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Kez’s Log - Team Asgård - TAC 2014

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
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Kez
Diglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 4116 days ago

181 posts - 212 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, English
Studies: Swedish

 
 Message 1 of 91
21 December 2012 at 12:24pm | IP Logged 
TAC2014 starts @ Page 10

Here's a bit of background on me to start with - I'm a 23 year old guy from the
Netherlands. Always been interested in travelling, never in learning languages. When I
was 16 years old my German teacher on school even told me to just stop because it just
wasn't happening for me. I had no motivation for school whatsoever and was way more
interested in playing my guitar and skateboarding.

Back then I just felt that languages just "weren't my thing" and I started to hate the
whole education system itself and stopped with school (I already graduated a lower
lever so I had something to continue studying with). I worked a shitty job for 6
months and during that time I was just constantly thinking about what I should do, what
I want to learn and what I want to become. The last conversation I had with my German
teacher was constantly running through my head in those months (She was the one that
told me that it was better for me to quit, which I did). I knew that I was able to
learn whatever I wanted but I just had to get myself started and not get taught in a
way I dissagree with.

So, years later and now I'm in the last 6 months of my education in becoming a
programmer. I know a few programming languages now and it's all going very well for me,
I can surely not complain.

This forum.
I found this forum a few days ago and i've been lurking around since that moment. It's
great to read about the progress, the struggle & the motivation people go through. Then
I read about TAC and I decided that if there was any place to get help & motivation
from, this was it. I love the idea behind it. So this thread will be my official log of
TAC2013. I'm by no means a good writer, so I hope I write good enough to entertain
people enough to actually read it.

Why learn Swedish?
A year ago during my roadtrip in Sweden I met a lovely Swedish girl in Götebörg.
Instantly fell in love with her and the country. We've been in a long-distance
relationship for a ~year but last June she moved to the Netherlands to live with me
(we communicate in English).

Everything is going well for us but the Netherlands is just not the country I want live
in, I just don't feel home here. So we're moving to Sweden next summer, which is the
main reason why I'm learning the lovely melodic language.

Becoming fluent in Swedish is very important for me, not only because i'm moving there,
but also to silence the voice that says I won't be able to learn a language at all (It
might not be German, but i'll show my teacher wrong).

The beginning of the long road.
I started learning Swedish a few weeks ago and I must say, it's going quite well. I
bought a grammar book and started learning words on Memrise. After 3 weeks I knew quite
some words and some grammar rules were floating around in my head, but still I didn't
feel like I was making good progress. I started to read blogs/forums on the internet
and suck up as much information as I could. I then realised that I was teaching myself
the school way, a way I hate. I started thinking about the things I should use to make
learning more fun and actually spend my hours better.

Things I now use to teach myself, instead of my (boring) coursebook:
- Me and my girlfriend started speaking Swedish 75% of the time at home since last
week.
- I've started listening to some swedish bands/podcasts (If you know some good ones,
please share!). Bands I listen to at the moment are: Ebba Grön (Already love them),
Kent, MOVITS!.
- I'm a musician! So what I'm going to do is take some fairly easy swedish songs, and
just cover them by singing and playing guitar. I think this will be a fun way to learn
(might even record it and upload it on Youtube for the fun of it, eventhough I can't
sing).
- I’ll still be using Memrise to expand my vocabulary. 200-300 new words a week
shouldn’t be a problem.
- Watch Swedish series/shows.
- Read Swedish books.
- My girlfriend has daily skype conversations with her parents which I listen to, and I
try and join in.

Tonight my girlfriends parents and her brother will visit the Netherlands for a week
and they'll be staying at our place. Her parents are able to speak a bit of English,
but I don't want them to, and they know this. Her mother is Polish and had to learn
Swedish as well, so she knows exactly how to speak Swedish with me to make me
understand everything. So all of this is a great chance for me to improve my Swedish
dramatically because I won't hear/speak any other language for a week.

All of this will be hard but I've never been this motivated about anything. No pain, no
gain!

Edited by Kez on 28 January 2014 at 10:15am

3 persons have voted this message useful



Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5093 days ago

4143 posts - 8864 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 2 of 91
21 December 2012 at 2:02pm | IP Logged 
Motivation and faith in yourself are 80% of the job. Good opportunities don't hurt either :-).

I think you will be doing great. The Dutch usually pick up a Scandinavian language pretty fast, and you have not only a great strategy but also a target.

Lykke til!
1 person has voted this message useful



tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4466 days ago

5310 posts - 9399 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish

 
 Message 3 of 91
21 December 2012 at 2:06pm | IP Logged 
Zweeds kun je wel leren, dat is echt geen probleem. Veel succes!
1 person has voted this message useful



Kez
Diglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 4116 days ago

181 posts - 212 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, English
Studies: Swedish

 
 Message 4 of 91
21 December 2012 at 3:00pm | IP Logged 
@Solfrid Cristin Thanks! And indeed, loads of words in the Swedish languages are words
that are almost similar to dutch.

@Tarvos Dank je, denk inderdaad dat het geen probleem moet zijn. Ik ben in 4 weken al
een aardig stukje gekomen en ik krijg veel hulp van m'n vriendin. Ik weet natuurlijk
dat TAC een jaar duurt, maar stiekem is mijn doel natuurlijk vloeiend zijn voordat ik
die kant op ga deze zomer. Houdt me alleen maar meer gemotiveerd!

Solfrid Cristin posted this in the Team Viking thread:
Solfrid Cristin wrote:

Here comes VIKING CHALLENGE NUMBER 1: Sett i gang!

