Thursday afternoon
Mar. 20th, 2003 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
At least for now, I'm following the lead of some of my friends by not writing about the war. I can't change anything, I've expressed my opinions previously, and thinking about it just frustrates me. It is, however, on every TV channel, and that means I'm missing Days of our Lives, which I find vastly annoying. This makes me feel pretty shallow, but I missed it yesterday and I like having a background noise routine.
So I guess if I can't listen to my tv show, I might as well have swedish radio on instead. I'm supposedly listening to a food show at the moment, but I'm hearing a lot of mention of Iraq, Hussein, American president George Bush. This does not sound like any new recipe that I want to make. ;) Oh, wait, now it seems to be getting into the part about food and drink. I've decided to start seriously working on my swedish again.. I've been extremely lazy about it lately. It's just so hard to stay motivated, since i'm surrounded by absolutely nothing Swedish here in Kentucky. Not even an Ikea *sob*. Knowing that I don't have a hugely strong reason to learn doesn't really help... the chances of us moving there are slim. Magnus is extremely well adjusted to our life here, and doesn't want to start over by moving back. But I'm determined that our kids will speak Swedish, and I don't want them to be able to talk about their mother without her understanding. *laugh* I actually had to convince Magnus on this issue. He thought it would be more fun if I learned but they didn't.. that way we could talk about things without them understanding. I, on the other hand, feel bad enough about "making" him leave his home and parents without alienating them from their grandkids on top of all that. They speak English quite well, but they don't enjoy it.
This show is pretty neat, actually. I have a stronger food-related vocabulary than most other things. I don't get very much at all if I'm not thinking about it, but if I listen, I hear a lot of words that I know. This makes me feel a little more hopeful that eventually I'll figure it all out. I just wish I could stay motivated, and figure out some way to keep Magnus motivated into making me learn. I wrote my in-laws a mail last night before Magnus got home, and he proofread it before I sent it, and I did much better than I have before. Most of my problems were with leaving off word endings, or sucky dictionary translations requiring a word switch, and I think I only had one word order problem this time.
It's funny, really.. there's only three or four of my LJ friends that have absolutely nothing to do with the connection to Sweden.. to those few, I apologize for the frequency of my ramblings on these issues. :) But hey, if you're single, I can highly recommend checking out a Swede.. *wink*
So I guess if I can't listen to my tv show, I might as well have swedish radio on instead. I'm supposedly listening to a food show at the moment, but I'm hearing a lot of mention of Iraq, Hussein, American president George Bush. This does not sound like any new recipe that I want to make. ;) Oh, wait, now it seems to be getting into the part about food and drink. I've decided to start seriously working on my swedish again.. I've been extremely lazy about it lately. It's just so hard to stay motivated, since i'm surrounded by absolutely nothing Swedish here in Kentucky. Not even an Ikea *sob*. Knowing that I don't have a hugely strong reason to learn doesn't really help... the chances of us moving there are slim. Magnus is extremely well adjusted to our life here, and doesn't want to start over by moving back. But I'm determined that our kids will speak Swedish, and I don't want them to be able to talk about their mother without her understanding. *laugh* I actually had to convince Magnus on this issue. He thought it would be more fun if I learned but they didn't.. that way we could talk about things without them understanding. I, on the other hand, feel bad enough about "making" him leave his home and parents without alienating them from their grandkids on top of all that. They speak English quite well, but they don't enjoy it.
This show is pretty neat, actually. I have a stronger food-related vocabulary than most other things. I don't get very much at all if I'm not thinking about it, but if I listen, I hear a lot of words that I know. This makes me feel a little more hopeful that eventually I'll figure it all out. I just wish I could stay motivated, and figure out some way to keep Magnus motivated into making me learn. I wrote my in-laws a mail last night before Magnus got home, and he proofread it before I sent it, and I did much better than I have before. Most of my problems were with leaving off word endings, or sucky dictionary translations requiring a word switch, and I think I only had one word order problem this time.
