PROGRESS IN SWEDISH, WEEK 42/52

SUMMARY

Active study over the last week: 5 hours’ study-and-click.
Total study for Swedish so far: 55 hours.

WANDERLUST CONFESSION BOX

I was toying with the idea of learning Vietnamese last week, simply in order to send some friends a postcard and keep in touch, but soon woke up and smelt the coffee after I realised how much Russian study I’ve got left ahead of me this year.

TEANGO’S WORD/PHRASE OF THE WEEK

Swedish: “klumpeduns” (clodhopper, klutz, Klumpe-Dumpe) – this word aptly describes how I felt after knocking over a pitcher of water at a restaurant whilst craning to listen to the people on the table next to me speaking Polish.

NOTES

What a week I’ve had! One moment I’m sipping Hefeweizen outside the local Ratskeller discussing Jugendstil; the next, I’m watching swans sweep under weeping willows on an English lock, indulging in a magnificent cream tea and contemplating a new chapter in both my life and “Harry Potter och de vises sten”…

The most amazing language learning thing that happened to me this this week is that I managed to hit 95% reading scores within 19 days of study (that’s just 55 hours, averaging 2-3 hours a day overall) for my little Swedish experiment “Dreams of Valhalla“. And all this whilst packing up my bags, refurbishing a flat, and relocating lock, stock and barrel to another country.

I’m still a bit in shock over how well it’s all worked out so far! And as the study-and-click method has proved so efficient and intuitive for me, I’ve decided to continue using it until I’ve clicked 8000 words over the coming weeks and built up a really comfortable passive base for vocabulary.

Following this, the aim will be to continue listening and reading (with some repeating and natural listening too) into next year until I reach 1,000,000 words of new Swedish material, and work on leveling up my listening and pronunciation skills, reading fluency, and ability to “deal with missing data given context”.

I’ll post weekly updates for Swedish here from now on, and have Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy in my sights once I’ve finished Harry Potter.

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Dreams of Valhalla, Day 19

Study-and-click: 2 hours (55 total)
New passive words: 122 (4016 total)
Today’s reading score: 95% (+2%, “Män som hatar kvinnor”, Kapitel 17, 100 words)

95% today – secondary target achieved!

Wow…I’m simply amazed how well the study-and-click method has worked out over the last couple of weeks. Especially considering I’ve averaged just 2-3 hours a day, and all whilst relocating to another country. From 31% to 95% reading scores in just 19 days and 55 hours, I’m absolutely over the moon!!

This also coincides with my last night in Darmstadt, so the timing is really excellent too. I’ll definitely be celebrating with a few drinks tonight…

Now begins the second leg of my Swedish journey. Oh, you didn’t think I’d stop there now, did you?! 😉

STAGE 2: 8000 clicks and 1M words

I aim to continue until I’ve clicked 8000 words, and listened to and read approximately 1,000,000 words of new material in Swedish. This is simply to fix the sounds and flow of the language more firmly in my head, whilst continuing to efficiently maintain and build up vocabulary and intuit new grammar.

I also hope that this will level up my listening skills and enable me to deal more fluently with missing data given surrounding context. With any luck, I’ll consolidate what I’ve learned, and eventually conjure up a little “Swedish djinn” in my ear who will guide me later on with correct pronunciation and expressions in spontaneous speech. That’s the idea anyway.

Why 8000 clicks? Because I believe this is how many words I need to know passively in order to make the best of extensive listening and reading in the target language only. I’ve also seen 95-98% mentioned several times in studies relating to learning efficiently from context, and I think 8000 words should bring me into this range.

Why 1,000,000 words? Well, I’ve heard several people like Katzumoto recommend this milestone for those on the path to fluency, so I thought why not?! I also note in my Russian language learner’s frequency dictionary that 1,000,000 words may well provide multiple reviews for the most frequent 8000 words, which would be ideal if these statistics apply to languages like Swedish as well.

As Dreams of Valhalla was about study-and-click and reaching specific goals in reading, I’ll stop posting daily progress now, and continue adding updates for the second stage in my usual weekly log instead.