Prepare to write a post on this thread. Set your timer, or the stop watch on your cell
phone and put it on 5 minutes, Then write as much as you can in your target language
without using anything but your brain.No dictionaries, no course books.

Then set your timer for another 5 minutes, and write whatever you want, this time using
a dictionary if you like (and you want to spend some of your precious 5 minutes on
that).

Have fun!


So here it goes, first story:
Jag heter Cas och jag kommer från Holland. Jag bor i en liten by. Jag har en Svensk
flickvän vem jag älskar mycket! Vi ska flytta till Sverige i sommaren och jag kan inte
vänta! Jag lär mig Svenska eftersom jag vill vara flytande när jag är i Sverige. Jag
vet inte vad jag ska säga här så jag ska skriva ord att jag vet haha. I min fri tid
spelar jag guitar. Jag älskar skateboarding+snowboarding. När jag bor i Sverige jag ska
snowboard mycket! Det är en bra sport! Jag titta också på fotboll. Holland har en
jättebra fotboll team och jag gillar att se matcherna. Jag har bara ett 1 minut! Jag
lär mig Svenska för fyra veckor nu och jag älskar det Svenska språk och landet!

------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------

Second story:

Det här är min andra berättelse. Jav har ingen aning vad jag ska skriver men det gör
ingenting! Jag älska den Svensk tradition Fika. Fika är en enkel sak. Du dricker kaffe
och äter kakorna. Det är en bra idé! Jag skriver mindre sedan när använder ingen
ordlist.

Jag tycker att Sverige är ett jättefin land. Naturen i Sverige är vacker. Vi har ingen
natur i holland. Holland är ett platt land mitt mycket regn. Sverige har mycket snö men
det är bättre än regn eftersom du kan inte snowboarden i regn hehe.

Den här veckan ska jag ha min flickväns familj i mitt hus så jag ska prata mycket
Svenska. Jag hoppas att jag kommar att förbättra.


Hej då!

It was a fun challenge, I didn't really have a clue about what I should write but I
think I managed quite well.

Edited by Kez on 21 December 2012 at 3:01pm

1 person has voted this message useful



tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4466 days ago

5310 posts - 9399 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish

 
 Message 5 of 91
21 December 2012 at 3:08pm | IP Logged 
Mijn Zweeds is niet je van het, maar een paar kleine dingen kan ik wel merken:

als je wil zeggen dat iemand op bezoek komt, zeg je: "Min flickväns familj kommer på
besök hos mig". Hos is een woord dat hetzelfde betekent als Frans "chez", het betekent
bij iemand thuis. Dit is een moeilijk woord om aan te wennen omdat we het in Nederland
niet als zodanig gebruiken.

Je vergeet soms de persoonsvormen in het Zweeds te markeren - alle persoonsvormen (muv
van wat onregelmatige) hebben in de tegenwoordige tijd altijd de -r. Jag tittar på.
Sommige dingen druk je heel "Nederlands" uit. De rest laat ik aan de Zweden hier over
want ik ken de grammatica niet in detail, alleen in de grote lijnen.

Ik begrijp trouwens verder wel wat je wil zeggen hoor, dus maak je niet druk. :)

En als je een beetje oefent kom je er na een halfjaar wel uit. Ik ben ook pas een
halfjaar bezig, maar Zweeds kun je als Nederlander absurd snel leren (muv de
uitspraak). En bovendien is vloeiend spreken na een halfjaar sowieso een prestatie.

Edited by tarvos on 21 December 2012 at 3:10pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



Gosiak
Triglot
Senior Member
Poland
Joined 4885 days ago

241 posts - 361 votes 
Speaks: Polish*, English, German
Studies: Norwegian, Welsh

 
 Message 6 of 91
21 December 2012 at 3:46pm | IP Logged 
Good luck! Swedish is a beautiful language.
1 person has voted this message useful



Kez
Diglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 4116 days ago

181 posts - 212 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, English
Studies: Swedish

 
 Message 7 of 91
24 December 2012 at 11:15am | IP Logged 
@Tarvos Thanks voor de verbeteringen en info, much appreciated! Ik kon het woord 'Hos'
al maar zoals je al zei, we hebben in de Nederlandse taal niet echt een vergelijkbaar
woord dus het zal even wennen worden om dat woord te gebruiken. En ik ga niet een
"beetje" oefenen ;) Ik heb een zweedse thuis en zal elke dag Zweeds praten. Ik
moet mezelf gewoon pushen om het me zo makkelijk mogelijk te maken wanneer ik
daadwerkelijk naar Zweden verhuis.

@Gosiak Thank you! I totally agree with you, it's a very beautiful language!

A small update:
My Swedish family in law is in Holland, and they're all staying at my and my gf's house
for a week. So I'm surrounded by the Swedish language at the moment, and i'm of course
trying to speak it as much as possible.

They like the fact that i'm already able to join conversations when they're just
speaking in Swedish. It must be a bit weird for them that I'm walking around with a
small notebook and a pen (Bought that a few days ago), and every time when I try to
speak but don't know a word I write it down and I fill it in on Memrise to learn it
later on.

So it's a busy week but i'm learning alot! Can't wait for the TAC2013 to start!
2 persons have voted this message useful



Marya
Diglot
Groupie
Poland
languagewanderer.com
Joined 4173 days ago

62 posts - 77 votes 
Speaks: Polish*, English
Studies: Russian, Norwegian

 
 Message 8 of 91
24 December 2012 at 11:24am | IP Logged 
Good luck with studying! I'm prety sure that you'll do great since motivation is very important and you seem to be very motivated and focused on your goal:)


1 person has voted this message useful



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