LearnSweden Blog

A New Import to Sweden

It's not a car,....or a cell phone but the famous vegetable of October, the pumpkin, known as pumpa in Swedish.

All over Sweden you can find stands with pumpkins and other members of the squash family, ready to be carved just like in the US.

 

We made a visit to the pumpkin patch ourselves. My children usually want to get many many pumkins, with the idea of making jack-o-lanterns which we can line up and down the stairs and driveway. Due to the very labor intensive activity of carving a pumpkin we just get one pumpkin for each kid. I must confess though, that I get a few extra pie pumpkins to can pumpkin pie filling for the November season.

So here's how you carve a pumpkin.

 

With a very sharp knife, cut off the top of the pumpkin. Put it aside for later because this will be your lid.

Here's the close up on that.

 

Next scoop out all of the gunk in the middle of the pumpkin. Put everything is a bowl because there are great pumpkin seeds mixed in with this gunk which are great for roasting. (More on that another day.)

 
Of course pumpkin carving always works a lot better when the family cat is checking up on things and helping out.

 

After the gunk is out of the pumpkin, draw a face or whatever image you want on the front of your pumpkin. With the same sharp knife cut it out. Here's a look at our afternoon's work.

 

Don't forget the giveaway over at A Place Like This. It ends today at 6 pm EST. Enjoy. Back on Thursday.

Today's Words:

Pumpa: Pumpkin

Pumpor: Pumpkins

Skär: To carve with a knife.

Vi skära pumporna: We carve the pumpkins.

Great New Things in our Courses

For almost three years now, Per and I have been working hard to bring you great Swedish courses for a very low price. Now included in that low price are some added features. We've spent the hard Swedish winter adding MP3 downloads to each lesson inside each of our 4 main courses. Not only this but we've added videos to each course so that you can practice your Swedish and learn more about the culture.

Each of our main courses is designed to the European Council of Languages guidelines. This means that you will soon be able to function with your new Swedish language. Secondly, we are open 23 hours a day, 365 days a year, which means you study around your schedule, when it suits you.

All of our courses include new vocabulary to build up your language skills, writing exercises, dialogs with "Your Turn" practice,reading, listening & comprehension, and current videos to integrate yourself into the culture of Sweden.

No prior Swedish knowledge is needed. We start right at the beginning and go through an intermediate level.

Why not try one of our four basic courses for the very low price of $9.99 each.

Swedish Start 1

Swedish Start 2

Move On 1

Move On 2

You can always find us over at learnsweden to learn more about our courses.

Courses are Back

We took a little break over the holidays to reorganize things a bit. We listened to you! We heard that you wanted cheaper courses willing to work when you are and you know what? We're giving it to you. Now just as before LearnSweden has great Swedish Language content to help you learn our language fast and easy. It's now for the very low price of $9.99 a course.

Swedish Start I

 

This course has the absolute beginner in mind. Teaching the basics of the Swedish language, this course is for students who haven’t had any previous Swedish studies. You will easily be able to introduce yourself, describe yourself and others using a variety of verbs and objects, describe where people work and the jobs they do, using numbers and descriptive adjectives. All of this is taught from our online Learning Center, where you can access your course any time at your own pace. This course includes interactive self-paced lessons.    Sign up now for Swedish Start 1 - $9.99  Swedish Start II Swedish Start II continues on where Swedish Start I left off. Continue to learn and practice Swedish. We use discussion forums, assignments, media, and chat rooms to learn Swedish on an independent basis or along with peer students.  Sign up now for Swedish Start 2 - $9.99     Move On I   Swedish Move On I - continues where the Start course left off. We use discussion forums, assignments, media, and chat rooms to learn Swedish at an independent pace. Sign up now for Swedish Move On 1 - $9.99       Move on II   Swedish Move On II - continues where the Move On 1 course left off. This course continues to build on the Swedish language and develop advanced language skills. Sign up now for Swedish Move On 2 - $9.99     All of our language courses have been developed using the European Council of Languages guidelines. We also administer the Swedex exam to determine your level and comprehension and fluency.   Whether you want to learn Swedish because you are moving there, working there, or just want to learn it as a hobby. LearnSweden will get you there quickly.   For more information please go to our course page on our website.  If you have any questions, please feel free to write us an email.

How Much is the Clock?

 By Valarie Budayr

 

I'm not asking how much the clock costs but what time is it?

Hur mycket är klockan?

    or

Vad är klockan?

Such a simple phrase but yet in Swedish it gave me tons of problems. 

