The språkverket course I'm studying on is organised into separate thematic sections. This is, I believe for two reasons: firstly to allow your base group teacher to gauge your progress and secondly to assess the relative strengths and weakness of your Swedish. At the end of each theme, you submit the folder which contains your work for the past four or five weeks. This work typically covers grammar, written assignments, reading comprehension and listening exercises.
The following week you meet with your base group teacher and discuss: your folder, your perception of how the course is going for you, and agree upon a plan for the next theme.
When I'd initially spoken to my teacher informally during a self study period, we agreed that I'd sit the final SFI D exam in September. Last week she changed her mind having reviewed what I'd submitted. She suggested that I sit the exam on the 9th of June, as I had nothing to lose, and as is always the case, everything to gain. This is because if you don't pass an SFI exam you have to wait a month before you are able to resit the exam. Given that my course will break up for the Swedish holidays (typically the country runs at half to quarter capacity during July), I'd have to wait another three months before I could sit the exam.
So I've decided to have a try, and I hope I can cram some grammar and in particular master the tricky art of bistatser (clauses) and plurals before the 9th. I feel confident that my reading comprehension is more than up to the task, and I'm pretty sure I can muddle through the listening exercise too. This just leaves the hopefully trivial diagrams and tables part (bizarrely easy on the C test) and the written exercise.
It would be great to finish the SFI experience as I've definitely hit a learning plateau, but I also feel somewhat concerned at how I'll fill my time if I do. I am by profession a software developer and project manager and have been looking for work over here since I arrived in seven months ago.
Despite every Swedish person I knew (including at least three who work in the IT industry) assuring me language wouldn't be a problem, unsurprisingly it has proved a major stumbling block. I've fired off my CV and covering letter to apply for around thirty jobs. I've had one interview in that time, which I didn't get. Of course it seems blindingly obvious in hindsight, but the majority of offices and companies speak Swedish, and not unreasonably, expect you to do so too. If you're thinking of moving here, I'd offer this advice: don't expect to walk into a job just because you speak English, or consider that being a native English speaker will make you an attractive or sought after labour market commodity. After all, most Swedish university graduates speak fluent English, probably spent longer at university, and have had the benefit of a more rigorous education than you did. So with that in mind, really you'll have to be good at what you do, or seek out a international company.
So before the tone of this post gets too maudlin, as you can imagine I'll certainly miss having somewhere to go, to be able to socialize with people in a similar situation, and using my brain again. There is also the overwhelming fear that without a purpose and structure (read full time employment / education) perhaps I'll turn feral and end up mired in my own filth shouting obscenities at poor unfortunate people who walk past my apartment.
Tuesday 25 May 2010
Monday 17 May 2010
Weird Offal
Every country has peculiar elements of cusine. The other day whilst carrying out my usual post workout shop I discovered two cracking examples of bizarre meat products:
The first was grisknorr:
Although they look quite phallic, they are (I'm assured by the gf) in fact pigs tails. Note the very reasonable price, approximately 95p for anyone from the UK. Once I'd got over my initial revulsion I tried to inconspiciously snap a picture. I then continued to browse the meat section desperately trying to think of a suitably bland meal that would satisfy my pregnant girlfriend who is still suffering from morning sickness.
As I journeyed past the border of the pork cuts, I happened across this wonderfully named beef product:
Elefantöra or elephant ears seems to be some sort of large beef steak cut, and I trust not anything to do with actual ears. Needless to say neither appealed.
I also found this exciting retail opportunity, a wonderfully kitsch box of chocolates, decorated with a picture of Sweden's princess victoria and her fiance Daniel, who are due to be married next month.
Over half the cost of their lavish wedding (estimated at 2.6 million dollars) will be paid for by the Swedish tax payer. The king has nobley stepped in and picked up the other half.
I find it amusing that although Sweden is very keen to portray itself as an extremely modern nation state where equality is vital principal, the presence of a monarch seems somewhat of an anacronism. Princess Victoria's fiance is apparently an ex-personal trainer, perhaps that's the advertisement for the open society. Still he's married well hasn't he?
On the study front, as you can tell from this rambling post, we had most of last week off. This was because of a combination of public holidays and one of our teachers taking a few days off to entertain her mother. We've also reached the end of our current theme (the world of books), and we had to submit our folder containing everything we'd worked on for the past five weeks. This week is also shorter than usual because we each have a meeting with our homegroup teacher to review our progress, identify our weaknesses and to set some targets for the next study theme. I'm pretty sure I'm going to sit the D course exam in June, so I expect to be told I'm going to have to work hard on my grammar for a few weeks.
The first was grisknorr:
Although they look quite phallic, they are (I'm assured by the gf) in fact pigs tails. Note the very reasonable price, approximately 95p for anyone from the UK. Once I'd got over my initial revulsion I tried to inconspiciously snap a picture. I then continued to browse the meat section desperately trying to think of a suitably bland meal that would satisfy my pregnant girlfriend who is still suffering from morning sickness.
