perfect my swedish

I’ll have been living in Stockholm for 5 years in Nov ‘09. So, I’ve decided it’s high time to perfect my Swedish. Don’t get me wrong, I understand everyone, read novels in Swedish, watch TV and listen to the radio; also my job as an English teacher in a Swedish high school means that all communication with my colleagues, mentor students and their parents is done in Swedish. The problem is that I’ve never really studied Swedish properly. When I arrived I did a few night classes (perhaps 10 in total) but I was put into a more advanced course because I already could understand quite a bit from studying Germanic languages in Belgium (Dutch being my second language). This wasn’t a good idea, as I never learnt the ‘bestämd/obestämd’ forms and plurals; instead I started on the past tense :S

Due to pressure at work (English teacher at an international school at that time), I had to put my Swedish studies aside. Despite living in Sweden, I didn’t need to communicate that much in Swedish: my husband is also from Northern Ireland, my work colleagues (who were also my friends) were all English speakers, the administration at the school was all in English. And a visit to the local supermarket or a restaurant didn’t involve much talking.

Now that I work in a Swedish school (and I moved deliberately so that I would actually have a chance at discussing/writing in Swedish) I would like to perfect my Swedish. That is why I enrolled on the course: ‘Svenska som främmande språk’ at Stockholm’s university. It starts in August and will continue to January, after which I will continue with the final course: ‘Behörighetsgivande kurs i svenska’ which should finish at the start of the summer 2010.

Well, it’s my second week back at university and I’ve been dreading for the moment when I had to start speaking Swedish again. I honestly did not do anything with the language during the whole summer and I think I’m starting to forget everything. :s So it would, in fact, be good to refresh my skills.

But now it looks like I’ll have to wait ‘til next year. :c This morning I got up super early, went to university for the Swedish fonetics’ class, only to notice that it was too full and then the teacher had to ask some people (politely) to leave.
Now I’ll have that course in the spring which, I think, will hurt me quite a lot. :| Bugger. Well, can’t do much about it anymore.

At least I’ll have to write that five paper long essay for one of my Swedish teachers, in Swedish, so I’ll get some practice (even though I’m afraid that that essay will turn out to be pretty bad.)

Damn – I’m studying Swedish as my major and I have no Swedish classes & lessons before 2009. Doesn’t sound too right, does it?

Being in Stockholm for a few days, surrounded by native Swedish speakers was just wonderful. :> Swedish is such a beautiful language, especially rikssvenskan. It was such a pleasure to listen to people. (Even though we’re being taught everything in rikssvenska at university, it’s still not the same in Tampere as it is in the motherland.)
I’m also quite proud of myself because I dared to speak Swedish during my stay! And I didn’t even mess up that much. :D

_{That’s my only native teacher, Carl-Eric, in the picture there. We were visiting his home town in Uppsala and I just had to snap a photo of him as well. :)}

Ahahahaa this is going to take me so much time :,D

I understand Swedish really well, almost perfectly. I have (almost) no problem listening to the language or reading it,
but dammit,
when I need to produce language myself I’m in trouble. :x I think it’s mostly just that I’m still so rusty but gah, I felt quite pathetic at class today when I couldn’t remember the correct words and when the sentence I was given to translate had more mistakes than correct forms. Oh boy.

I know, I need to concentrate on the positive, not the negative
but I’m mostly a pessimist. I’m working on it.

Jag är så hemskt dålig på svenska.
I really suck at Swedish at the moment. :,D I’m so rusty, you wouldn’t even believe it! But I guess I’ll get my skills back little by little and also improve them.
Meanwhile the wait is killing me. :,D

This is basically the same as my goal of doing well at university since I will be primarily studying Swedish.
Still, I wanted to take up this goal as a sort of a reminder for myself. :D