1200 hours of Norwegian
After two and a half years of learning Norwegian, I'm at around 1200 hours1, and I'm a high B2. (Check out my previous Norwegian updates here.)
What have I been up to?
- Got an A in my previous Norwegian class B)
- Took a break over the summer: did a little German, a little Spanish, now a fair amount of Indonesian, not so much Norwegian. Good break.
- I've been (very slowly) reading Språket som vart norsk, it's a textbook about the historical linguistics of the Norwegian language. It's written in nynorsk too which is very fun
- I get a lot of random speaking practice with roommates, coworkers, people at swing dance, misc other activities. Talking to people at swing is still challenging because it's many different people/dialects in a noisy environment, but I'm already much better than 6 months ago!
- Haven't listened to so many podcasts recently, but I started back up with Leseklubben reading Kafka's The Trial. I've also listened a bit to the news, and to some of a radio play of Matilda. I don't have issues listening to podcasts/radio at all, so I usually increase the speed to 1.3-1.5 to challenge myself a bit more.
- I'm taking a Norwegian class again, this one is C1 level, twice a week for a total of 6 hours. A lot of class! So far it's fun and I'm looking forward to the challenge
- I'm a TA for a chemistry lab course this fall, which is taught in Norwegian. Our TA meetings and stuff we do in Norwegian, and the actual teaching itself I do half and half. I am also reading the lab manual and making a list of key vocab so I can learn the important chemistry words.
How are the language skills feeling?
I think I am actually fairly close to C1, I'm just lacking in a couple spots:
- Comprehension: I don't have issues with standard radio/podcast Norwegian. I also don't have issues with the words themselves (I can understand audiobooks and such just fine). But I do still have issues with real spoken language. Especially in noisy environments, with strong dialects, and with people who mumble. What's annoying too is it feels like if other people are talking to each other I can easily follow, and then once someone starts talking to me I don't understand anything... I suppose I can just guess e.g. what the question was based on what someone answers, and I thus I don't notice that I don't understand when I am not under the pressure to respond. Also when someone says something random out of the blue, I just never know what they're talking about. The other day I was tabling for a club and saying we have free candy and stickers and this old man told me back (apparently) that his teeth are too bad for sweets, and I understood nothing lmao. Stick to the script please :,) ... Anyway I still have quite a ways to go in listening comprehension!
- Production: I can do most of the tasks, it's just difficult. The key descriptor I'm lacking in is "Can express themselves fluently and spontaneously, almost effortlessly. Only a conceptually difficult subject can hinder a natural, smooth flow of language." I think I am there in some situations and not in others, and it's just a matter of getting some more speaking practice and having more self-confidence (aka not switching to English when the going gets slightly tough) :)
I will probably surpass my French speaking skills shortly lol, but in comprehension it is going to take some time. I don't think there's any shortcut to getting good at the comprehension, other than just listening to lots of different people and dialects.
Next plans
I have quite a bit of Norwegian in my daily life, between Norwegian class, teaching duties, swing dance classes, and misc other events. In total it comes out to around 12 hours a week of scheduled Norwegian activities, plus any extra time just from living in Norway (talking with roommates and friends, going to the grocery store, listening to the news, etc). In my free time, the last few weeks, I've been mostly working on Indonesian (check out my post here). In general, my goals are:
- Listen to the news sometimes on my walk to campus
- Finish Språket som vart norsk!
- Listen to youtube in Indo instead of in English
- Read my indo book!!
- Journal sometimes when I feel like it
- Make progress on my sweater! Finally finished the body, onto the sleeves!
See y'all soon and good luck with your language learning!
Footnotes:
Keeping track of hours precisely is complicated because at this point I mostly don't just "sit down and study." I spend some minutes here and there talking with friends, reading the news at work, going to events that are half in Norwegian and half in English, etc. But my tracker app says 1200 so that's what we're going with :)↩