deyvion

I am half Swedish too, but unfortunatelly, my parents did NOT raise me to be bilingual. They were worried that if my mother spoke Spanish to me and my brother while my father was away on long business trips, we would start speaking Swedish with a Spansih accent. This happened to my uncle's children, so I guess their worries were justified, but in my cousin's case both the parents spoke Spanish and neither of them were very good at Swedish. So, I am jealous of your bilingualism =)

I am happy that Sweden subtitles everything, it really helped me when I was little. But, as my English got better, I also noticed how many bad subtitles are out there. Sometimes I wonder if Google Translate is used for the translations because the translations I see sometimes are just stupid and are many times not even relevant. However, I do agree that the subtitles can help, as long as you are a little careful with it. It can be good to practice, but maybe not to LEARN.

Thank you, I'm glad I'm back too =) Especially seeing as there are many more in the Swedish section now! Wow

Good start of a list. Just remember that sex means both 6 and sex (as in English). There is also a word that English has borrowed from Swedish, which I always laugh at when I hear because it sounds so funny pronounced in English: [en] smorgasbord - [sw] smörgåsbord

Sorry, guys, I've been MIA for a while due to exams and work. You can download the .pdf book here: LEARN SWEDISH If you have a problem with the link, send me a PM and I will send it to you by e-mail.

I have, yes. French. However, I do not know if you can really say I gave it up, since I did not really want to learn it to begin with. I could only choose German or French in school. I wanted Spanish, but there was no teacher (they even asked my mother to come in and teach it). So, French it was. I do not really have any interest in French, so I will probably not go back to learning it.

I do have a book in .PDF-format of Swedish grammar (in English), if you are interested. =) I am using another edition to learn Turkish, but realized that my knowledge of grammar terms were awful, so I got the Swedish edition as well. If you want, I can send it to you.

A while back, I was recommended VIKI.COM for watching foreign TV-shows with subtitles. I used to watch a Turkish show, and now, after spending almost 3 months in Turkey, I actually noticed how I started to understand what they were saying without watching the subtitles. I think it is a great resource when learning a language, and there are many different countries to choose TV-shows from. So, check it out and see if it can help you. =)

I would have to say that Sweden is getting frozen now also as we are getting into the winterseason, haha. Are you still speaking Swedish at home?

I am happy to see that you are currently learning Swedish! I thought I was the only one here (not learning, but speaking) =). To answer your question - my situation is like your Swedish friend's. Normally, when I am home in Sweden, and mostly engaging in Swedish conversations, my thoughts are in Swedish. When I am in school, which is in English, my thoughts are mostly in English. I am in Turkey now, and most of my conversations are in English. I still tend to think in Swedish when I am alone, but when I am with others, English is more the language running through my head.

I am studying English at university, online, however. In fact, I am just now waiting for my home-exam to be sent to me within an hour, hehe. The linguistics course this year and also last year taught me a lot about how to think about language. I am a person who wants to go to the roots when learning something - I want to know HOW and WHY something is said like it is. Linguistics therefore has been a very interesting subject.

In my case, the languages I learn are learned due to having connections to the language's country. Except for English, which was a contemporary subject in school. I did, however, go to California for 1 month as a language exchange student. When it comes to my learning of Spanish and Turkish, moving to the countries is not because I simply want to learn the languages, but I need to learn the language because I am moving there.

I only learned about Esperanto in linguistics class about a year ago. However, besides from what all you have said, an article I read was about how some want Esperanto to become the official language for the EU countries - making the EU more of a nation with all citizens speaking the same language. Why it would have to be a completely new language, I don't know, since using English instead would be more workable.

Mandarin is usually a subject you can choose in 'High School' (years 10-12), but I cannot say that there are NO schools that offer it from an earlier grade. The most common languages from grade 6 are German, French and Spanish, and from my own experience and from what my friends have told me, French and especially Spanish, are mostly chosen over German. I am not saying that no one is choosing German, however, it is not so common anymore as it was before when German was an obligatory subject (many, many years ago).

Maybe from the older generation, but I would not say that it is a general thing among the younger ones. German is a subject you can choose in 6th-7th grade, however, since many new modern languages (like Mandarin) have been added, most people tend to choose those ones. I don't think I know anyone in my age (22) that can speak German more than just a few phrases.