I’m really looking forward to immersing myself in as much Swedish literature as I can over the coming weeks (around all the flat hunting). I’ve got Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy to keep me going for a little while longer, but will probably need to start ordering from Bokus again soon. If anyone could recommend some fun Swedish books that aren’t too hard and also available as unabridged audiobooks, that would be brilliant?

For the remainder of the evening, I’m heading off to celebrate this little success in town before my flight back to England tomorrow. Så under tiden och bara för ikväll…skål för Harry Potter! (So in the meantime and just for tonight…cheers for Harry Potter!). 🙂

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Dreams of Valhalla, Days 16-18

Study-and-click: 5 hours (53 total)
New passive words: 309 (3894 total)
Today’s reading score: 93% (+1%, “Män som hatar kvinnor”, Kapitel 16, 100 words)

A brief window of opportunity for some Swedish again…hooray! Although there’s still more than enough to do at the flat before I hand over the keys tomorrow…booo!

Incidentally, when I sat down to eat in an Italian restaurant last night, the Harry Potter theme tune came on full blast, and I started laughing. “Just can’t get away from that persistent little fella – this is definitely a reminder!”, I thought to myself.

I was also mistaken for being Dutch by the maître d’, which makes a refreshing change to my earlier days of being considered French, Italian or Belgian. Never British so far though… 😉

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PROGRESS IN SWEDISH, WEEK 41/52

SUMMARY

Active study over the last week: 10 hours’ study-and-click.
Total study for Swedish so far: 50 hours.

WANDERLUST CONFESSION BOX

Just runaway thoughts about learning Greek or Hungarian, little more.

TEANGO’S WORD/PHRASE OF THE WEEK

Swedish: “Har du din padda [i]kvar[/i]?” (Still got your toad?) – a bizarre example taken from Harry Potter (no surprises there), but what I liked about this sentence is that “kva-kva” is also ironically the noise for toads in Russian.

German: “gehoppt wie gedoppt” (kommt aufs gleiche raus; it’s all the same to me/I have no preference) – a little phrase I picked up in a café this week. And for those interested in some more local phrases from this area of Germany, here’s a Hessisch – English – Deutsch dictionary I found on the Web along the way.

NOTES

This week has flown by and proved to be one of my busiest this year. I still managed to get some Swedish done, but not nearly enough to push beyond an average hour or two basic maintenance per day.

On a more positive note, I did several reading tests for German, just out of interest, and consistently scored in the 95-98% range. This is exactly where I’d like to be with Swedish.

However, it’s not just a matter of how many words and phrases I know, but more importantly, how well rooted these are in my mind to render reading more or less comfortable and effortless. This, I guess, really just takes time and plenty of exposure.

These extra few per cent may be a sheer devil to climb, but I’m resolutely focused on the summit, and it’s only been a couple of weeks so far. Onward and upward!

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Dreams of Valhalla, Days 14-15

Study-and-click: 5 hours (48 total)
New passive words: 280 (3585 total)
Today’s reading score: 92% (+2%, “Män som hatar kvinnor”, Kapitel 15, 100 words)

It’s time to catch up in Swedish from my little hotel room today! And I’ve already noticed a couple of improvements…

The first is that it’s much quicker and easier to study, seeing as I no longer need to pause the audio quite so often. Hopefully it won’t be long now until I can fit an additional audio file into each 50 minutes. The exposure to additional material in each study session would really help counterbalance the decreasing amount of new vocabulary per page.

The second is that the number of clicks I log for listening in each session is catching up with (and on occasion even surpassing) my number for reading…an excellent sign that my listening skills are on the up and up too.

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Dreams of Valhalla, Day 13

Study-and-click: 2 hours (43 total)
New passive words: 122 (3299 total)
Today’s reading score: 90% (+1%, “Män som hatar kvinnor”, Kapitel 14, 100 words)

It was another beautiful afternoon outside in Darmstadt (especially considering we’re already well into October). It therefore seemed such a shame to be inside cleaning and scrubbing all day, rather than out in a park snatching at Frisbees or strolling leisurely around the lake with Pimsleur in the background.

