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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Thomas Newbie Japan rhinospike.com Joined 6202 days ago 38 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Swedish | Message 1 of 7 10 March 2008 at 7:56am | IP Logged |
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So I started to learn Swedish last month.
Growing up, I never imagined I would have an interest in learning Swedish. My paternal grandparents immigrated to the States from Sweden around 1920, but they died before I was born. My connection to Sweden pretty much ends there. For whatever reason, my grandparents chose not to teach Swedish to my father, so I wasn't exposed to it either. Really the only exposure to that side of my ancestry I had was a Dala horse kept in my home, a few family recipes and an old Swedish bible collecting dust in the back of a drawer in the garage. I never really gave much thought to visiting Sweden or learning Swedish. Then my son was born and suddenly I'm obsessed about my roots. It's pretty irrational, but it's there so I'm going to run with it. I put lingonberries on my pancakes now instead of syrup. :) My wife and I have plans to visit Sweden next year for vacation. And we are both starting to learn Swedish now. (She's been very supportive!) I was quite bummed to see the general lack of Swedish language learning materials in English. All the textbooks on amazon.com have pretty rotten ratings too. I ended up buying Japanese Swedish textbooks (I live in Japan) and that's what I'm working with. I ordered an English language Swedish grammar from Amazon, but I haven't received it yet. In addition to working with the textbooks (+Anki), I am also learning some Swedish children's songs. With an infant in the house, our computer is usually blasting out children's songs anyway - some of them might as well be in Swedish. The language is actually really pleasant to my ear. It's reminds me of music even when they aren't singing. That was a nice surprise! So far I can sing two songs all the way through without messing up. One is a song similar to "BINGO (the dog)" called "Grevens hund" and the other is a hilarious song called "Ett gammalt fult och elakt troll". The latter is full of minor chords, which is cool and quite rare in children's songs (at least in my experience). Right now I am working on a song called "Du kära lille snickerboa", which is quite difficult for me. I think after I get this one down I'm going to tackle something easier like "Imse vimse spindel". I wish I had known ahead of time which ones were easy for beginners and which ones were tough. But I've been pretty much just picking and choosing at random. Learning with the children's songs is actually really efficient. I pick up vocabulary much faster through music than I do through the textbook. I play the guitar too, so its fun for me to learn the music and then perform the songs for my son (who recognizes the tunes!!!). In the textbook there was a sentence pattern "Jag vill gärna [+infinitive]" that means "I want to [do something]." I also learned the word smörgås, which is like an oven sandwich. My dad actually makes really tasty oven sandwiches for lunch sometimes (kind of his specialty). This presents a cool opportunity. My wife, son and I will be visiting the States later this month. Now, my dad doesn't know I'm learning Swedish, and I have no idea if he can speak or understand any Swedish. I'm thinking that having had Swedish parents he might have picked up some basic Swedish by accident. I want to find out. So I have this sneaky plan. One afternoon I'm going to look up at him and say "Jag vill gärna äta en smörgås." and see if he makes me a sandwich :). I'll let you know if it works. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Thomas Newbie Japan rhinospike.com Joined 6202 days ago 38 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Swedish | Message 2 of 7 11 March 2008 at 7:31am | IP Logged |
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Today I worked through another chapter in my Swedish textbook. As I mentioned in another thread, I would be learning some Swedish numbers (among other things) this time. This lesson introduced the numbers 0 through 20.
Some of the numbers are hard for me to pronounce. If you speak Swedish, you can probably guess which ones. They are the numbers that have sounds not found in English. "fyra", "sju", "nio", "tio" and "sjutton" (4, 7, 9, 10, 17) all gave me trouble. I added the audio files to my cards in Anki. I think with enough exposure I should be able to nail - or at least butcher less awfully - the pronunciation. One good thing about learning numbers is that I now have some tools with which to practice plural nouns (introduced last chapter). There are a few different forms of nouns, and this textbook threw them all at me at once, so I need some practice before they will be straight in my head. Now I can make silly sentences like "I want to eat 14 smörgåses" and "There are 19 cats on the bed" to help me along. I didn't have a chance to work on the "snickerboa" song today. This chapter of the textbook was pretty long, and it took me a long time to cut up the audio (the cd has like 60 sentences on three tracks, but I needed 60 sentences in 60 separate files). I might work on a verse before I go to bed. Does anyone have any tips for pronouncing the above-mentioned numbers? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6602 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 3 of 7 11 March 2008 at 3:35pm | IP Logged |
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Pronouncing the Y-sound could be done by forming your mouth as if you were saying u but then say i. As for sj in sju it's like a sh-sound but pronounce din the back of the mouth - however, you could pronounce it sh if you preffer: it is done in many Swedish dialects. If nio (NEE-uh) and tio (TEE-uh) are hard try to say nie and tie instead, if it's easier - that is how most Swedes (at least around Stockholm) pronounces them.
