt för mitt intelekt och du älskade mig Men fast en jag har gjort min längsta resa fick hon ändå din ring så na du går iväg så rasar allt om kvinn Va'? Whoa! Kan det var sant, det som jar ser? Nu vet jag inte va som sker måste va fel jag är aldrig e stel (?) Låt mig most ställa du Au, ja! Det är mitt namn min svat och bet (?) då har jag tröppat mitt??? Det känns väldigt mycket bättre nu Warner! Ursäkta för idag och att inte jag kunde jobba dij men jag känns bättre nu och det ska bli kul att för jobba med dig (Jobba med mig?!) Kan du minnas när vi låg i polen ?? varje dag? Vi sa inget kunde nånsing bli so bra Då jeg jag! Lyssta jag tytta det på det och mycket bättre ending känns sa ja va kast att jag faknare mast men jag tror det va du Se denna lysta med mitt namn Fa knacka i din famn Men det är mycket bättre, ja, mycket bättre, ja my-my-my-my-my! en bättre! Jag är väldigt mycket bättre nu. Gratis, kära, friaren nu har du got vidaren ...eller dig... men det gäller inte mig ...söreling... himmelen... En mycket bättre än en man ...? Mama! Se på mitt namn Edited by pbromide on 23 August 2012 at 3:55am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| pbromide Bilingual Triglot Groupie United States Joined 4549 days ago 76 posts - 98 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish | Message 26 of 92 23 August 2012 at 9:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's been four years and I still hate typing with the Russian keyboard. You think I'd
have gotten used to it by now, but I'm still typing slowly, like some computer- illiterate child. It's embarrassing. Since it seems that my college Russian class will not be canceled, I'm going to take to writing more in Russian. Reviewing all the Russian material I have (New Penguin Russian Course, Assimil, Princeton, Living Language... and far too many others) will assure not only that my foundation is solid, but that I'll get a good grade in the class. ;) I also wanted to write about context here. Remember how I said that there's a study showing that your environment affects recall? Well, I think this applies to context as well. If I learn a word in a song, it's perfectly possible that I'll recognize it in that song and yet I'll find it in another song and not know what it means or even remember that I knew the word. As such, I cannot just be a passive listener when it comes from songs - I must think about each word and dwell on it. This isn't always necessary - some words you get used to very quickly. At other times, my brain is not fond of cooperating (coöperating, if we want to go all New Yorker) and I have to look at the words and think about them. Take the words "lura" and "berusad." I'd heard them in two different songs before, but outside of the context of the song, I kept thinking of it as a new word. Yesterday it just clicked for me that hey, I actually know what "berusad" means (after seeing it explained in a "speak real Swedish" video on how to talk to drunk Swedes) and then it just started popping up everywhere. Same with "lura," which I found in a bunch of Disney songs. I also want to talk about flash card programs, flash cards, word lists, and any other place where you repeatedly come across a word in only one context. I used to do a lot of SRS. Every new word BAM went into the SRS. And when the time came to practice them, I had a very high recall rate. When it came to recognizing them in reading or using them, I was lost. Even if I copied the sentence, I needed to see the word in more than one context. I can't see any easy solution for this. Reading a lot of materials would help. Even non-native materials are helpful because they have a tendency to reuse the same word over and over, so you won't suffer from word-amnesia. Chalk one up for the "read and listen and communicate a lot" camp. And yeah, that was a pointless little anecdote. I consider myself to have a good memory, but it's very context-specific. If I read something important in a book, I'll remember whether it was in the beginning, middle, or end of the page, on the left or right page, approximately where in the book it was... even if I can't tell you why the event happened, I can tell you where it's physically located because that context is just that important to me. So important it apparently supersedes actual context for me. Hopefully not everybody is like me because this is a pretty roundabout way of learning and you forsake meaning for useless clues. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| pbromide Bilingual Triglot Groupie United States Joined 4549 days ago 76 posts - 98 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish | Message 27 of 92 24 August 2012 at 4:58am | IP Logged | ||
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Very discouraging moment today. I tried reading a book from Runeberg and failed
miserably at understanding the second sentence. The syntax just confused me terribly. I guess this is what I get for always referring to Swedish as an "easy" language - it has its difficulties, but they are no doubt hidden beneath a veneer of cognates and similar grammar. For anyone who wants to see the sentence that humbled me, here it is:
I can translate the first sentence as "I sit her and read in Women's World number 33 that Cordelia Edvardson says that after seeing an advertisement from Afghanistan, she's lost her taste for Persian furs." But for some reason, the next sentence simply made no sense to me. "That after this sentimental silly TV ad react exact as the filmmakers hoped and take pity on the small lambs and lose all feelings for wearing a persian fur seemed to me exceptionally illogical." I can make some sense of it, but I don't understand the grammar behind it at all. It's not a question of vocabulary, for I looked up every unknown word in that sentence. It's moments like these to remind one of how important it is to always keep your abilities in perspective. At the same time, one must continue even after humiliating experiences. What do I gain from giving up Swedish? I can sort of understand Swedish pop songs and I can describe what I want to do with the same few words over and over. When I started studying Swedish, I never intended to get to a crazy high