Written by Sania
13 Nov 2017
Det är skåpet – not sure if it’s the right structure or not but that’s how the logic of the language is to me, at the moment. In the post-it, we put Swedish, English, and Indonesia so we all can learn together! Other than the post-it, we often have misunderstood conversations because I feel that my Swedish was basically non exist until my housemate’s mother made me realized something…
When you add ‘kyl‘ to the cupboard, suddenly it becomes a refrigerator. Nej, that is not what I meant. Her mom made me realized that “jag prata inte Svenska men jag understand lite” so I only need to polish a lot on this language. That push was what I need. With less than a year left on my study, I don’t want to missed the experience of being a true Swede by not speaking Svenska. Så, despite the misunderstanding that happened a lot, my housemates and I are trying our best to talk in Swedish.
Through this activity, I noticed that Indonesian has two ways to mention rice. One is when it is uncooked, ‘beras’. Another is when it’s cooked, so the one we eat is called ‘nasi’. Perhaps this specification in terms that we have is because the rice culture in Indonesia is so strong. Sometimes my belief in my mother tongue is too strong that I want to adjust the other language to mine.
I mean, if you can call a plant as ‘crocodile tongue’, why would you call it aloe vera? Maybe I should name all the plants so it has more interesting name. Despite this fun findings, I have a hard time guessing and speaking the pronunciation of some words such as…
Oven. The pronunciation is [ung:n], I don’t know how to say it – don’t ask me. It’s so amazing to find the logic in foreign language. Sometimes I just…
..feel like giving up, so I watch my favourite tv series with Swedish subtitle as Andrés suggested.
All those good looking people with enticing storyline always makes me happy learning Swedish again.
