Tag Archives: Swedish podcast

5 ways to stay motivated

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One of the most difficult aspects of learning a language is keeping up your motivation. So many of my students go through patches of lacking in motivation, and when you do it is easy to fall out of routine altogether, coming up with reasons not to learn (too much on at work, not enough time, etc), and the learning process might even grind to a halt completely.

In this blog post, I wanted to talk a bit about motivation and give you some hands on tips on how to stay motivated.

 

Internal vs external motivation

Internal motivation is basically enjoyment. It is the satisfaction of making progress, enjoying the learning journey, feeling curious and open, enjoying learning new pieces of information, feeling satisfied when understanding something tricky.

External motivation is some kind of reward, which could be real or symbolic. It could be achieving good results in a test, it might be the prestige in being fluent, or the rewards in being able to communicate with extended family and friends perhaps. The issue with external motivation is that it can lead to a situation where learners are learning even though they don’t actually enjoy it. It is therefore better to focus mainly on making sure your internal motivation is nice and strong!

How can we work on our internal motivation?

1. Make positive associations

Connect Swedish with your other interests. If you like politics, read the news headlines on dn.se or svd.se. Now is a particularly interesting time in Swedish politics, following the general election. Are you interested in history? Look into the history of Sweden. Like baking? Learn how to bake cinnamon buns, and translate a recipe from Swe to Eng. If you like music, research music with Swedish lyrics and try and translate them, and of course – sing along! I have a playlist on Spotify that you can have a look at: http://open.spotify.com/user/browwn/playlist/1ielXWVCjGa7cvYad7xWPc

Also try and associate learning Swedish with your favourite activities and places. Put a Swedish podcast on when you’re running, for example. Watch movies and tv series in Swedish. Look at youtube for Swedish clips. Go to sr.se (Swedish radio) and listen live or download a podcast. The channel P1 is news, current affairs, debates and culture. P2 is classical and jazz music. P3 is pop music and programmes for a younger audience. P4 is local radio stations. It’s worth checking out the programme Klartext, which is a daily news bulletin in easier Swedish (shorter sentences, reduced vocab). There is also a brilliant app for smartphones, called SR Play.

2. Don’t give up

You need a holistic and realistic view of the learning process. Many language learners start out with high hopes for achieving fluency fast, but their enthusiasm quickly dips when they find themselves making the same mistakes again and again, and maybe speak in an (often self-perceived) embarrassing accent.

This is definitely not the time to throw in the towel and admit defeat! These errors are 100% normal and actually a part of the progress. It is therefore EXTREMELY important to remember this:

Language-learning errors are not a negative reflection on your intelligence!

Instead, learn to love your errors. They are your friends, they bring you step by step closer to fluency and confidence. Smile, and learn from them.

3. Remember why you started

Was it to be able to speak more with colleagues at work? Or with your in-laws? Or to be able to at some point move to Sweden? Or to be able to speak like Saga Noren in The Bridge, just because it’s a cool thing to be able to do? Or because it’s cooler and more unusual than just learning Spanish or Mandarin?

Remind yourself now, maybe even write yourself a little e-mail to yourself with  http://m.futureme.org/ to remind yourself in 6 month’s time.

4. Explore ways to monitor progress

The thing with learning in general, is that it’s hard to sense progress. This is because of something I call “Moving Goal Posts”. Just as you have mastered one grammatical aspect and feel quite pleased about that, you turn a page and realise a whole damn new section that you didn’t even know before! The goal post is constantly moving. As Einstein himself said: “the more I learn the more I realise how little I know”. This is completely as it should be, it’s part of learning.

However, what is worth doing, is to capture your level at certain points, so you have something to compare with. If you are following some kind of course, this will probably be included anyway. Writing exercises that you can look back at in 3 months time. Why not make a short audio recording on your mobile phone or computer? No one needs to know, but you can go back in a year’s time and see how much you have progressed.

5. Consider not having a schedule

I know it may seem sloppy or disorganised somehow in our society to not have a schedule, we are extremely goal oriented as a society. The problem is that having a too strict schedule can make learning a language into a chore. Chores = boring = less internal motivation and less likelihood to succeed.