level, but now I feel almost like this is a message. It feels like a challenge (I never thought I'd hear the words "Swedish" and "challenge" in the same sentence). Undoubtedly after a period of time I will leave my Swedish studies, or at least move Swedish to my back- burner. But for now, I'm going to try and get as far as I can and have fun. I thought the same thing of Russian - it's impossible to read Russian books, I'll never be able to do it. And yet I managed to get through a play by Chekhov and a tedious read on the economics of colonial America. One thing's for sure - staying away from Swedish won't make it easier to read these texts. I guess aiming for a book is too high right now. I'll stick to my songs; they're what make me happy and they're what give me the most satisfaction. I have the problem of always trying to get ahead of myself. Learning a language is not something you do in a week, or maybe even a year. It's a slow journey. You work a lot and see no immediate results. It's tiring. Why do I do this? Why do I want to repeat this experience over and over again with different languages? A question I have yet to answer. For now, I'm going to set a goal - look up all the new words in the twelve ABBA songs I have left. That's it. My goal is not "read Utvandrarna and write a postmodernist analysis." And after those twelve, then maybe twelve more. And twelve more. And slowly but surely, I'll build my vocabulary and get used to how Swedes speak and maybe one day I'll get the hang of Swedish lit talk. I'll look back at this post and wonder "what the cheeseballs was I thinking?" It's quite possible I'll end up saying this tomorrow. But I'm not going to think that far ahead anymore. I'm going to focus on the present. Nearly 200 words in my SRS. It has grown so fast! But I have yet to seriously review all the words like I had planned. Some days I simply tire of Swedish. Despite all this, I don't want to stop. Men det är alltför mycket engelsk här! Nej nej nej, det kan inte hända. Jag vill soka men jag måste skriva på minst några ord. Idag gjorde jag en playlist av alla svenska sånger som jag har. Bandcamp hade en svensk punk musikgrup. Jag gillar inte punk och sånger har inte texterna på interneten, så vet jag inte varför jag gjorde download. Det är troligen för att det var gratis (och legal, jag vill additionera). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4830 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 28 of 92 24 August 2012 at 3:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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@Pbromide: Well, this is one reason I've started using translations, which at one time
I used to think was "cheating". Now I just regard them as one of many learning aids. That was in German (which I actually know quite well, but nevertheless some books were a challenge). When I come to read "real books" in Danish I won't hesitate to use a translation, and in fact won't even bother with books for which I can't find one. At least for a long, long time (I suspect). The problem can be of course that good translations for some books simply aren't available. For example, I seem to be running up against the buffers with Fontane in that respect, and there are still quite a few great looking books to go. Still I should be able to tackle those by now, even if I'm still looking up a lot of words. I would certainly not attempt books at that level in Danish without a translation though. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| pbromide Bilingual Triglot Groupie United States Joined 4549 days ago 76 posts - 98 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish | Message 29 of 92 25 August 2012 at 1:33am | IP Logged | ||
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@montmorency: Yeah, sometimes we have to swallow our pride (which we've constructed
thinking we're "too good" to use x material or y method) and just use what works. At the same time, I've had to admit to myself that certain very esteemed methods used on this forum (like L-R and Scriptorium) just don't work for me. I think the bit about having a translation is useful; I'll see if I can't find any online Swedish readers (or even actual book readers.) So I got to Chapter 10 of "An Elementary Swedish Grammar" today and discovered to both my pleasure and despair that only seven chapters remain. Seventeen chapters in total!? A grammar book must have AT LEAST twenty five chapters to even begin to be considered respectable. I jest, I jest. Although I have a few issues with the organization of the book and the lack of answers, "An Elementary Swedish Grammar" is pretty great. I'd recommend it to anyone like me who likes to work their way through a book. I think once I finish reading the book I'm going to go back and then do all the exercises, much like I did for Russian. Why then, why not now? Because I'm feeling a little discouraged right now and doing something as tedious as every exercise in the book is not what I need to lift my spirits. Speaking of Russian, school will start next week and if the planets have aligned, my Russian class will go through and I will be taking a class for the language I thought I'd never take an actual class in. I'm very excited. I want to check the foundation of my Russian and make sure that I haven't fossilized any mistakes, and to fix any if I have. Of course, upon that point I may have to change this blog's title since "Sensationally Swedish" won't be quite accurate anymore... still, I'll miss the alliteration. A little word of advice for people learning languages: whenever you feel discouraged, go back. Way back, back into time, when you were starting the language. Read the passages you once thought made no sense. See a few songs, preferably pop songs. You will be saying "jag är väldigt mycket bättre nu" (or its equivalent in your target language) because it shows that you HAVE advanced. It's my little motivational thing: I look at songs I listened to a year ago and I feel happy because I actually understand all the words and grammatical structures. Hurray! EDIT: Another thing that makes me happy is looking through the first few units of FSI (if one is available for your language) and seeing that I know most, if not all, of the words and grammatical structures they're talking about. Of course, looking at different materials is always useful because you learn new constructions and ways of phrasing things. I've started Unit Four. I'm a little tired (and bored) of FSI for the moment, so I think I'll leave Unit Four for tomorrow. Edited by pbromide on 25 August 2012 at 4:12am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| pbromide Bilingual Triglot Groupie United States Joined 4549 days ago 76 posts - 98 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish | Message 30 of 92 25 August 2012 at 8:09am | IP Logged | ||
