In my last post I mentioned that I am focusing my active language learning efforts on Swedish and German. First of all, maybe I should explain what it is I mean by 'active'. After all, didn't I say I was going to start actively engaging in French?
Yes, even I'm a little unsure how to sort this tangled mess out.
What I mean is that, by and large, I know French. I can sit in, understand, and pass university level classes. I can get myself around in French. Yes, I find it hard to understand any francophone under the age of twenty five (enunciation, people, it's a Thing!) but the problem isn't so much my vocabulary or understanding of basic grammatical structures as it is my lack of exposure.
In short, (bref, as they say,) I don't feel the need to actively go out and follow courses. My book learning is coming to an end and I what I need now is actual usage.
I cannot say the same with Swedish and German. Yes, I can just about string together a jag heter Lily or a ich will deutsches Bücher auf Deutsch lesen. I can understand quite a lot of written Swedish (and, by extension, Norwegian and Danish), an amount that is most definitely not proportionate to the work I put in. My passive exposure to Swedish means I could probably pick up a few more things with minimal effort. But that's not what I want.
I want to be able to pick up a book in Swedish and know that I won't be looking up every second or third word. I want to understand conversations that happen around me (even if I don't feel comfortable taking part.)
And in German? To be honest, my ambitions are much, much higher. I would like to spend a year in Germany, au pairing. Of course, most host families are more than willing to pay for a language course for their au pairs (and I'm pretty sure that taking such a course is a requirement for German au pairs.) But I would like to reach a B1 level of German before that. And, if it is where life leads me, I wouldn't mind doing my masters in Germany, either. But that, of course, is very dependent on a lot of other things.
I have liked German for a very long time. At first, I liked the entertainment value of German composite words which, admittedly, is not a good reason or motivation to learn any language. But as I grew older, the desire to learn German grew stronger. And then I met actual Germans. I love Germans. I have yet to meet and talk toa German that I truly dislike. There are a lot of stereotypes about Germans and German, especially in the English speaking world that just don't match up to real life (although, that being said, there are also a lot that do!)
I like that, when I talk to Germans, I feel that I am actually, truly being listened too - although that terrifies me also. I don't really have that much to say, certainly not much of importance! And I also love listening to Germans speak! Whether they are speaking English, German or French, I love their accents. Quite different from the harsh and guttural sounds most anglophones produces when imitating or speaking German, I find German speech patterns to be quite soft.
Including that notorious German 'ch'! Maybe one of the reasons it's so often misrepresented by anglophones is because it's so hard for us to get right. N'importe, disais-je, I want to try!
In fact, the only thing I can say I don't love about German right now is the Grammar. But I don't love grammar in any language, so I'm certainly not going to let that put me off!
Despite this entire post so far being something of a love letter to German and Germans, most of my effort actually goes into my Swedish.
I think I mentioned before that I am passively exposed to Swedish quite often, but I actively engage in Swedish more often, too. Sometime last year, I bought myself a copy of John Ajvide Lindqvist's Låt den rätte komma in and I am making (so slow as to almost be negligable) progress through it. I am making fairly heavy use of Lingq's Swedish resources and try to understand Swedish whenever I come across is. I recently watched the Swedish film version of Låt den rätte komma in and I can assure you I was quite ecstatic whenever I caught a word or phrase I understood!
I haven't set myself any concrete goals with regards to Swedish, but as a vague goal I would quite like to be able to understand this clip from Johan Glans 'World Tour of Skåne'. I think that I'm probably, somehow, almost a quarter way there!
(Baby steps, friends, baby steps.)
And for both, I am trying to write things. Just a little bit, just what I can, but I'm trying. I find it much easier to hash out (and hash up) a short few sentences in Swedish or German simply because I am not terrified of awful grammar faux pas as I am in French. After all, it doesn't matter if I'm contravening major grammar rules because I didn't know they existed! Whereas in French I feel like the earth should swallow me up and spit me out in some seventh circle of Daily Mail hell for making the slightest mistake because for goodness sake Lilian, you've been at this language for ten years, shouldn't you know this by now?
As I've said in this and at least one previous post, I am using Lingq* and italki for learning (both Swedish and German), and also Lang8 for writing practice. Feel free to find me there!
Happy learning and
Happier blogging,
Little Newman
*also, for those morally against Lingq's practice of awarding people points for linking to their site, have no fear! That link should be safe! While I'm not against it, I'm not particularly for it either. Any points I'm awarded, I'd rather get through actual work that I do. And also, no puns were intended there, they just sort of happened.
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