Nearly a year has gone by since I've written anything here. Real life seems to have taken over, any new lessons to add to the more than a thousand already here left undocumented. Maybe it's because the Swedish language has at last become truly embedded in my life, I've conquered it about as much as I'm going to - I still hear myself make mistakes, I have my pat expressions I use over and over, and my accent is still far from perfect (for some strange reason when I speak Swedish, people invariably think that I'm a Brit, what's that all about?), but Swedish pretty much pours out of my mouth effortlessly. Has that made it harder to blog? Or is it that I feel like I'm repeating myself, I have nothing new to say after 1,004 posts? Is it that at heart I'm a lazy bastard? Or that I want to put my energies into a real book?
At any rate, I'm not ready to throw in the towel, despite a year of not blogging here. I've gotten too much out of it - great friends, even my current job - to quit just yet.
The question is: How do I get the motivation back?
(Apologies for the metablogging. I hate metablogging, mostly).
The Swedish word for the day is lektioner. It means lessons.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
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28 comments:
Wahey, you're back! Hope you find your inspiration soon.
Oh, but I'm happy to see you and (selfishly, I suppose) hope you re-discover your inspiration.
This is what RSS is for! Your post just popped up and I was happy to read your update no matter how much time has passed. There will be readers whenever you feel like sharing!
And you're back! Keep writing. I so love reading you! Just think how pleased your followers are when they find new posts from you to read.
Or maybe you could add a couple hundred lessons to the name of the blog (Swedis in 1500 lessons, nobody would argue) and it might make it easier to go ahead!
Glad you are back! I need some Swedish inspiration!
Hey, if blogging is feeling like too much effort, you could always tweet your word-of-the-day.
I know it's not the same thing, but there's a strange satisfaction from being able to interact with the people who follow you and I don't know... meet people that way, rather than just blogging (really one sided).
You might even get some ideas to blog about from what people ask you, who knows?
Is the real book gong to be in English or Swedish or BOTH?
It's been ages since I looked in here and just today... Intuition? Great to have you back. Whatever you write sounds good the way you put it in words!
Hola,
Why don't you just try to take your posts from the blog and make a book from it. A very good way to learn Swedish for others!
I like your blogg and follow it even though I'm Swedish! Keep on writing, don't let us survive without you!
Saludos desde Madrid,
La Madrileña
Well, I must say I have had the same problem. But I think bloggers often find that the blog is not what they say it is about... like it is not so much about you learning the language one word at a time, as it is an excuse to be expressive. If you have something niggling at you, begging to be written down, you'll write it. If you are like any other writer, you have things floating around in your head at any given time... strings of words begging to be written (some description of the weather, or a feeling you're having about life, some reflection). Write that. I have been mostly absent from my blog for a year, and have recently realized too much time had passed, and there was too much to catch up on, so I just started with something that had been floating around in my head like that. And there it was. A new start.
Glad you're back!!
So glad to see your latest post. I'm an American expat in Sweden and one of the first things I did when I moved here last year was read your blog in its entirety. Thanks for the wit and inspiration, which I'm sure many others are also eager to see continue!
What a surprise to see you back on my Google Reader! And just when I was thinking about renewing my efforts to learn Swedish. (My last try was stifled by a teacher who didn't like my pronunciation of all the different "a" vowel sounds.) Hope to see more from you!
How do you get the motivation back? maybe strike out for 2000 lessons. Or 500. make the lessons in sentences rather than words? Anyway, I'm always glad to read your writing, from here in Australia.
Motivation ideas:
- Learn a new language and blog that. Chinese?
- Throw in the towel on this format and begin anew elsewhere. Use Twitter format as a creative constraint?
- Throw in the towel on this blog but start a new long-form blog elsewhere, with a new conceit. Perhaps around 100 recipes? 500 books?
- Ditch text, go visual. Structure posts around snapshots or iconic images you've found...
So happy to find you have returned!
Thrilled to see your new post. Though I first found your blog years ago while considering a move to Sweden (what is it about midwestern gay boys and Sweden?), I could care less about learning Swedish words - I just love your writing; you're a modern-day Johnson or Pepys.
That's what I enjoy, and that's what I'd like to see more of - your mere descriptions of daily life are more engaging than most "professional" essays. I hope you keep it up!
p.s. In the vein of my prior comment, I hope you don't transition to Twitter. I can't see at all how your great, introspective writing could be reduced to a "tweet" of 140 characters!
So glad you're back! Alas, I see that it will take me approximately 8 more years to feel the level of comfort with the swedish language that you have finally achieved. What is your language-learning secret?
... Not to mention that I've been feeling a little guilty for not writing my sweden blog for the past month (the topics are there in my head; I think I have just fallen into that "lazy" category you mentioned)
Here's to motivation! Lycka till till oss!!
I'm so happy to see you're back no matter how infrequent! Just keep writing.
Yours was one of my first blogs I followed, which kept inspiring me in finding my own blogging style. Well, blogging is about being a crazy blogger when you feel you need to write every day and then suddenly it all goes away and you can't even see it for months - isn't it? At least that's what happened to me. Well, I hope you'll come back one day anyway! Take care and keep warm :)
Hello there, Francis!
My name is Malte Zeeck, and I am with InterNations.org. I really enjoyed reading your fantastic blog! I think expats in Sweden and around the world could really gain some great insights and have a few good laughs on this page. The quality of the blog in general is very convincing, which is why I would love to feature you and your writing on on InterNations.org
Not only do we feature and link to your blog; we also would like to hear from you directly in our questionnaire! We have also designed a link badge for your blog.
If you are interested, please feel free to contact me via email: maltezeeck@internations.org
Best,
Malte Zeeck
Hello,
I contacted you few weeks ago regarding your blog being featured on internations blog section. If you are still interested please contact me on maltezeeck@internations.org
Regards
Malte Zeeck
The Swedish language depends a lot on gender of a word. It controls what form an adjective should be in and what plural/article ending to use.you can easily learn swedish.there are many oppourtunities to learn swedish.
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Sweden is a nice country and Swedish companies are in general very productive and environmentally conscious.
It's your descriptions of life in Sweden that I love the most, especially when you mention locations by name. My husband is Swedish and we try to spend the better part of every summer there. Each year it gets harder and harder to come back to the States. While we're working on finding jobs there (my husband's specialty makes this difficult, but we're determined to keep trying), reading and re-reading your blog fills me with the same warm, contented feeling that I have when I am in Stockholm.
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Nice blog, interesting to read about Sweden, it's been a while since I was there. Hope you'll get back to blogging soon.
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