Sportyrod’s Comments (group member since Nov 12, 2021)

Sportyrod’s comments from the Language Learners and Polyglots group.

Hi Peter,

Thanks for bringing the chat group back. It was a joy of mine too.

My language challenge is not that high.

* Swedish: two. I have read 1/2 so far.
* Indonesian: one.

and I want to expand my vocabulary as a secondary challenge, so that I may increase my foreign challenge later.

My secondary foreign challenge is:

* expand Swedish vocab
* expand Indonesian vocab
* start Spanish or French (from scratch).


I may not be able to tick off books for the secondary challenge but as long as I remain active I should be happy enough.

Rod

Thanks so much Berengaria for organising this group. You did such a great job keeping it interesting and interactive.

Well done Berengaria!! 🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️ And thanks for facilitating such an awesome group challenge/chat. Your hard work and involvement is appreciated. I will be rejoining next year :)

My challenges met were:

1 Swedish 🇸🇪
1 Bahasa Indonesian 🇲🇨 (sort of)

I carry over 1 extra Swedish book into 2023 as I am reading a much longer/harder book.

I need to improve my Indo reading. I read one on slang, and attempted another at the level of my Swedish book but realised I didn’t have enough vocabulary, so I went back to reading a book for new language learners, which I will also carry over to next year.

How did everyone else go?

Great work everyone on your recent achievements.

It’s so true. They really push kids away from reading.

I just read your reviews too. Great job.

Hey Everyone,

I am checking in now to say hi to everyone. My reading challenge is progressing slowly at the moment. I am plodding through my Lionheart Brothers book in Swedish. My Indonesian is dropping off (but bit forgotten).

Great job iamthesword on your recent progress. You’re smashing it.

Well done Berengaria on your Iceland challenge. That muat be a tough one.

Välkommen Elias!!! Trevligt att träffas dig. Hur mår du? Jag bodde i sverige for ett år i 2004-5 och jag försöker fortsätte lär mig. Min svenska är bara okej med många fel men jag gillar skriver och pratar språken som jag kan. It would be fun to chat some more with you and exchange ideas. I will look up your library link some time. Welcome to the group. Jag kommer ifrån australien i tasmanien. Peope here say we have three heads, but don’t pay any attention: we have four 🤓
Har det så bra, vi ses.
Rod

I did read that one but I didn’t count it towards my tally as it was more a vocab phrase book. My plan was to read a harder level book. Maybe I should have counted it. Either way, I set a low target but I plan to read more language books over the break and even more in Nov/Dec.

Excellent work Calla and Peter on your recent books!!

Welcome *Tau*!!! This sounds like the right group for you. So many languages you have dabbled in. Impressive.

So we are doing anotjer similar challenge. I am also reading one book set in every country. I prefer to choose books where the author is from the same country but sometimes I see a ‘hard to find’ place and just grab the book. Feel free to raid my books for ideas. I have about 40 countries left.

Berengaria, I haven’t finished my language goal yet :). I have one Bahasa Indonesian book left to go. I borrowed two children’s books from the library and they were too hard (hides face). So I need to go over my how to learn books more and I have one ready to go similar to the one we read. Now that I am on uni break, I will get back into a Swedish book I started a few months ago. The Lionheart Brothers by Astrid Lindgren.

No, but I just added the book to my list. I will hopefully be reading more Swedish books next year too. I am a stockpiler too.

Hey Berengaria, how are your Swedish books coming along? I have my mid year exams this month and am looking forward to getting back into my Swedish books mid month.

Congratulations Peter. Great job. Let’s hope the next one is more interesting.

I love a good creepy ghost story. I’d switch them for sure.

Yes that’s right. I am certainly off-the-beaten-track with these two.

Following on from your review…sorry about the dilemma. Totally understandable. It seems like you have a nack for finding good options though.

Great aim and selection. I’m glad you enjoyed it.

Berengaria, I am impressed with your Swedish written skills. Much better than mine. Lycka til med bokan som du väljade.

Thanks Berengaria for the extra explanation. I actually didn’t know about the origin of the language. I can vouch for it being an easy language though. In high school we could choose French, Japanese or Indonesian. My selection was sold to me on “easy”.

Indonesian uses a mix of words from other languages including Dutch, Arabic, Sanskrit and English. Many Arabic words have the ‘kh’ or ‘f’ sounds in them. Most English words ending in ‘ion’ eg information becomes informasi so that opens up a huge chunk of extra vocab right there.

The sentence structure is the main challenge. Lots of rules for that.

Pluralising can be done by repeating the word eg anak (child), anak-anak (children) but this is only one of several ways to pluralise and depends on context. When counting you can’t say two anak anak you would have to use prefixes se- for one, dua- for two, therefore dua-anak for two children. And there are different prefixes depending on whether the object is living. It’s a good language if you like rules with few exceptions. Slang is very hard to follow though. So many abbreviations.

Thanks. Both use Western script. Swedish has an extra ä, å, ö.

I am still brushing up on my Bahasa Indonesia skills before I read a book in that language. But being impatient, I have just started my second book in Swedish. This one is a children’s book called the Lionheart Brothers by Astrid Lindgren. It’s about 250 pages long. It’s not a language learner one with the vocab included. This is purely in Swedish. So it is a big step up for me. I just tried out the first chapter before mentioning this to see if I could actually do it and I have surprised myself. There were some words lost on me but I think I followed most of it. And it is so sad. So so sad.

Yes I’ll check it out, thanks.