The good news for today is that yesterday I was a good behaving girl... Well, partly, anyway...
The not so good behaving part was that I didn't make it to my lesson, which was kind of important. Mainly, I confess to being sick and tired of this extra slice of studies I set myself up to do and that hasn't really been all that inspiring. Why?... Well, despite the fact that I did pick an area of my interest, what happens is that nothing really works in that place. Professors don't follow the rules for the course, invent creative papers that aren't that creative after all and just hang on our already heavy loaded shoulders even when not predicted by the evaluation methods, don't provide a decent bibliography let alone a plan for the course, don't seem to bother replying urgent e-mails and (my personal "un"-favourite of the moment...) book extra lessons randomly, when it's most convenient to them, that fall out of the schedule and... on the days of my planned and paid for vacation! So, along with the fact that the professor who's class I just missed yesterday has come up with the brilliant idea of booking extra classes, just to have the presentation of a few works, in the beginning of June (Hello?! NOT here!!), I just received an e-mail warning me that on the 28th of May another professor will be teaching an extra class - while I, hopefully, will be laying on my back on the grass, with a cozy pillow and a stack of books (Oh Swedish weather, do not disappoint me!).
... take a deep breath; move on ...
So, *inhale* the reason for me not to be attending that class was that I took my daughter to the doctor and there just wasn't any other time available. *exhale* And it was a well spent period of 30 to 40 minutes, as a huge load of worries lifted from my shoulders. The year long repetitive episodes of sickness seem to be behind our backs for good now and she came out of the doctor's office with a clean bill of health. On the other hand, I was informed that she was very likely to grow up to be a little over 1,78 m. I just wonder how much longer I have before I'll need to carry a chair around to stand on so I can have a minimally impressive eye-to-eye talk with her... :-S
But, well, I was also quite pro-active in this new goal of mine and have dedicated a few hours to the study of Svenska. :-)
The thing I started with was a non-dealt with list of vocabulary I had left from the study of the first dialog of Chapter 2 of the book. What I usually do, in terms of dealing with new vocabulary, is that I read through the texts and collect the new vocabulary. Later, I pass it into word cards, with the Swedish word on one side and the translation of it on its back. I also add to the cards important information about the word - mainly its gender and some grammatical rules about it - so I can feel I'm learning a bit more than just a word. I picked this interesting and useful tip from a quite handy book called "Secrets of Learning a Foreign Language", by Graham Fuller. Especially if you're in the quest of learning a new language all by yourself, trust me, you can use a few tips so you can make the most of the time you spend studying. I don't mean that you should start buying any book on the topic; I'm just suggesting that you should devise a plan that you should follow before you start and that it can be useful to learn from the experience of others. You'll find, spread through the internet, several articles on the topic that you can use as your own reference or why not taking a look on Youtube, as there are so many videos made on the topic too.
After I was done with the long list I wanted to turn into word cards, I decided to deal with both the first and second dialogs of that Chapter 2. If you had an opportunity to watch Luca's video, you'll know he advises language learners to translate each text/dialog in their textbook into their native language and then, on another time, to try to translate it back to the language you're learning. To exemplify a little better, it kind of works like this - day 1: translate text/dialog 1 to your native language; day 2: translate dialog 1 back to the language you're learning and translate dialog 2 to your native language; day 3: translate dialog 2 back to the language you're learning and translate dialog 3 to your native language... and so on...
Well, one of the challenges that you might face is that the book you chose to learn from is not so much filled with texts. It does really depend on the book you pick. Luca seems to advise, and I subscribe his choice, the "Teach Yourself" series of books. I have other textbooks around the house, but I thought that it'd be interesting to give "Teach Yourself Swedish" by Vera Croghan a try because its title did seem to be a whole more oriented to those who are learning languages on their own and its content (in comparison with others I have access to) seemed to prove it. Luca also advises you to give it a try to other textbooks once you're done with the first one, as there'll be always news things to learn and it'll be handy to revise what you have already learnt.
I confess that though I agree with Luca's methods, I've found it much easier to translate the texts/dialogs from Swedish to English. If you have the opportunity to read or listen to Mr. Fuller's book, you'll get to hear about the main language families. As you might know, Portuguese is a Latin language, while both Swedish and English are Germanic languages. The fact that two languages come from the same background can help you better understand expressions, vocabulary in general and even grammar rules. So, it has become somewhat easier for me that way.
More on my yesterday's Swedish activities...
I finally managed to watch the remaining 7 minutes of the 57 minutes long 1st episode of "Kommissarie Winter", which happened to be of the "to be continued..." kind, which means that you're left hanging and conjecturing about how it'll all turn out. On an attempt to figure that one out, I started watching the 2nd episode, but about 20 minutes into it, my bable fish was exhausted and screaming for a good night's rest. Which means... I'm still hanging and conjecturing... Hmmm... :-S
I must add that the episodes I'm watching are from 2010, as apparently there are some, by a different cast, that date back to 2001. And talking about the cast... A rather scaringly familiar face plays one of the cops in the series - Peter Andersson.
If you have seen "Män som hatar kvinnor", you won't forget his face. :-S So, if you happen to have the misfortune of reading this, Mr. Andersson, I just have to say that you're incredibly scary. :-S So... either you're a really good actor, with a thing for controversial characters, or... hmm...
Well, time to get on with life!...
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