Duolingo has a Swedish course now.

So I'm back after my (too long) NaNoWriMo break, and I'm ready to get back into the Swedish saddle. To be honest, I think the break did some good. I was slowing down and beginning to lose focus. That's something that I have to be especially aware of, because, as I've mentioned before, I'll drop subjects in favor of something new and shiny. I'm like some sort of educational magpie.

I wasn't slacking while I was away, not too much anyway. I've still been listening to Swedish music and talk radio every chance I get. I've also taken to setting my ipod to shuffle the Pimsleur course while I'm at work. I think I have that thing pretty close to memorized. I also have a list of irregular Swedish verbs sitting in front of me that I've been looking over and we'll get to those soon on this blog.

Here's what I have coming up...

 Videos. I'll be setting up a youtube page pretty soon and linking videos from there. They'll probably be me, trying to speak Swedish and asking for feedback. I'll also be making videos to show off any random sort of Swedish awesomeness I happen to come across. I don't want to reveal too much, but this should give you an idea.


Resources. I've been collecting all sorts of free tools and links that should be helpful to anyone learning Swedish, or anyone interested in Swedish and Sweden in general. So look forward to a page dedicated to that.


Here's what I'm doing now...

Duolingo. Before I started my break, I knew that Duolingo had a Swedish course in the works, but it hadn't been released yet. As I was catching up on /r/svenska, I was pleased to learn that it was finally available. You can find the course here, and if you want to be my Duolingo friend, you can find me right here. I've only made it past the first three levels so far, but I like what I'm seeing.





That's all I've got to update this time, but I'll be back soon with more.
 Until then, tack så mycket och hej då.

And here is some Swedish humor, because why not?

Where I'm Going

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.

Where I'm At

First, let me tell you a bit about myself.

I'm a starter.

Whew! It feels good to get that off of my chest. What do I mean by starter? It's like the opposite of a quitter. I start things. Lots of things. I started this blog. I might start a youtube channel. Before this, I started a completely different blog. I started playing the ocarina once too.

I started learning Swedish a while back. I've also started learning German, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto, and Russian. I can even hold short conversations in some of them. I never quit any of that stuff, I just started other stuff.

So what does this have to do with learning Swedish by the summer of 2015? Nothing. At least, not directly. This is to document (as is everything I put here) the type of personality I have. It is an explanation of why this blog may go dormant. Of course, my goal is to update weekly as my proficiency increases. That's my goal.

As I mentioned before, this is not the first time I've tried to learn Swedish. I made it through most of the Pimsleur course. I stopped the course right about when it started to get creepy. How can a course begin with an innocent conversation on a train, and hours later the male voice actor is trying to pressure the female actor into a date? And he's always asking where her husband is. What's up with that, Pimsleur people? I don't think I want high pressure dating tactics to be a part of my curriculum.

Aside from the creepy stuff, I feel like I learned some useful phrases. So that should be helpful. I still have very little grasp on grammar. With the other languages, I used Michel Thomas cd's. I really like the foundation I got from those. I felt like I really understood how the language works. Unfortunately, I haven't found anything like that for Swedish.

I do have a small collection of Swedish resources. My next step is to go through those and formulate a plan of attack. I guess, until then, I can dust off the Pimsleur course. Or maybe I'll just listen to Black Ingvars. I have no idea what these guys are saying. But I will. Eventually.