Svenska - Making it work

You may recall a while ago me mentioning email correspondance with a student called Natalie about language software, programs etc. Well, I told her in an email that I'd ''soon be doing a post about learning Swedish''. I then started college again, and then my laptop broke on me. So AGES later, here we are. Tonight's post is fuelled by RIX FM and boredom. Du ar valkommen.

OK. So, here's my approach to teaching myself Swedish. Firstly, I should begin by admitting that I haven't done anything on it since August, except listen to RIX FM which, if nothing else, contributes to listening skills a little. Half term is approaching, though, and I WILL pick it back up again.

Step one to self-teaching Swedish, for me, was to establish how I wanted to be taught the language. Software, textbooks, apps? Well, none of them. Not on their own, anyway. The only way I've ever successfully learnt another language has been through the conventional school-taught method. So that's what I'm doing - pens, paper, worksheets, dates and objectives.

With this in mind, I went out and bought myself a folder - blue, to match the Swedish flag. I also used letter stickers to spell out Swedish words all over the front, but they don't show up well in the picture. In here, I place my work at the front, and any additional sheets I have in the back. When I finally start building it all up properly, I'll probably purchase some file dividers and organise it a little like my Spanish folder (which may be a post in itself, actually).

Another big thing for me is that the date, lesson title, any other titles and all instructions are all written in the language I'm studying - so in this case, in Swedish. I make a point of always writing the date in Swedish - this means that, hopefully, I won't need to spend much time learning days or months - the more you use them, the more naturally they come to you. Plus, it's always useful to know the date. I may actually start writing out the numbers too, just so I memorise those quicker as well.

This is typically how I set out the page. If it's a totally new subject, the ordforrad (vocabulary) goes under the title, followed by 3 or 4 activites on the vocab given.

When writing out the vocab, I always write the Swedish in blue, and the English in black. As with the folder colour, the blue helps to associate the word with the language, plus it creates a visual difference between the two languages. I don't do this throughout the whole lesson, but it's not uncommon for it to spread into the activities I set myself.

This is typically the sort of activity I would set myself to begin with. Again, all of the instructions are written in Swedish (and English, until I have the translation covered and memorised), and I also make the language I'm translating from/to clear by either writing SV till EN (short for Svenska till Engelska) or EN till SV (Engelska till Svenska). I mark all of the work simply by referring back to the vocab.

I also think it is really important to take note of the resources used during the lesson, so I always write a lesson reference box on the bottom of the paper once the lesson is over. This includes software, websites, translators, apps, phrasebooks, dictionaries etc. I typically use the BYKI Deluxe Swedish software I have, and each lesson is centered around one vocabulary list from there. In the example to the right, I was using the first vocabulary list on Meeting and Greeting - there are usually a few on the same subject, so they make up several lessons. I occasionally add to the vocabulary by looking up other words or phrases that aren't listed, but I think tie in with what I'm learning that day.

A few other pictures of the resources I use etc...

I hope all of that made sense. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions :)


Kyssar,
Rachel

Product Review - Byki Swedish (Free Language Software)

I initially downloaded Byki last March (ish) when I was wanting to learn some Croatian for the expedition there in July, my Spanish teacher recommended it to me so I downloaded the free version and started using it alongside my phrasebook.

Fast forward a year, and I'm now using the Swedish version to learn, yep you guessed it, Swedish. What I like about Byki is that it offers you basic vocabulary with the chance to repeat the learning process over and over in different ways. It covers the different ways that, if taking an exam in, for example, Spanish, you would get examined: listening, writing and reading. There's also the chance for you say the Swedish out loud as well, which would count as the speaking side of learning a language I guess.

When you download the software, you get 'lists', you can select one, for example '01 - Quick Start!' and you are given three steps:
- Step 1 ''Preview it'' where you are shown flashcards with the Swedish and English translation

- Step 2 "Recognize it" where you get given the Swedish side of the flashcard and have to think of, then later on type the English translation

- Step 3 "Produce it" where you get given the English and have to think of, then later on type the Swedish translation

You can alter the speed of the voiceover saying each word/phrase for you, so there is also pronunciation help as it allows you to slow the words right down until it's easier to pronounce them properly. You can check your 'My Learned Items' statistics and it gives you the chance to view both your already learned items and your stale items. Stale items are words that you have previously learnt but not recently practiced - this is a helpful feature as it allows you to look back on what you have already studied and go over words that you may not remember properly or just refresh your memory. In addition, you can download extra Byki user created lists from List Central to add to your existing lists.

If anything, I'd prefer it if the software had a feature that allows you to very easily access foreign letters (i.e. letters with accents) for the sections where you have to type in the language you are learning. Luckily, there are websites that give you these characters, or like me, you could just copy and paste them from word processing programs etc. 

The thing I think I like most about Byki is how accessible it truly is. I'm going to list all of the languages you can learn with Byki, I guarantee you'll be surprised...

Afrikaans, Albanian, Altai, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Belorussian, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Buriat, Chechen, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dari, Dutch, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Haitian Creole, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Macedonian, Malay, Mirandese, Mongolian, Norwegian, Pashto, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (European), Romanian, Russian, Scottish, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog (Filipino), Tajiki, Thai, Turkish, Turkmen, Tuvan, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Zulu

I only know of one other software company that offers anywhere near this many languages, and it costs £5.99 per app from the iTunes App Store, so I've never gone anywhere near it. Speaking of apps, Byki also has apps on the App Store that feature basics like the PC/Laptop software. Like I said, Byki is incredibly accessible. The online download is free, but you can upgrade to Byki Deluxe which costs rougly $50 (though I get plenty of emails offering software at reduced prices, so it seems that there's always some sort of sale or offer going on) - I'm thinking of asking for the deluxe version for my birthday, when I'll actually be able to afford it, so I'll have to let you know how they differ if I do. 

Overall, I love Byki as a language learning app, I think it's a very clever and simple concept that's both incredibly user-friendly and accessible. I've used it mainly for Swedish, but the basic vocabulary is very easy to grasp with any of the other languages I've tried (Croatian, French, Russian and Azerbaijani).

If you've tried Byki for any language, leave us all a comment to let us know how you found it.