I’ve managed to put in a couple of hours of study this evening, all the same, but feel so frustrated I can’t do much more right now.

I’ll be packing everything up for the removal men and moving out of my flat tomorrow, so things are going to get even crazier around here shortly. I also need to decide what’s best to bring with me in the big suitcase (with a 20kg allowance for the flight) before I head off to the hotel. I need to consider this carefully, in case I don’t find a flat within the first couple of weeks and end up a raggle-taggle hotel-hopping gypsy longer than anticipated.

I’ll be back at the flat over the weekend to repaint the place and put in my share of last-minute DIY-ing (yes, you know you’re in Germany when your walls are spotless, but you still need to repaint…). That hopefully gives me a decent window of study on Friday (fingers crossed for a desk in my hotel room), and some more time on Monday and Tuesday before my flight back to England.

I’m finding it hard to fit it all in and still have time for some Swedish at the end of the day; but hell…that won’t stop me! ^.^

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Dreams of Valhalla, Day 12

It was business more than usual today, so I just had time to listen to some Harry Potter whilst in transit. I’ve only now got in the door and it’s early morning, so to be honest, I’m shattered.

I’ll try and make up the study hours later this week. I hope I don’t plummet too far down with my vocabulary for missing out a day or so, but with things as chaotic as they are this week, it can’t really be helped. [edit]

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Dreams of Valhalla, Day 11

Study-and-click: 1 hour (41 total)
New passive words: 59 (3177 total)
Today’s reading score: 89% (-4%, “Män som hatar kvinnor”, Kapitel 12, 100 words)

It was hard to get back on track this Monday with so many goodbyes to say before I leave. So I just ended up putting in an hour of study after I returned from an evening out with friends at a Vietnamese restaurant. This, and a few glasses of japanischer Pflaumenwein, no doubt reflect in my reading score tonight. 😉

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Dreams of Valhalla, Day 10

Study-and-click: 2 hours (40 total)
New passive words: 104 (3118 total)
Today’s reading score: 93% (+2%, “Män som hatar kvinnor”, Kapitel 11, 100 words)

The tenth of the tenth of the tenth, and a pleasant sunny Sunday on the whole! I was simply exhausted by the end of this week, so I’m really glad I took some quality time out to relax and go for a wander in the countryside today. Carpets of rustling, crunchy leaves, and a shedding tapestry of beautiful autumn hues. I’m now wondering what it’s like in Sweden this time of year too? 🙂

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PROGRESS IN SWEDISH, WEEKS 39-40/52

SUMMARY

Active study over the last 10 days: 40 hours’ study-and-click

WANDERLUST CONFESSION BOX

Not much time for anything but relocating and learning Swedish at the moment. So I’ve been exceptionally well-behaved this week. 😉

TEANGO’S WORD/PHRASE OF THE WEEK

“Allhelgona helgen” (Halloween, Samhain) – it’s almost time to start elbowing your way to the plumpest pumpkins and get ready for the usual ghoulishness on the streets after pub hours on Miggy Night. What I like most about this word in Swedish, however, is that although it simply means something like “all hallows weekend”, it also ironically manages to conjure up the idea of “all Hell going to Hell” during this mischievous Celtic celebration. Swedish just rocks! }:-)>

NOTES

My Swedish project “Dreams of Valhalla” is going really well, and I’ve already completed my primary goal of reaching 90% reading scores for 3 consecutive days. In just a week, I’ve gone from knowing almost zip to being able to understand most of what I read, and I also find that I’m picking up so much more when I listen to a bit of Swedish TV or random clips on YouTube for fun.

Next week is going to be crazy busy, as I’m moving out of my flat and into a hotel on Friday, with a view to hopefully relocating back to England within the next 10 days. So as you can imagine, there’s a lot that needs doing before I get on that plane and start dreaming of bacon sarnies and roast dinners again.

However, I’ll try my best to fit in as many hours of Swedish as I realistically can, and strive for my secondary goal of reaching 95% in reading scores over the next couple of weeks. So far, I’m really happy with my study-and-click method, and uncharacteristically, haven’t made any amendments or started experimenting either.

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