Over the past few days, I've been trying to reacquaint myself with Swedish. To do that, I've been going over the Pimsleur course that I mentioned in the last post. Yes, even the creepy parts. Since this was the second time listening to it, I ignored the recommendation to do only one unit a day. With my rebellious attitude, I was able to breeze through the course in two days. Of course, it helped that I remembered more than I thought I would.
*A quick note: If you plan to take on the entire course at once, you'll need to take breaks. After a couple of hours, I lost my ability to actively listen. Whenever that happened, I would switch over to a Swedish news podcast, and listen passively. After a while, I was able to go back to the course.*
Like I've already mentioned, I don't like Pimsleur's listen and repeat style. There is nothing wrong with it. It's just not what works best for me. I have learned a lot from the Pimsleur course, however, and I feel like I understood some things better than the first time through. At this point, though, I'm only repeating specific phrases in specific situations. I have no idea why one verb ends in 'a' and later ends in 'ar'. I don't know how to convey any of my own thoughts in Swedish. Unless those thoughts have something to do with getting something to eat..... They usually do.
So this brings me to the first phase.
Learn some grammar.
I've chosen to start with verbs. The reason is simply personal preference. I like being able to say things are happening. You need verbs for that.
With verbs, of course, comes conjugation. I hate conjugating (especially if the rules aren't clearly defined), so all the more reason to figure it out and be done with it.
My plan of attack: I'm trying to keep my resources free if I can. Learning Swedish is not something I can sink a lot of money into. And shouldn't learning a language be free anyway?
With that being said, I'm starting on Wikipedia. Specifically, this page. I'll be reading through the section on verbs, probably a few times. Once I feel I've got a decent grasp on the subject, I'll try to put it into practice.
To do that, I'll be using this cool site. It's an interactive site to learn and practice over 600 Swedish verbs. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks promising.
*EDIT* There is a downloadable version to use offline, and a PDF file of grammar rules on the downloads page.
So that's my plan so far. In addition to keeping this blog updated with my progress, I'll also try to offer up explanations for any of the difficult parts I come across. That is, if I feel I understand it well enough.
So until next time.
Tack så mycket.
Dustin.
If you have any tips that I should know, feel free to leave a comment on this post, or email me at tillswedish[at]gmail[dot]com
Also. Here is this thing.
Hello Dustin. :)
ReplyDeleteI have been trying to learn Swedish for a while and I also stumbled with the Pimsleur's course. I agree with you on the part that Pimsleur's is very much about "listen and repeat", but you have to consider that it can offer you something that the other course's can't: the capability of _speaking_ things.
When I first finished the course I was incredibly happy because I was able to say and understand the basic Swedish expressions in just one month. It felt that I was actually making good use of my time.
I think you approached the course the wrong way, there is a reason why they recommend people to do only one lesson a day: so you can focus on the other learning approaches to the language, like grammar as you mentioned.
If you wish to make the best out of Pimsleur's, I found that making pauses during the lessons to write down and research the expressions you learn, can boost your knowledge of the language without getting too bored.
In another matter, the podcast idea is very good. I think I will start listening to it as well. Do you know any other podcasts in Swedish that you could recommend?
By the way, I am not sure if you already know this book, but "Essentials of Swedish Grammar" is a very good one. I recommend it to you for learning the grammar.
Keep the good work on this blog, you got a RSS subscriber. :)
Pedro
Hey Pedro.
DeleteThanks for stopping by and reading my blog. I appreciate that a lot.
I'm sorry, I can't name very many podcasts aimed toward learners of Swedish. In fact, there doesn't seem to be very much material really aimed at the beginner level learner. That's partly why I'm doing this blog.
You could try http://www.swedishpod101.com/. Some of the content is free, but they want you to pay for much of it.
As for the Pimsleur approach. I've done the course twice now. The first time, I did it the way they recommend. I did one session a day, sometimes multiple times a day, for all 30 lessons. The second time, I just ran through it to get myself used to the language again.
If I give it a third run through, I'll try your method.
As for 'Essentials of Swedish Grammar', I've seen the book but I've never read it. If I can find a cheap (or free) copy of it somewhere, I'll definitely check it out.
Thanks for the recommendation and thanks again for reading my blog.
Dustin
Hello Dustin,
DeleteThank you for the website, I will take a look at it.
Meanwhile, I did some searching and I found this news website that publishes audio and written news in "easy" Swedish for people who are learning the language: https://sverigesradio.se/sida/default.aspx?programid=493
"Our scripts are written to be spoken on radio so they are not an ideal learning tool for people who want to learn Swedish."
Best regards,
Pedro