Thursday: I have never failed a final exam before. While I did pass the grammar section of the final exam for my Swedish for Academics course, the essay was unsatisfactory. So, part of me feels a little like I was set up to fail, because I took the placement exam in August and was put into level 3. I questioned the instructor thinking it was too hard after the first class, but she thought I would do OK, but with the challenge of learning quite a bit of vocabulary. She has way more experience in evaluating beginning Swedish, so I trusted her. I worked hard. My instructor noted that I was probably the most diligent in turning in the homework. I worked through the extra pages in the exercise book and repeated the ones we did for class. I added my own vocabulary regimen. I added my own talk time practice sessions. I added my own routine of listening to the podcasts of Swedish new in easy Swedish and reading the text on the Internet. Still, I did not pass.
In retrospect, I should have trusted my gut and worked through level 2. There would have been way less stress and a better match to my level. Hindsight… I’m beginning to realize that I need to trust my intuition a little more, but cross-culturally, one never knows how to intuit the new context.
Since I don’t NEED the grade, I might not bother to retake the exam. I’ll think about it.
At the afternoon fika, I asked if my colleagues knew of someone who knew Swedish grammar. Now that the course was finished, I wanted to have someone to ask my grammar questions. I can still have conversation partners, but most don’t know how to respond to why one uses vilken/t/a instead of som in certain contexts. A retired Greek teacher, Lennart, who knows several languages was mentioned. One colleague, Staffan, offered to call him.
Friday: I am working at 75% this first year while I learn Swedish and my co-teacher in Old Testament gradually retires. So, I have worked it out so that I don’t go to campus on Fridays. However, earlier in the week, I was asked by the student body president, Martin, if I was going to be in the chapel service on Friday morning, and invited me to attend. I went.
Martin is a very funny guy with a what I understand is a kind of funny commentary on the way things are done. However, I don’t understand the much of Swedish and humor is even harder to get. It is amazing how many laughs he gets. I know that I never want to be a speaker that has to follow him.
At one point, Martin switched to English and talked about how LarsOlov (my Old Testament co-teacher) was talking about retirement for years but never did. But now Johannelund has found an excellent match in me, so now he doesn’t have to worry any more; he can retire. Then he presented me with two books from the students, Bible commentaries (one written by LarsOlov and the other by my New Testament colleague). It was a nice affirmation that in spite of the Swedish, I am in the right place.
This affirmation was followed by fika with a few of the women students in their late 20s and early 30s. They are all very comfortable in English, so we have a great time together. There is a great community here. I will just need to continue to work on the Swedish competency.
I stayed and prepared for some new term things. While this is my day off, I was previously given time off later when Anya has winter and spring breaks–without any concern.
Later, Staffan dropped by and said that Lennart was willing to meet with me to discuss Swedish grammar! Great!
Anya was asleep when I got home at 5:30 pm. She needs to get on this time zone! I worked on some Swedish, checked emails, streamed some Stephen Colbert to keep up on things in the USA, and went to bed.
Saturday: Most of the day I started seriously writing on a paper that I will present on Feb. 6. The process is always slower than I would hope, but it is important to clarify the issues as they come up.
In the evening, we were invited over for dinner to the home of one of my conversation partners. Åsa left her teaching position at the agricultural university in Uppsala 4.5 years ago to become a priest. She was one of the ones sent off with blessings this week. She will stay living in Uppsala and serve a congregation about 20 minutes from town. We had a nice evening with good laughter (yes, in English) in this tri-lingual family (the father is German and speaks German to their 3 kids).
Anya stayed up until almost 9:00 pm, with the help of a rather cold night to bicycle home.
Sunday: This morning at church, I didn’t take the earphone to hear the sermon translated into English. Then I discovered it was going to be one of my colleagues who is probably the hardest for me to understand. He has a Finnish-Swedish dialect with a deep, grovely voice. I got some of it, but the translation would have been good.
After church, Staffan introduced me to Lennart, my new Swedish grammar tutor. We had fika together after church where we talked over this arrangement. He grew up in India, so Swedish and Hindi are his first languages. He has taught Greek in Hindi, Indonesian, English, and Thai, and recently added in Swedish. He also knows some Russian from his military service. We discovered we were at the same global mission conference in Tacoma, WA, in 1984, where he was a speaker and I ran the youth program. So, I will meet on Fridays mornings for an hour each week. What a gift!
Anya and I were finally awake together and were able to start our new ping pong streak!
With blessings,
Beth
My experience trying (and failing) to learn Swahili made me a better teacher because I realized some students just can’t get some subjects. I described learning a language (I was 52 at the time) was like dropping BBs on a helmet and hoping something would stick. I sorta quit. Don’t do that. Trust God, keep learning, and it will turn out, although for better or worse is not necessarily our choice or doing.
And after 12 years in TZ, I never did “get” prepositional endings, struggled with objects matching the noun, and understood half of a sermon. Of course, Kiswahili only has about 16,000 words in the language where Swedish has what?
Your extra work on the language will pay off, hang in there!
You are your hardest task master, your toughest coach and your own best friend. Be kind to yourself yet disciplined (I can’t imagine you any other way!). It will all take time and the more people you connect with the easier it will become.
What a nice confirmation that you followed God’s leading to uproot yourselves and move to Sweden!! The students appreciate you, the faculty respects you and you are loving the challenge! Woohoo!
And Anya is blossoming into a very strong and independent woman, like her Mom.