There are more than a few examples of courses that claim to give a good understanding of a language in three months and a few more that claim fluency. The latter would seem to be a bit of a stretch. Languages are life, not just a season. But three months, for many skills, is a reasonable amount of time to become relatively familiar with a topic, I think.
I have a bit of a history with languages, I have a reasonable amount of Japanese, a slightly less reasonable amount of Scottish Gaelic, even less Swedish and a micro-measure of German. My French from school is functionally non-existent. I like learning languages however, I see it as a useful skill and the way words interact and sound will always be interesting for me. I love learning new words with certain subtleties, I find this a lot in Gaelic. And in Japanese, with the language being so far removed from the European context I grew up in, most words carry a meaning that’s difficult to apply directly to the European mindset. Verbs aren’t often used in the same way and are much more rigid in their use. It’s this aspect of Japanese that makes it difficult for Japanese English learners sometimes. Europeans use their verbs in often much wider and illustrative ways. It’s learning a new thought process which I enjoy most of all.
I have chosen to embark on a short project to see how far I can get with a new language in a few months. I’ll be keeping up my Gaelic and Japanese study in the meantime, but I want to experiment with something new.
I’ve chosen Norwegian as my experiment language of choice. Partly because of a slight familiarity with Swedish, its ease of understanding for English/Germanic speakers and because of recent exposure to it from a close friend, who described the language as like rain falling on a tin roof. I Can’t get that image out of my head, and I want to see if it’s true.
This is the first post of what will be hopefully weekly updates for the next 12 weeks. I’ve been doing a prep-week, looking at some grammar examples and a few of the revision exercises on Duolingo. I think Duolingo is a powerful revision tool, but often not the best for learning a language from scratch. I’ll be using this website, along with an Anki deck and a copy of Norwegian in 12 Weeks which I’ll post more details of next time.
That’s the plan. This is the obligatory week zero post to keep me honest. Follow updates on Instagram too under @coinneach_ken.
Takk for at du leste.
The World is Quiet 