Language – Swedish
Here’s the next installment in my little series of posts about my language studies.
First I’d like to mention Swedish. To someone who isn’t Swedish, or lives in Sweden, it might be difficult to explain what is so cool about it. It’s a small language, spoken only by about 9 -10 million people. But it’s an interesting, and, to some people’s ears, beautiful language. I can’t tell if Swedish is beautiful or not. If you’ve heard a language spoken since before you were born, it’s hard to think of it in terms of beautiful or ugly.
Many people here in Sweden tend to think of Swedish as ‘the worst language in the world’. That’s not true, but I’m afraid I thought something like that when I was younger. I was convinced that soon Swedish would die out, swallowed up by a flood of anglicisms. What’s the point of having different languages if they all sound like English, or rather Anglo?
Swedish is expressive, functional, and just as good as any other language in the world. It might be difficult to learn, but again, I can’t tell you how difficult it is. After all, I was born with it.
Swedish might not be spoken on several continents, but it is quite an important language on a smaller scale, around the Baltic sea. It’s spoken by 9 million people in Sweden and 300 000 in Finland. Apart from that, it’s used as a second or third language by the Finnish speaking Finns in Finland, and by many Estonians (that’s in Estonia, to the south of Finland).
Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a dialect and a language. Well, one definition I’ve read is that if you can understand what the other guys are saying (without study), then you’re speaking different dialects, and if not, different languages. And since we in Sweden understand the Norwegians (in Norway) and with some effort, the Danes (in Denmark), but not the Icelanders (in Iceland) or the Finns (in Finland), then in fact, we might be speaking different dialects of Nordic. Perhaps East Nordic.
What we call Swedish is not entirely made up of Ancient Nordic (which might have sounded a bit like Icelandic). In medieval times, Swedish was heavily influenced by German. In fact, back in those days, people in Iceland, Greenland, the British Isles, all of Scandinavia and at least the northern part of Germany understood each other, a bit like Swedes and Danes can understand each other with a bit of effort. I think that’s kind of cool.
Neither do I speak American, as spoken in the US, or Canadian (as spoken by Canadians, at least some of them). Hence Anglo. If you have a better suggestion, please get in touch and let me know.
Swedish, along with the other Nordic languages, other Germanic languages (like German, English and Dutch, Romance languages (like French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese) and even Greek, all belong to the Indo-European language group.
Languages like Finnish, Estonian, Samish (Lap) and Hungarian do not. They belong to the Fenno-Ugrian language group. There are several of these language groups, but I’ll only mention one more, just as an example – the Semitic-Hamitic language group (Arabic and Hebrew).
Language
I’m doing a complete reconstruction of an old site, and I decided to use some of the stuff from my ‘language’ site here instead. The content is more suitable for a blog anyway.
So here goes. If you’re interested in language study, you might find this interesting.
I thought I’d tell you a little about the languages I’ve studied and others that I find interesting. To me, learning languages has turned out to be habit forming. I like to, in a way, collect languages. Two or three isn’t enough. I want to know many. Of course I realize that I’m lucky not to find it too difficult, up to a point. Unfortunately, I haven’t managed to become fluent in any language, other than my own – Swedish, and English, (or as I prefer to call it – Anglo).
It’s not just the language in itself that I think is fun. When you study a language, you learn a lot about the country or countries where the language is spoken. The literature, the art, the music, the history – all kinds of things are a part of the language studies.
An old craft
First there was Gutenberg, in 15th century Germany. His invention wasn’t popular with everyone in the establishment. This evolved. Later on, there was even mass production of books.
You might be wondering, why I find this so interesting. It’s very simple. I make my own books. Of course, I also write books and naturally I read other books too, my own, and those that have already been published.
But I’m also learning how to bind books. When my teacher/instructor, who is also my mother, has taught me this fantastic art, I’ll be able to create books from a pile of paper, bind paperbacks or other ‘simpler’ types of books, and repair torn books.
Even if I hadn’t been a writer (of course I’m a writer, even if I haven’t been published – yet) I would have wanted to know how to do this. In case that hasn’t been made clear to you yet, I love books.