It's funny, really.. there's only three or four of my LJ friends that have absolutely nothing to do with the connection to Sweden.. to those few, I apologize for the frequency of my ramblings on these issues. :) But hey, if you're single, I can highly recommend checking out a Swede.. *wink*
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Date: 2003-03-20 11:21 am (UTC)LOL! And I can second that recommendation! ;^)
The only way I can remain disciplined about learning Swedish is to plan a time for it each day, just like I do for my workouts. And yes, we'll be pen-pals soon -- it actually sounds as though you may further along than me but if so, it'll be good to stretch :)
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Date: 2003-03-20 11:24 am (UTC)Magnus thought our penpal idea was a good one, but was teasing me about getting all competitive about it, and how it would end up as a writing contest between him and Peter, posing as us. *laugh* No, not likely, but a funny idea. :)
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Date: 2003-03-20 11:34 am (UTC)LOL at the Peter/Magnus contest thing -- I have a funny feeling that those two have a very similar sense of humor -- I'll have to pass this on to Peter ;-)
And you're right, it's very hard to stay motivated, especially if you have no plans to move to Sweden. I think Peter and I will make the move someday but until we have a date, I find it hard to stay motivated as well. It's never on my list of "must dos", especially until after the wedding! :)
But I suspect you're doing better than you realize -- especially when you're able to pick out words you know when hearing Swedish :)
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Date: 2003-03-20 11:53 am (UTC)I have major perfectionist tendencies that get in my way with this language thing. I hate being wrong, and I really hate not understanding things. I'm probably not as bad as I feel like I am, but I still feel pessimistic about it. :)
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Date: 2003-03-20 12:11 pm (UTC)Yeah, Peter and I rarely remember to have him speak Swedish. And I know what you mean about learning grammar rules -- I do better with the rules but of course I couldn't explain most English grammar rules so... I bought a book called "Essentials of Swedish Grammer" which is GREAT.
The other thing I would like to find time for is to read aloud with Peter. That way I can concentrate on pronounciation and not worry about grammar or vocabulary ;-)
I hate not getting things right too -- just gotta learn to let it go... not sure how to do that other than to keep practicing ;P
BTS, is it Radio Sverige that you're listening to online or something else?
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Date: 2003-03-20 12:24 pm (UTC)I have an Essential Swedish Grammar book.. the thin yellow one? I looked a bunch of stuff up last night while writing the email.. I guess I should make myself read it, but it's so BORING. *giggle*
I used to read aloud from a book that Magnus bought me long ago.. it's a kid's book with short animal stories. I would read them in Swedish, and translate it at the end of each paragraph into English. I don't know why I stopped. We would do it while he was playing a computer game, so he wasn't even bored by it.
You know, having this conversation is actually getting me more motivated. Yay! ;)
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Date: 2003-03-20 01:36 pm (UTC)I love reading childrens books, on my own or with Peter. Sometimes I'll have him read to me, even though they must bore him ;-) My goal is to complete (on my own) the first Harry Potter book by Christmas (and understand what I read!)
I use the Swedish grammer book (mine looks like this (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0844285390/qid=1048193847/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-8555368-6246535?v=glance&s=books)) as a reference. I also have a number of textbooks and CDRs. I could make copies of the latter and send them to you if you like. They're pretty fun :)
Learn Swedish Now! (mine is version 8, I found it on sale as a close-out before version 9 was released).
Eurotalk's (http://www.eurotalk.co.uk/ETWebPages/LangProd/lang10.php)Talk Now (beginners) and World Talk (intermediate).
My favorite "textbook" is Teach Yourself Swedish (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0844239836/qid=1048196099/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-8555368-6246535?v=glance&s=books) which comes with two cassette tapes as well :)
(http://www.digitalriver.com/dr/v2/ec_MAIN.Entry10?xid=21430&SP=10023&PN=1&V1=464206&DSP=&CUR=840&PGRP=0&CACHE_ID=58375) ()
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Date: 2003-03-20 02:09 pm (UTC)It seems you don't have your email address listed.. would you mind sending me an email I can reply to? kisha @ k-image.com. :)
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Date: 2003-03-20 11:47 am (UTC)