As I journeyed past the border of the pork cuts, I happened across this wonderfully named beef product:
Elefantöra or elephant ears seems to be some sort of large beef steak cut, and I trust not anything to do with actual ears. Needless to say neither appealed.
I also found this exciting retail opportunity, a wonderfully kitsch box of chocolates, decorated with a picture of Sweden's princess victoria and her fiance Daniel, who are due to be married next month.
Over half the cost of their lavish wedding (estimated at 2.6 million dollars) will be paid for by the Swedish tax payer. The king has nobley stepped in and picked up the other half.
I find it amusing that although Sweden is very keen to portray itself as an extremely modern nation state where equality is vital principal, the presence of a monarch seems somewhat of an anacronism. Princess Victoria's fiance is apparently an ex-personal trainer, perhaps that's the advertisement for the open society. Still he's married well hasn't he?
On the study front, as you can tell from this rambling post, we had most of last week off. This was because of a combination of public holidays and one of our teachers taking a few days off to entertain her mother. We've also reached the end of our current theme (the world of books), and we had to submit our folder containing everything we'd worked on for the past five weeks. This week is also shorter than usual because we each have a meeting with our homegroup teacher to review our progress, identify our weaknesses and to set some targets for the next study theme. I'm pretty sure I'm going to sit the D course exam in June, so I expect to be told I'm going to have to work hard on my grammar for a few weeks.Sunday 9 May 2010
Radio resources for listening practice
I thought I'd share the URL of a great site for helping you practice listening to swedish. It's Sverige Radio's archive. There's pretty much everything here from arts and culture to music and sport.
My girlfriend and I have become fairly addicted to listening to the documentaries which cover subjects as diverse as the first death in Sweden of a football fan caused by the english disease to mudslides in Göteborg in the seventies.
Of particular interest to those with a more basic grasp of Swedish and therefore to me, is the klartext news. This short ten minute programme summarises the day's news in simple swedish and is aimed at students studying the language. It also helps that the presenters also speak slightly more slowly than normal.
You can subscribe to each programme through iTunes (Yes, I know it's a horrible piece of software...) so when they publish a new programme it'll automatically be downloaded for you.
You can also stream channels radio from the site, but I have no idea if they are restricted to computers with a Swedish IP address.
My girlfriend and I have become fairly addicted to listening to the documentaries which cover subjects as diverse as the first death in Sweden of a football fan caused by the english disease to mudslides in Göteborg in the seventies.
Of particular interest to those with a more basic grasp of Swedish and therefore to me, is the klartext news. This short ten minute programme summarises the day's news in simple swedish and is aimed at students studying the language. It also helps that the presenters also speak slightly more slowly than normal.
You can subscribe to each programme through iTunes (Yes, I know it's a horrible piece of software...) so when they publish a new programme it'll automatically be downloaded for you.
You can also stream channels radio from the site, but I have no idea if they are restricted to computers with a Swedish IP address.
Wednesday 5 May 2010
A Night At the Theatre
In keeping with the unspoken laws of language teaching, my homegroup teacher at the Språkverket is somewhat flamboyant and extremely theatrical. It's fairly common for questions to be answered with either song, cod English accents or exaggerated gestures. A particular favourites of hers is singing the "No no, no no no no" bit from the now defunct dutch music combo 2 Unlimited's one and only hit and renditions from musicals.
Given our teacher's obvious thespianism, there are plenty of opportunities to take advantage of free trips to the theatre, paid for by the SFI programme and ultimately the Swedish tax payer. Not wishing to pass up the opportunity of free entertainment and a break from my usual evening routine, I decided I'd take full advantage of this programme and signed myself up. On Monday night, the hardy souls who were interested (I think there were about 8 of us including two staff members), met at the Bryggteatern in down town Malmö. The site is a restored chocolate factory, which now houses an arts centre for music, dance and theatre. I arrived early, you can never tell what time you'll arrive at your destination with the local bus service, and watched an American and a German dressed in track suits perform a rather strange work out on a nearby set of benches. My theatrically inclined teacher arrived on her bicycle and we exchanged small talk in Swedish about the book I was currently reading and had in my hand.
A few minutes later they opened the door and we went into the theatre and waited for my fellow course mates to arrive. The theatre reception area was lovingly restored from its former use but quite minimalist. The space was divided into a coffee bar and reception desk, and an area of tables and sofas. As the reception area filled up and my fellow SFI course students arrived, we chatted amongst ourselves. Our teacher explained the play we were going to see was about a wedding reception and that it would be about two hours long. Shortly after this brief synopsis, the doors to the theatre opened.