But binding books has a more direct connection to my own family. I happen to belong to the third generation of bookbinders in this family.. Some of the tools and other things you need to bind books, have been handed down to my mother from her father, my grandfather.
My mother and I are using the same tools my grandfather did, fifty years ago and more, and we are practicing the same craft.
We even have an old black and white photo of him sewing a book, as it is called in bookbinding. The sewing frame is still here too, and we use it. That’s continuity.
People have been able to make books for close to six hundred years, and here we are, at our house, doing the same thing, more or less. Of course, we’re amateurs, and I’m only starting to learn, but still. My mother and I, and all the other amateur bookbinders are carrying on this old craft.
That’s pretty fantastic. Cool, quite simply. The 15th century meets the 21.
The Revolution
A part of the revolution (and evolution). It feels a little like that. One little link in the long chain since the the art of writing was invented in Mesopotamia maybe five thousand years ago.
In an article that I read recently it says that the blog – the one you’re reading now is just one example among many – is a part of the evolution since Gutenberg invented the printing process. So – you and I and everyone else are a stage of the evolution.
In this article there was also something really interesting about how this collective way of expressing oneself will affect our ‘collective brain’ and society.
Really fascinating and we – you and I and all other bloggers – are a part of the revolution. We are watching history being made.
Once upon a time, printed books were viewed as a threat against high culture. Today the internet might be perceived as more of a threat than an asset. Others don’t ‘believe’ in the blog. But if the spies don’t win, if the greedy money grabbers are allowed to win, then maybe five hundred years from now, we’ll look back on the breakthrough for the internet as a new phase in cultural history and blogging as a part of journalism, as important as perspective in art, recorded music, literature in the form of printed books or printed newspapers.
Not so long ago, you couldn’t find out about current affairs and incidents that might have occurred, by opening your paper in the morning. People didn’t know what a paper was. Nowadays you can get news in many different forms, but back then you had to be grateful if you could hear about something, orally, from someone who had been present and seen what was going on.
It’s easy to forget that a blog isn’t just a cool kind of homepage, where you can post photos of yourself or post quizzes with images.
Think about the crisis in Burma – the blog was one of the most important ways of communicating with the outside world. That might give you another view of blogging. The medium is certainly versatile and important.
Long live the blog!
Second Life – a Language School?
It’s kind of funny. I’ve been a member of a number of different language sites and I still use one regularly. Many different people contact me, wanting to ‘learn’ Swedish, without taking any classes. Some just want to practice their English. No one stays in touch for long. I can’t say I’ve had much use for the exchange.
Strangely enough, in the relatively short time I’ve been in Second Life, I’ve already felt that I can express myself more freely, especially in French and Spanish. Not as much in Italian and German, but at least there’s some improvement.
I don’t have that many close friends in SL, but that doesn’t really matter. The constantly new people who want advice or help or – in some cases- who want to help me, will ask or tell me things in their languages. I need to find the right words or expressions quickly, almost as if I was in France or Spain or wherever it is.
Sure I need to let go of my demands for perfection. My sentences tend to be simple and basic, as I used to express myself in the years before I first went to school (when it comes to Swedish) or the first years of learning English (roughly ten to thirteen).
That’s not really a problem. I can make myself understood and my brief acquaintances appreciate the fact that I respond in their languages. It might be hard to believe, but there are some ‘residents’ of SL who aren’t fluent in English.
This even made me want to learn Portuguese too. Several times I’ve been unable to chat with the Brazilians who get in touch, hoping I’m a Portuguese speaker too. Who knows, some of those people might be really nice.
So, now I can add another advantage to being in SL. In a way, it’s a pretty good language school. If this is making you a bit curious, why don’t you drop in? There’s just one thing – you’ll need a quite modern and strong computer. Other than that, it’s not difficult. Besides, if you’re not that good at for instance English, there will most likely be people from your country in world already. Search for groups for people from your country or people speaking your language and join them. From the start, you’ll have some people to talk to.