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 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6852 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 7 11 March 2008 at 4:51pm | IP Logged |
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I pronounce sj (stj, sk, and most of the other "sje"-sounds) as the sound I would make when blowing out a candle, trying to cool soup/coffee/tea et.c. In fact, I don't find that pronunciation uncommon at all.
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| Thomas Newbie Japan rhinospike.com Joined 6202 days ago 38 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Swedish | Message 5 of 7 11 March 2008 at 5:41pm | IP Logged |
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@Hampie: Thanks for the advice! I've read elsewhere about rounding my lips for the "y", but the act is still a bit foreign to my mouth. I can make the sound in isolation but It's tough for me to do it on the fly (such as in the middle of a sentence). Got to practice :) For sju, I'll start trying to make that sound further back in my mouth and see if it sounds closer to what I hear. Thanks. As for nio and tio, there is something about the Swedish "i" that I don't quite get yet. I have trouble with it in other words too (vi, ni, skriver, tidningen). It trips me up even when I'm doing only listening for dictation/spelling practice. I think it's just a matter of putting my mouth in the correct shape - I just haven't figured out what that shape is yet :)
@jeff_lindqvist: That's an interesting way to describe it. I'll try it out. I am often blowing on tea or cocoa to cool it so I should be pretty good at that sound :). BTW, thank you for teaching me "ljudbok". I hesitated to say thank you before because I had asked in somebody else's language learning log and I didn't want to hijack their thread. I appreciate your help! Thank you both! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Thomas Newbie Japan rhinospike.com Joined 6202 days ago 38 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Swedish | Message 6 of 7 12 March 2008 at 11:45am | IP Logged |
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I posted a thread in the Links and Resources forum about some online Swedish news radio programs (8sidor and Klartext). They are targeted at foreigners learning Swedish. They have audio files of news reports in easy Swedish and word-for-word transcriptions.
I've been listening to 8sidor for a few days now and I am really surprised by how much I can understand with the little bit of knowledge about Swedish that I have. Many words I can guess the meaning because there is a similar word in English. Sometimes I can understand a whole sentence or most of a sentence. In the latter case, I just copy and paste the one or two problem words into Lexin and suddenly I understand the whole sentence! It's really motivating to have even this small bit of understanding so early. When I started learning Japanese years ago, I didn't have this experience. Maybe I should have chosen to start with a Germanic language way back then :). Some new words I picked up from today's news articles: förlorade, vann, blod, brist, skadad. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Thomas Newbie Japan rhinospike.com Joined 6202 days ago 38 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Swedish | Message 7 of 7 11 April 2008 at 3:53am | IP Logged |
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I just got back from my vacation to the States where I visited my parents/brothers. One of my plans was to bust out some Swedish to see if my dad recognized it. As planned, I went up to him around lunchtime and said "Jag vill gärna äta en smörgås." He didn't know what the hjell I was talking about! I guess my grandparents never spoke Swedish at home when he was growing up? Oh well. It was fun to try. I requested again in English but he told me to go make my own. Go figure.
I didn't do any language study in the States. I had so many people to visit and say hi to that there was just no time - especially with the baby. Now that I'm back I'm studying hardcore again. I listen to 8sidor news daily and do my SRS and plug through my textbook. I just learned about någon, något, några, ingen, inget and inga. I understand them well I think but my brain is still slow when I encounter them, so I haven't mastered them yet. Just need to get used to it. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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