I am quite appalled by how bad my Swedish is nowadays. Almost everything I read, listen to and write is in English, so I have started thinking in English at least half the time, probably more. It's fine when it's about stuff I plan to write in English, but I find myself imagining future conversations with other Swedish people being had in English as well, and that's just weird. I constantly have to remind myself that no, I will NOT be saying what I just thought about saying, because I will be speaking SWEDISH.
Naomi and I challenged ourselves a while ago to use no English phrases or words that have a Swedish equivalent for one day. I fucked up 22 times, and that was when I was actively trying not to! (I think Naomi did it 11 times, but to be fair: I talk a lot more than she does.) I rarely have to look up what things are called in English anymore, but find myself going "What the HELL is the Swedish word for that!?" quite often. It's a bit weird.
I think I just like English more. The words usually feel more poignant, or sometimes more vague in a useful way, and there are so many expressions that are so spot on but do not work if translated. Still it's a bit embarrassing to be so bad at my first language, especially since I used to be really good at it! I should start writing in Swedish as practice.
I have enormous trouble speaking German with my mother and old friend on Skype. No idea how well it is going to go when I go to Germany over Christmas...
ReplyDeleteLina and I have started to speak English and Swedish at random, and sometimes sort of both-at-once. It feels like it is easier speaking Swedish than German at this point.
Ive got the exact same problem, in particular when it comes to knowing what a word is in english but having no clue of it's equivalent in swedish.
ReplyDeleteI figure reading more swedish books is a solution. Two authors I can suggest is John Ajvide Lindqvist (figure youve read him before though) and Agneta Pleijel (Lord Nevermore in particular).
I just realised my biggest problem is that my english is in no way good enough to slack of in the swedish department. Mostly when it comes to grammar and vocabulary. It just means I suck mildly in both languages. You seem to be flying with english.
ReplyDeleteMy employer is Hungarian, and she says that she prefers to speak her not-so-good English over Hungarian, just because Hungarian is so so so complicated.
ReplyDeleteI'm only fluent in English, and a little bit of American sign language. I wish I knew what it was like to fully understand a second language :)
I have the same problem! I hardly read anything in german anymore. But it's also hard to find stuff that interests me that's not english originally, and I don't want to read translations when I can read the original. Germany! Make better scifi and fantasy novels!
ReplyDeleteSabrina