To give the exact hour was no problem:

Klockan är ett. Klockan är två etc. 

Anything past the hour is över, as in over the hour. Klockan är fem över ett.

Quarter past the hour is Kvart över ett.

Now brace yourself ! Anything at 25 past the hour tells the time of the next hour.

If it's twenty-five past one, you would say it like this, Klockan är fem i halv två.

If it's the half hour ,one would say it like this, Klockan är halv två.

If it's one thirty five, one would say it like this, Klockan är fem över halv två.

These last three sentences greatly baffled me until I remembered how my very swedish father would answer the question "Dad, what time is it?" in english.

1:25 : "It is precisely five minutes to the half hour of two.

1:30: "It is precisely half hour until two."

1:35: "It is precisely five minutes past the half hour until two."

Ok, so maybe Dad had some english problems, but I'm really glad because it helped me so much when I had to figure how this time telling issue worked. Now anything past the half hour is working towards the new hour so you will use "i" , which means "to"the hour.

1:40 Klockan är tjugo i två.

1:45 Klockan är kvart i två.

If you can still spare a few minutes, here are some other common expressions using time.

• Min Klocka går fel.    My watch is wrong.
• Klockan går fem minuter före. The clock is five minutes fast.
• Klockan går två minuter efter. The clock is 2 minutes slow.
• Klockan står.  The clock isn't working.
• Klockan har stannat. The clock has stopped.
• Klockan går rätt. The clock is right.
• Klockan slår tolv. The clock strikes twelve.

Have a great time with your new clock skills. :)

Shane's 1-3-5 method for learning swedish

Another huge thank-you to Shane who wrote today's blog. Please be sure and visit our friend Shane's blog at www.letmetellyouaboutsweden.com . We are back now from all of our travels and we'll be posting again tomorrow. Take Care!

          

Each of us as individuals have different ways of learning. I have tried different ways of learning Swedish with varying success.

Of course its much easier to learn Swedish when you are living in Sweden, though my office is English speaking as my colleagues are from all over the Nordics. Also many Swedes answer you in English when you ask for something in Swedish, its not them being rude, they like the chance to speak English or they feel they are helping you.

So I have to come up with inventive ways to expose myself to Swedish.

When I first moved here I used to strike up conversations with anyone, even with folks on the checkout at the supermarket! Seriously. They always say 'hej' as they start scanning your shop but its not a heartfelt 'hej' its very robotic. So I always say 'Hej, hur mår du?' This always brings out a look of surprise and usually a laugh and they answer and say 'själv', its nice in a way as most of the staff in my local Hemköp know I am not fluent but they think its fun to speak along now.

I had wrongly assumed that just by living here I would suddenly wake up fluent. Well this may happen in 10 years or so but without some application its not going to happen in the short term. So I set up myself up with a 1-3-5 Goal. Its something I use professionally to manage my goals and I thought it would be fun to apply it to Swedish. This works for most things in life, whether it be career goals, sports goals etc. Why not give it a try?

1 Goal -            Fluent Swedish

3 reasons why: Integrate Better in Swedish life
                       More Commercial opportunities
                       More social opportunities.

5 actions -        One hour of Swedish study each weeknight
                       Translate two newspaper/magazine/web articles each week and publish them on my blog
                       Watch one Swedish language DVD each week
                       Watch or listen to Swedish News each day
                       Read a Swedish newspaper each day


DVDs is an interesting one. Unfortunately the Swedes dont bother to dub English language films so I have been buying Swedish made ones and put the Swedish subtitles on.

 I have watched some Swedish classics like Lasse Åberg's 'Sällskapsresa' which was very very funny, I also watched 'Göta Kanal' - these are both comedy classics that the Swedes themselves love!

I recently bought a Bamse DVD, Bamse is the worlds strongest bear and is known by nearly every Swede who all read it as kids. I read the comics as well as another good way of learning but not in public! The funny thing with Bamse is that each story ends on a moral for the kids and its a very egalitarian family in the true Swedish way! The enemy was Vargen (The Wolf) but even he eventually becomes Bamse's friend after being treated kindly by Bamse, the only villain who couldnt be turned was Krösus Sork a crude Capitalist who will do anything for money...told you this was espousing Swedish values ;-)

I watched 'Beck' for the first time this week. Its a cop show based in Stockholm. I bought four of the Beck films to be getting on with and I really enjoyed the first one I watched this week. Only snag is there is a lot of slang which isnt in my dictionary. For instance they kept talking about a 'torsk'. Now my dictionary translates that as 'cod. So I couldnt work out why they were calling someone a cod. I asked a Swedish friend who explained that its slang for someone who picks up prostitutes, told you it was educational!

