What have you been doing to learn Swedish lately?

[gegegeno]

Hej!

So I've not long come back from travelling to Finland and Sweden and am more motivated than ever to work hard at learning Swedish, so I can understand more of what's going on around me when I go there again.

Lately I've been working on vocabulary and phrases using the site Memrise. Right now I'm just over halfway through the "Basic Swedish" course and will be moving on to the "3000 Most Common Swedish Words" course after that. I'm also working through the online textbook I posted in another thread. It's a bit old-fashioned but I'm getting some help from my Swedish-speaking girlfriend.

My plan is to learn lots of vocab and enough grammar to be able to start reading. When I was in Sweden I bought a few easy novels (Pippi Långstrump and Moomin) and want to start on those asap!

Anyway what is everyone else working on at the moment? What are your plans for learning Swedish?

[groselha]

Hej gegegeno! Så du har nyligen varit i mitt hemland?

What have I been doing with Swedish? Absolutely nothing! :frozen: I really need to start doing something and soon! I'm starting a Swedish course on Monday and I'm scared because my Swedish is very very rusty at the moment. I haven't studied the language for years.

I need to find a book to read too, I think that is the best way to get Swedish back into my head. Moomin books are a great idea actually, I love them! But I will need to study some grammar too, I don't think I can remember any of it even though I can still understand Swedish quite well. Anyway, I hope it will be fun to relearn Swedish once I get started. Good luck to everyone struggling with this language!

[gegegeno]

Go and meet some Finnish Swedes! You could always do what I did and "ota riski, rakastu suomenruotsalaiseen"!

What's your own motivation for starting to learn the language again? I've always found that I can learn languages best when I have a good motivation to study. So with Swedish, having just come back from Sweden and Finland (where most of the people I met were my gf's friends and family who mostly speak Swedish) and planning a trip to go back next year in summer, I have the motivation of wanting to be able to understand conversations in Swedish and even participate in them, read all the books I bought and so on.

If you already know some Swedish, my gf keeps recommending Stieg Larsson's books (especially "Män som hatar kvinnor" [English version is called "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"] and its sequels) for when I can read some more. Apparently the language isn't incredibly difficult and the story is quite compelling. I'll wait until I can at least read Moomin first though

Good luck with the course, and keep us posted! This little subforum could use some more activity!

[groselha]

Haha, that could certainly help but I'd rather not take that risk. And all the Swedish speaking Finns that I know speak perfect Finnish, so it would be a little hard to speak Swedish to them.

Sadly, my motivation to study Swedish now is just that I have to pass this compulsory course. I like Swedish and love to study languages in general but my plan is to move away from Finland (and not to Sweden) so I don't feel like speaking Swedish is that useful to me actually.

Thanks for the book recommendation. I will see if I can find a copy. I really think that reading books is one of the best ways to improve a language because you don't even realize you are studying but can learn a lot. Well, if the book is interesting. And of course you have to be on a certain level first to be able to read books. But good children's books are a good way to start.

I used to understand Swedish quite well, I hope I still do. Speaking is another story. I don't know if I will ever learn because I'm not sure I'll ever need to.

[Sunny]

I use Duolingo. It's probably not as good as sites/ apps you need to pay for, but I'm broke and it's my best bet.

I really found "Let the Right One in" awesome. Thought about learning the language after that.

[DSM]

On 7/24/2016 at 6:37 PM, Sunny said:

I use Duolingo. It's probably not as good as sites/ apps you need to pay for, but I'm broke and it's my best bet.

I really found "Let the Right One in" awesome. Thought about learning the language after that.

Hej! Forgive the sneaky "two years reply", but presuming you haven't already, I strongly recommend Memrise!

They have a more amateurish feel in terms of audio recordings, which almost always puts me off, but it's got that sense of authenticity that I enjoy. Plus, it's actual native speakers teaching you and they speak at the same speed one would in conversation. Speaking and listening are definitely my weaker points, so it really helps.