Well, here we are – almost half way through the year already! As this past month has been particularly busy for me, I just wanted to take this opportunity to quickly check in and do a bit of a linguistic stock take, and maybe set out some goals for the rest of the year. As any of you who have been following me on Twitter will already know, I’ve done a lot of jumping around this year and haven’t really been able to settle on any single project. In the past six months I managed to study Italian for a whole two months before I eventually lost interest, dabbled in Korean and Spanish, and had a brief flirtation with Livonian (which sadly had to be shelved due to lack of available resources).
Before we get into all of that, though, I think it would be difficult to set goals without first establishing where I am with the various languages I’m learning or already speak. Now, bear in mind I haven’t sat an exam in any of these since I graduated from university, so these are all rough estimates (which might be a little harsh, actually… but I’d rather value my skills lower and then surprise people than estimate them too high and set myself up for failure). So, disregarding all of the languages I’ve dabbled in and just with the ones I’m focusing on at the moment… here’s a handy chart. I know my Norwegian and Danish have certainly slipped over the past few years because I just don’t use them enough. But at this point I have to make Swedish a priority (as I intend to use it as my main working language), and sadly the other Scandinavian languages are too similar not to prove a distraction. So that’s one of my goals – to up my Swedish from B2 to C1, and then hopefully pass the TISUS exam later this year. And if not this year, then early next year. The main issue here, I think, is vocabulary. So reading more books in Swedish should help there – quite handy, as I’ve got a pile of unread Swedish books sitting within reach of where I am right now.
Another goal for the next few months is to get my Lithuanian from A0 level to A1, or maybe even more than that if I’m feeling especially optimistic. And, well, there’s optimism, and there’s praying for a miracle. I’ve been slowly working my way through Complete Lithuanian on my Kindle and I think it’s going pretty well so far! So I think this is definitely pretty achievable. I guess we’ll see over the next few months how well this goes. Keep your fingers, toes and eyes crossed for me.
How about you, what are your language goals for the next few months? Feel free to drop me a comment below, I love it when you guys get in touch. As always, thanks for reading, and I’ll see you for something a little bit more exciting next month.
– J.
den språkliga skatan 