Last but not least, as a single guy in my thirties I of course love my Xbox, but even that can help. I now play the soccer game FIFA 09 with the Swedish commentary, this is a really good way of getting my ear into it and of course these are important words to know when talking football down the pub!

My Swedish needs a lot of work but I am hoping with the 1-3-5 goal and bags of enthusiasm I will crack the language soon!

How to Type Swedish Letters

We are often asked how do you type Swedish letters when one doesn't have a Swedish keyboard? Never fear we have a couple of solutions.

First there is www.swedish.typeit.org

 

It allows you to write your text in swedish and then copy to your wordprocessing program.

If you want to never leave your wordprocessing program and continue to write without all of the cutting and pasting then try it this way.

There are a few different ways.

• Put on the Number Lock. Hold down the alt key whil you type these number sequences on the numeric keypad. The number keys on the tiop of your keyboard will not work.

alt 134 = å
alt 143 = Å
alt 132 = ä
alt 142 = Ä
alt 148 = ö
alt 153 = Ö
alt 129 = ü
alt 154 = Ü

• For ä and ö, there´s also another way:

First type the key with two horizontal dots (like you use for writing ü), then type either a or o. It will work for both ä,Ä,ö and Ö.

• Or use Word:

You can also check the Help function in Word:"How to type foreign characters". It might only work in Word, but in Word you can put them on your clip board and paste when you like to use them in any other program or browser.

• Or change national settings in Win Xp Control panel:

Change the characters in Windows XP in the Control panel; Control panel, National settings, Languages and the button Information. You can set the language you want the keyboard to use.

How to get a new life......

Mid-Winter Festival Day 5

Learn A New Language.

            

I bet you saw this one coming. Learning a language at any age is an extremely rewarding experience. We all know that babies are the best learners. Their openness,energy, and playfulness allow them to learn languages with ease. Children who have one adult speaker for each language can learn up to five different languages before the age of 5 or 6.  Has this age passed you? Don't worry you are never too old to learn. Leonardo Da Vinci learned Latin at the age of 44. Let's say, for example, that you wanted to learn the Swedish language. Here are a few tips for accelerating your language learning:

• Be willing to make lots of mistakes. Don't think of mistakes as failure only as feedback. Babies don't worry about looking stupid,cool, or instantly achieving perfected success. They just jump in and speak. Your progress is directly connected to your willingness to play and to accept the fact that it isn't perfect. Keep motivated. A Viking ship wasn't built in a day.
• Just like a talking one year old who babbles...repeat words and phrases over and over again.
• To jump start your language learning why not try a blended language learning program online? I bet you saw that one coming too. LearnSweden uses an approach of online self-paced lessons along with live classroom language meetings conducted by one of our native Swedish teachers.  So you study Swedish when you have time in the Learning Center. We are open 24/7,365. All of our lessons are right there at your fingertips and our friendly teaching staff is there to help your success.
• Learn words and phrases related to areas of passionate interest and then work out from there.
• Place Swedish post-it notes all over your house. Put them on everything. You can take the post-it note down once you have learned the word.
• Read the Swedish language whenever you can. Why not start in English and work towards Swedish. There is a wonderful online daily english newspaper about everything that happens in Sweden. www.thelocal.se  You can move over any word and click on it and the swedish word will come right up. It's a really fun way to learn Swedish.
• Are you a poet and didn't know it ? Turn your refridgerator or cookie sheet into a poetic magnet haven.  The magnetic poetry kit has a Swedish version containing 500 words to support the poet in you. You can find them at www.magneticpoetry.com
• Learn all about the culture. We have culture sections within our courses at LearnSweden as well as cultural courses to aid you in your preparation to travel to Sweden. To get you started on your virtual tour of Sweden start here www.visitsweden.se. While there why not join their wonderful community of Swedes and people who love Sweden. It's called Community of Sweden. The forum is in English so no worry there.

There is a chinese saying which says:"For every language you learn you get a new life". The meaning behind that is simple. Every language has it's way of viewing and experiencing the world we live in. With each language you learn you acquire new food,literature, music, theater, views on science,politics,religion,celebrations and traditions.Though our language is Swedish, these guidelines can be applied to any language.

Lycka Till in your new language learning endeavors. To learn more about LearnSweden you can find us here www.learnsweden.com