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Jag lovade mig själv att skriva något på svenska åtminstone en gång i veckan, så jag tänker börja med ett av de teman jag är mest bekant med!

Enligt mina upplevelser består ens kunskap om ett språk av flera viktiga men osjälvständiga delar, som var för sig måste jobbas på. Jag tror att den del som avgörens övergripande förmåga är ordförråd. Men ingen tycker om ordlistor, så de gör jag inte längre (fastän jag hade framgång med dem på engelska). Istället väljer jag att lära mig ord genom att se dem flera gånger. Efter att jag läst och slagit upp ett nytt ord så skjuterjag undan det och lägger märke till det endast när jag ser eller hör det igen. Om jag glömt betydelsen så upprepar jag samma steg.Continue reading

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At the time of writing, I’ve been in Sweden for around a month and a half. I’ve sure been having a good time, hanging out with friends from all over the world. But what’s been happening language-wise? On surface, not much. I mean I’ve made some Swedish friends, in addition to local students on the same corridor, but they aren’t really someone I say ‘hej’ regularly to. And of course, all the rumours about swedes being ‘too’ proficient in English or difficult to befriend kick in (I mean they aren’t really rumours – just facts), leaving me in this terrible fear of talking to people and trying to make friends.

So so far what I’ve been doing is studying quite intensively: listening and reading on LingQ, going through a quite academic book while copying vocabulary – like the good old days in school – and talking to myself, in hopes of reaching that ‘critical point’ where I can understand what’s said to me and speak something that at least makes sense. I have a feeling that deep under, I’m improving by leaps and bounds, but it just doesn’t come out. I feel defeated whenever I have to ask ‘vad sa du?”, my tongue ties or I receive a reply in English. (From an immigrant!) I decided I have to change this: I have to make a shift from input to output. And I’m giving myself a challenge to do this.

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Oh Munich…it’s such an enormous city that my trip there takes two posts to recount! Catch up with what I’d done in the first 2 days here 🙂 At this point (the middle of the Munich stay) I was pretty much halfway through my 26-day journey. I still couldn’t believe this!

With my practical matters settled, I arrived by metro at the Olympiapark, where the tragic 1972 Summer Olympics were held. Except you shouldn’t expect to see much Olympics-related stuff here: there were stadiums, fields and a nice pool yes, but what you’ll be noticing is a tall observation tower of some sort. Nearby stand the BMW World & Museum if you’re interested in cars (I’m not…yet), and an aquarium if you’ve got time for that. There might even be events like performances going on around the area. If not, you could just walk around, maybe go for a swim, and enjoy the relaxing surroundings – I’m no architecture expert, but I found the generally modernistic and simplistic designs, in addition to the greenery, pretty pleasing.

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Wow, there we go – the first German metropolis I visited! (Wait, does Hamburg count?) I’d budgeted 4 whole nights for this city only second to the capital, so that I could either see ‘everything’ in time or take everything slowly. Well, ‘everything’ as in what everyone says I must see – I don’t really believe in that. I could reassure you though, I did honour the city’s fame: the first thing I did, after finally successfully arriving at my host’s home, was having a bottle of dark beer.

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