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Being that summer causes me to turn into a little insomniac, I decided to spend the
late night hours on something useful. That plan quickly deteriorated and I turned to browsing this forum's archives. I found two very useful websites for keeping my French and Russian up to date: topito.com, a French equivalent to Cracked or Listverse, and lingvoforum.com, an alternate universe version of HTLAL where everybody is Russian. It's feels like I'm taking a peek into the inner worlds of French and Russian people, where they're just at home comfortably talking amongst themselves without any fear of judgement. I almost feel guilty, truth be told! But that's just hyperbole, of course - I delight in seeing French/Russian/whatever speakers write for their own language and not a watered down version for those of us trying to learn it. My passive French (especially my reading) is mercifully unaffected by the two years I've spent sort of... not doing French. My active French leaves a lot to be desired, but nothing that can't be reactivated with effort. My Russian is okay - I can get the gist of what they're talking about, but a lot of words escape me and I'm really depending on context. I'm still trying to find a fun Swedish site that's aimed at native readers using everyday language. I do very well when it comes to reading about mundane things like "my husband is a pathological liar and cheated on me with a turtle," but there's only so much misery you can take for a while. 8sidor is perfect for me at the moment, but I want something to work my way up to. Newspapers are, in my experience, very dry. I'm looking for something perhaps a bit more colloquial. School should be starting Monday, so my Swedish-only study will be coming to an end soon. I'm proud of the progress I've made, but I won't be giving up. When I seriously study a language (like French or Russian), I don't ever really give up on it. I may have an on and off relationship with it, but now that I've taken things to the next level with Swedish, I'm determined to work our issues out. "Oh, no hard feelings between you and me if we can't make it, but just wait and see!" (an ABBA song) I also decided to make a private group for a few friends of mine who were interested in learning Swedish. I'm using it as a resource dump and as a way for me to seriously review "Swedish: An Elementary Grammar-Reader." I hope I'll be able to get my friends into this too - it'd be nice to have a study partner! EDIT: Good news: I just found out that the local library system has a few Swedish books and movies! Not a lot, unfortunately, but it's nice to know there are some around here. I once borrowed a Russian book but I was so lazy I only read a few pages. Well, that's going to have to change if I'm going to be serious about Russian. And Swedish too, of course... Edited by pbromide on 25 August 2012 at 8:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| pbromide Bilingual Triglot Groupie United States Joined 4549 days ago 76 posts - 98 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish | Message 31 of 92 25 August 2012 at 9:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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qasana.com
Learn basic vocabulary that you're likely to skip over because you're too busy trying to read philosophical treatises. School has been delayed a day, so while that means one less day of Russian for me, it's one more day of Swedish. Hurrah! I've been working on formulating Swedish lessons for my friends in a way that will be useful both to them and to me. Today I think I should actually try to review all the words I said I was going to review. :P I've been saying it for a week now but haven't really done anything with them. Since I'm going for a haircut, reviewing the words seems like a good thing to do while waiting. I'm also going to edit the first post so you can see pretty much all the Swedish materials I've used or am using. I want to make this log useful for people learning Swedish as well, and sharing is caring. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4830 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 32 of 92 26 August 2012 at 12:43am | IP Logged | ||
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@Pbromide: I hear what you say about actual "L-R" not working for you. (The jury is
still out as far as I am concerned. I do it. But I also do variations which aren't strictly part of the L-R "official method"). Anyway, all I was going to say was, don't discount listening to audiobooks, even if you don't intend to do them in a "L-R" fashion. I think they have a value in themselves, just as reading the paper book has (and possibly the e-book, if you are happy doing that), and also a translation. Each is valid in its own right and considered on its own merits. That's just my opinion of course. By the way, if you haven't tried him, and you don't mind the "krimi"/thriller genre, you might give Håkan Nesser a try. He tends to get translated into English (I think he actually lives in the UK these days), but his books will of course be available in Swedish. I've heard him speaking (via podcast) and he deliberately injects a little humour into his books, which isn't the case with all "Nordic Noir". I've only explored his work a little myself, but he is definitely on my hitlist, in English, hopefully in Danish translation, and maybe one day in Swedish. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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