French Books
I want to practice my French. Anyone who’s read my blog for a while, already knows that. One of my methods is to read books, in French, preferably originally written in French.
That’s the problem. I’m having trouble finding any books I like, in French. I can find some of my favorites translated from English, but that’s not really what I want. Translations aren’t quite the same.
When I go to the website of Amazon.fr, I have to dig around for ages, until I find some original French mysteries. Unfortunately, they all seem to be historic mysteries. Yes, I do love historic stories, but I’ve already found my favorite series of historic mysteries in French. What I’m looking for now is something set in the present. Something that isn’t sexist.
So, where does that leave me? Do I need to resort to translations? I’d be really disappointed if I have to. Where are the original, modern French mysteries? Where the fantasy stories are? Nowhere?
Maybe I can find some children’s books I might like. Maybe my wish to become fluent in French is doomed anyway. Only time will tell.
Studying Languages
I love to learn new languages or work on the ones I already know a little. Unfortunately, apart from Swedish (naturally) and English, it’s quite hard to get practice. You really should go to the country where the language is spoken, and preferably for a long time – six months, a year, or more. If you can’t do that – and I can’t and I don’t know when I’ll ever be able to – there are some other things you can do.
Almost every day I read the news online. Not just ordinary daily news, but about all the other things I’m interested in. When it’s possible, I try to read the news in as many languages as possible. For instance, I get my daily news stories from a site called EuroNews. There I can read the same news story in French, Spanish, Italian and German. That helps a lot and if I need more help, I use an online service, like Altavista Babelfish.
Technology news and ecology news are trickier. Those are just two of the things I’m interested. Usually, I can only get those news stories in my two first languages. When I can, I try to get those stories in French and possibly Spanish – my two “second best” languages. That doesn’t mean I like some languages more than others. It’s just that these are the ones I’m a little better at, than German and Italian.
Another thing I do, is read books. So far, that’s only in French. I try to get a good book I’d like to read and then I buy it in French. In fact, I don’t think the series of mysteries I’m into now have even been translated into Swedish, and most likely not into English either.
Last year or the year before, I found out that a Chinese book I wanted to read was only available in one Western language. Fortunately for me, that language was French. That gave me the opportunity to read the book and practice one of my languages at the same time.
One of the best things you can do – other than staying in the country where the language is spoken or talking to a native speaker – is chatting or emailing with a native speaker, or posting at some online message board or forum or in an internet group. For a while, I had the opportunity to chat with a Frenchman. That was really useful. I could use expressions that were a little more difficult than I usually dared to, because I got instant feedback. If I was searching for a word, I could ask him. Of course, emailing is good too. You’ll need to use a dictionary, but it’s probably best if you can express yourself at least on a basic level without help. It’s more difficult if you need to use the dictionary all the time.
Of course, you might ask yourself what possible use I could have for my studies. In strictly utilitarian/economical terms probably not. I’m not planning on moving to another country, though I used to think about that a lot, some years ago. It’s possible that I might get a job here in Sweden, where I’d get to use some of my languages. Of course, I’d need to be completely fluent. I’m only fluent in English (and Swedish), not any of the other languages. Not yet anyway.
What I’d really like is to become a translator, but that’s not going to happen. I write books in Swedish and English, but I doubt if I’ll ever be able to write that well in any of the other languages.
Despite that, I think my language studies are ‘useful’. At least it keeps my brain active. Besides, it’s a lot of fun. Nowadays, there isn’t much I find ‘fun’, but reading, writing and using languages in some way, really are.
Reading about history is another thing I enjoy. Reading – not studying. Music is another of my interests, but the only reason I mention that here, is that listening to music can actually help you with your language studies.
When you listen to a song, you can try to translate the lyrics inside your head. Music is an aspect of a country’s culture, so by listening, you might learn something about the country where the language is spoken.
These are just a few things you can do to practice your languages. None of this is very expensive. If you can’t afford to or don’t have the time to travel, you can try doing what I do. Of course, that only works when you’re not a complete beginner. On the other hand, there are supposed to be excellent online courses or courses on CD:s and DVD:s, but that will be a lot more expensive.