Learning a language is a bit like going to the gym. You won’t notice immediate effect, and you’ll have good days and bad days. You can’t just work out like mad for 6 months and then go couch potato for 2 years and expect the same level of fitness throughout. But if you work on it regularly, you will notice a difference over weeks and months. Expecting quick improvements is to expect too much from your brain, it’s simply unrealistic. Learning a language is more like a marathon than a sprint, and remember that a flood is made up of raindrops!

Some more useful tips:

  • svt.se (Swedish television, some programmes are available outside of Sweden)
  • TV4play and Kanal5play for smartphones
  • 8sidor.se (notice especially their “Lyssna” feature in the left-hand side menu)

Fancy booking lessons? https://swedishmadeeasy.com/book-a-lesson/

God fortsättning

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Happy New Year – Gott Nytt År! And God Fortsättning, as we also say. I hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas. I have spent some time away from my computer, planning for 2012.  Have you made any New Year’s resolutions – or Nyårslöften, as we say in Swedish? Perhaps to practice more Swedish? Now may be a good time to set some goals for the rest of the year in terms of your Swedish. Maybe some goals could be:

  • read a book in Swedish
  • listen to at least 1 hour of Swedish radio per week
  • buy a vocabulary book for new words
  • buy some flash cards and learn 10 new words every week
  • buy a ticket/order drinks and food/ask a random person about the time/ask for directions/strike up general conversation in a public place – next time you go to Sweden
  • watch 1 Swedish movie per month (watch twice – first with subtitles and then without)

I have also been thinking about my Nyårslöften. I won’t tell you all of them, but I can promise that there will be more podcasts and more media this year (maybe even Youtube clips!) to look forward to – so stay tuned!

Me thinking about the goals for 2012, for Swedish Made Easy

Me coming up with a great idea

Me writing down my great idea

Swedish podcasts

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Finally! I have designed and produced some Swedish podcasts, that are now available to buy.

Texts in 3 different speeds

I have recorded original texts for the podcasts, and recorded them at three different speeds: slow, medium and fast. The slow is very slow indeed, almost every word is separated. This is meant for those of you who find listening very hard, or those who simply are not used to hear that much Swedish. The medium is a bit more joined together type of speaking, but still a bit clearer and slower than natives speak to each other. The fast speed is at native/fluent level, and the kind of pace that Swedes use when they speak amongst themselves.

The idea with having three speeds is that you can gradually build up your listening skills from scratch, or you can go directly to medium or fast – if you think the slow speed is too easy. It also gives an interesting insight into how Swedish changes when the pace increases. You’ll find that some words almost become inaudible! This will help you not only to understand when Swedes speak, but also to develop your own speaking skills further.

Specialised word list

I provide a word list, where I try to pinpoint difficult words and phrases. The words could be slang, and phrases that are a combination of words that together have a special meaning. Some of my students will know what I mean when I say “clusters”, this is what I call these kinds of phrases. They are usually made up by a verb and a preposition, and maybe also a reflexive pronoun. They can be very difficult to decipher, because each word in the cluster has one meaning on their own – but together they get a different meaning. So I have tried to include these kinds of phrases in the wordlists.

Transcription

I provide full transcription of the text, so you can see exactly what the podcast contains. It is up to you whether you take a sneaky peak at the written text before, or brave it and listen to the audio without the text. Which leads me to the next point – ways of using the podcast.

Ways of using the podcasts

There are many ways these podcasts can be used, all depending on what you need individually. You could for example listen to them and transcribe what you think you hear, and then check it against the provided transcription. This is a very useful exercise, and it is amazing to see how you can quickly progress when you have done it a few times.

You could also start with translating the provided transcription, and then listen to the audio. This is a more “safe” way of doing it and perhaps not quite as challenging as doing it the other way around. But it can still be useful if there is a lot of new words in the text.

I also provide a little quiz on the text with a few questions, so you can test your understanding of the text. This probably works best if you first listen to the audio, and then do the quiz – before doing any translating.

But there are probably other ways in which you can use these podcasts, just be creative and see what works for you!

If you have any comments or ideas on how to improve these podcasts, then please contact me – I am always on the lookout for good ideas and to improve my services. 🙂

If you are interested in the podcasts, click here.