It was a small theatre, with a capacity of about 100 people. We sat in the centre of the seating about halfway up and had an excellent view of the stage. In front of us, was a long table which was under-lit, and a sparse set consisting of a mountain of potatoes and four hot plates on pedestals. On top of each of the hot plates was a pot of gently boiling water.
The play itself, was called "Här och Nu" as was written by a German playwright with the impossibly Teutonic moniker of Roland Schimmelpfennig. It would be performed by a cast chosen from Lund's university theatre studies programme, and was part of their final examination piece.
The play itself was baffling, not principally because of the language, as I found I could follow most of what was being said, but mainly because it had no sequential plot and was highly surreal. In short it was, in my mind, a very experimental and more than a little pretentious piece of work. At the time it all seemed quite deliberately absurd in parts, the cast are all apparently drunk and slightly insane. Although it was strange, I enjoyed the acting and it was entertaining. I imagine the cast had a lot of fun performing it too, and it seemed the perfect fodder for a group of slightly pretentious theatre studies students' final examination.
After the play finished we all concurred we hadn't understood what it was about. Apparently it was just as impenetrable to native Swedish speakers, and confirmed what I'd suspected that although it was well acted (excluding some classic shouty crackers drama student moments), the experimental nature of what we'd seen was confusing.
After I got home from the theatre I googled the playwright and found this summary of the play on the Goethe Institutes' website. It confirmed that the play is experimental and has a deliberately fragmented set of events which may have happened in the past, present or future.
On reflection, although I didn't think much of the play itself, exposure to a language in any form is, in my opinion, an excellent learning exercise. I particularly enjoyed listening to the actors project their voices, and how they ennuicated their lines. I also found it interesting to try and listen for traces of accents. Interestingly, I couldn't hear any Skånsk and they were all very easy to understand.
Given our teacher's obvious thespianism, there are plenty of opportunities to take advantage of free trips to the theatre, paid for by the SFI programme and ultimately the Swedish tax payer. Not wishing to pass up the opportunity of free entertainment and a break from my usual evening routine, I decided I'd take full advantage of this programme and signed myself up. On Monday night, the hardy souls who were interested (I think there were about 8 of us including two staff members), met at the Bryggteatern in down town Malmö. The site is a restored chocolate factory, which now houses an arts centre for music, dance and theatre. I arrived early, you can never tell what time you'll arrive at your destination with the local bus service, and watched an American and a German dressed in track suits perform a rather strange work out on a nearby set of benches. My theatrically inclined teacher arrived on her bicycle and we exchanged small talk in Swedish about the book I was currently reading and had in my hand.
A few minutes later they opened the door and we went into the theatre and waited for my fellow course mates to arrive. The theatre reception area was lovingly restored from its former use but quite minimalist. The space was divided into a coffee bar and reception desk, and an area of tables and sofas. As the reception area filled up and my fellow SFI course students arrived, we chatted amongst ourselves. Our teacher explained the play we were going to see was about a wedding reception and that it would be about two hours long. Shortly after this brief synopsis, the doors to the theatre opened.
It was a small theatre, with a capacity of about 100 people. We sat in the centre of the seating about halfway up and had an excellent view of the stage. In front of us, was a long table which was under-lit, and a sparse set consisting of a mountain of potatoes and four hot plates on pedestals. On top of each of the hot plates was a pot of gently boiling water.
The play itself, was called "Här och Nu" as was written by a German playwright with the impossibly Teutonic moniker of Roland Schimmelpfennig. It would be performed by a cast chosen from Lund's university theatre studies programme, and was part of their final examination piece.
The play itself was baffling, not principally because of the language, as I found I could follow most of what was being said, but mainly because it had no sequential plot and was highly surreal. In short it was, in my mind, a very experimental and more than a little pretentious piece of work. At the time it all seemed quite deliberately absurd in parts, the cast are all apparently drunk and slightly insane. Although it was strange, I enjoyed the acting and it was entertaining. I imagine the cast had a lot of fun performing it too, and it seemed the perfect fodder for a group of slightly pretentious theatre studies students' final examination.
After the play finished we all concurred we hadn't understood what it was about. Apparently it was just as impenetrable to native Swedish speakers, and confirmed what I'd suspected that although it was well acted (excluding some classic shouty crackers drama student moments), the experimental nature of what we'd seen was confusing.
After I got home from the theatre I googled the playwright and found this summary of the play on the Goethe Institutes' website. It confirmed that the play is experimental and has a deliberately fragmented set of events which may have happened in the past, present or future.
On reflection, although I didn't think much of the play itself, exposure to a language in any form is, in my opinion, an excellent learning exercise. I particularly enjoyed listening to the actors project their voices, and how they ennuicated their lines. I also found it interesting to try and listen for traces of accents. Interestingly, I couldn't hear any Skånsk and they were all very easy to understand.
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