Hello and welcome to this week’s update on my attempt at learning a new language from scratch. For those new here, the language is Swedish, and here are my updates from Week_1 and Week_2. And do stick around (or jump right to it, it’s just a scroll away) for a mini-rant on why some learning methods just don’t seem to work.
I can count to 19 and other svenska progress points
I’m proud of myself for finding (or rather allocating, cause time is not a tasty boletus mushroom hiding amidst pine trees) time to learn Swedish every day of the week. Just like last week, I mostly focused on listening and watching the same clips over and over again.
With YouTube clips, what works best for me is to watch the video with English subtitles first and really understand what it is all about. Watching rather than just listening also means that there are plenty of visual cues that aid comprehension. Then I watch it again at least once. And then I listen to it for a couple of times while walking the dog or doing the dishes. I was reluctant at first to purchase YouTube Premium, but now I think the €8/month pays off massively1.
I still haven’t added the final step to this routine — transcribing the videos by hand. I find it massively pleasurable and stimulating but I rarely am in a situation where I could do that (when I can properly focus and not multitask). But I will start doing it, dear reader, I definitely will.
To recap, this week I learned:
How to count to 19
How to tell the time (this will take much more practice to fully grasp, though)
How to say stuff like “I like skiing” and “It’s going to rain”
A bunch of vocab, which, includes “anxiety”, “jealousy”, and “insecurity” — mostly influenced by one video I watched a million times
Let’s see what next week brings!
Why some methods fail
If you recall, for the first couple of months of my Swedish journey I decided to use three resources (in addition to YouTube videos):
SwedishPod101 podcast
Memrise (an app that’s somewhere between Duolingo and ANKI)
Teach Yourself Complete Swedish book
Now, the podcast is definitely getting a lot of love, and the book gets… flipped through from time to time. I might need to set chapter goals, otherwise, the book will turn into a doorstop.
But what about Memrise? Does doing flashcards help me learn a tonne of vocabulary? Well, that’s a bit of a trick question. I don’t really use it.
And that’s the NUMBER ONE reason a method fails. It fails cause you’re just not doing the thing. Same with diet, same with exercise. They only work if you stick to them.
I opened the app today and knew all the 40 words in my “to review” pile. The problem is, of course, that it’s my only pile and I haven’t been adding any new words. This leads me to ask WHY?
Well, I guess, I’m just not super keen on memorizing vocab. Especially, if it’s separate from my main learning method/app/space/ROUTINE.
So, reason NUMBER TWO is you probably don’t like the method that’s not working for you, and that’s why you’re not doing it. NUMBER ONE (not doing it) is directly linked to NUMBER TWO (not liking it).
I’m not yet sure if I suffer from NUMBER TWO, though. I’ll give it another go, and tell you my findings next week. And no, this wasn’t a crude attempt at a number one/number two joke. We’re better thank that here.
See you next week!
By the way, if even ONE person subscribes for the paid version of Babel Babble (conveniently priced at €8), my YT Premium subscription will literally pay off. Smack the button below:
Since you like to read and listen or just listen later, I'm curious why you don't use Lingq? Especially since they also can import many YouTube videos and create review lists, if you want them. Truly just curious.
I always struggled with apps like memrise, I know they don't work for me - they don't feel impactful enough. I like writing my own cards and customising my system, but that's definitely not for everyone!
Good look on your studies this week, were rooting for you! 😊