Recently in language Category

To be creative in a language that is not your mother tounge is difficult. I was gonna write something here about our new apartment, which we moved to a couple of weeks ago, but I got stuck on the first word!

See, we bought this apartment. In Swedish it's called 'bostadsrättslägenhet' and it's very diffrent from just renting. You have to get a big loan from the bank (which you will not get if you're not creditworthy enough) and you buy in to a co-operative tenant-owners' building society.

According to my English dictionary we now own a co-operative building society apartment.

It sounds much more complicated than a 'bostadsrättslägenhet' :-)

Language are like toolboxes and I carry three of them around: Swedish, English and German.

Swedish is my first language, my mother tongue. I can do anything with my Swedish tools.

English is my second language. I speak fluently and I can make myself understood in almost all situations. Sometimes, in complicated discussions where a high level of accuracy is required, I do feel I lack the exact right tools I want to use. I'm not very good in small talk either. But my English toolbox usually get the job done.

German is my third language. I would like to think I speak it pretty well but I know my grammar sucks and I lack a lot of useful words. My German toolbox sort of rattle, because it's kind of empty down there. But I know I could fill it up with useful things if I gave it some time.

Is it possible to be creative in a language that is not your mother tounge?

Thanks to Elin, I found a course called Creative Writing at Malmö högskola. I applied of course, since this is a subject that interests me alot. When I lived in Innsbruck in Austria and tried to learn German, I took a similar class which included one writing assignment every week. Although this course wasn't compulsory, I took it very seriously and spend more time writing then doing grammar and other boring stuff. Now I want to try the same thing with English!

Unfortenately, the class doesn't start until August so yesterday I went to the library to get some inspiration. I found Write from the heart - Unleashing the Power of Your Creativity.

Writing in English or German is like walking around without glasses for me.
I'm not totally helpless.
I usually manage to get to where I want.
After making a couple of wrong turns...
I envy those with better skills, but I realise they haven't gotten there without hard work.
So I guess I have to start somewhere... why not right here, right now?

Two interesting posts on the topic "blogging in a language that is not your mother tounge" written by Oliver Wrede and Sebastian Fiedler.

Topic Exchange: Channel 'bilingual blogging'

Blogging often consists of short passages, it goes with the format. Blogs are also often written in an easy, everyday language. These two things makes them perfect for practising another language.

I think that's why I enjoy reading blogs in German so much!

For me, it's hard work reading a book in German. If I want to understand everything, which I usually want, I must have a dictionary nearby. This excludes reading on the way to work or in other situations when you just have a couple of minutes over. Blog entries, being as short as they are, doesn't take that much of an effort.

Lately I've also started reading blogs in Norweigan. Swedish and Norweigan are quite similar, but it isn't the same and I always used to fetch a deep sigh when we were forced to read books in Norweigan at the university (which didn't happen very often I must admit but anyhow). Short blog entries in Norweigan on the other hand, doesn't scare me off and who knows, I might even end up learning some Norweigan :-)

Lee is learning Arabic and is all excited about it. That is so cool! I have been thinking about learning Persian for quite some time but maby Arabic is better. Understanding the news from Al-Jazeera would be really, really cool!

Maby I should have three weblogs instead of one: a Swedish, an English and a German.

I've been thinking about it ever since I started blogging in diffrent languages but I always thought it was more convenient to keep everything in one place. Maby it isn't.

K would probably be in favor of a split.

Papa Scott from Blog Talk decided to start blogging in German! Hervorragend!

Marysia Cywinska-Milonas, one of the key note speakers from the Blog Talk-conference, is thinking about starting to blog in English and/or French. I'm cheering her on, convinced that writing in another language then your mother tounge is good for many reasons.

• Practise. Since I started blogging in English about a year ago I know I have made progress. My German-blogging is still in the experimental phase so I don't think you can notice any progress there yet.

• Diffrent thinking. I'm convinced that writing in another language then your mother tounge forces your mind in new directions.

• Audience. There's nothing wrong with Swedish but hey, compare 9 million to 427 million Englishspeakers (or 121 million Germanspeakers or 116 million Frenchspeakers) and you have the answer.

I decided my mediocre English needs a brush-up and therefor signed up for a language course.

It's a distance-course which means my main contact with the teacher will be through e-mails. All the study material is pulished on a website and every week I receive instructions on what to learn.

This first week I must:

• Read a text about the Allied Forces landing on the coast of Normandy in 1944, better known as D-Day. This gave me the creeps considering what's happening in Iraq right now and I also have the horrible opening scene from Saving Private Ryan in my head. War stinks.
  
• Write a 100 word long self-presentation: Hi, my name ist Steffanie und so weiter...
  
• Learn idioms like sick as a dog, slippery as an eel, strong as an oxe and 27 other.
  
• Create new words with the suffixes -er/-or and -ist. Like observe-observer, inspect-inspector (like Hans Blix' weapon inspectors!) and drama-dramaist.
  
• Learn phrasial verbs like these (what they mean and when to use them): look after, look at, look back, look down, look down on, look for, look forward to, look into, look on, look out, look up and look up for.

To be honest, this is a little below my level but it was a long time since I studied English the last time and therefor I want to make sure I haven't forgotten anything important.

I'm considering taking English at university level next semester which is another reason for dusting off the old grammar book (this is exactly what I should have done before going to Austria, preparations might have reduced the chock ;-))