MY PLAN FOR LEARNING SWEDISH IN 30 DAYS

My journey with Swedish

Jag älskar svenska! I started learning this beautiful language over 2 years ago. Wow, that’s an insane thought! Anyway, I only studied it seriously in the very beginning - the rest of the time I unfortunately spent learning on Duolingo. I can now say it was a huge waste of time. This platform is not great when it comes to explaining grammar or having real-life interactions. I used to keep a diary in Swedish and occasionally write in it, but that’s about it. In the meantime, I also tried learning other languages (Greek, Gaelic, Finnish) but my unsuccessful efforts led me to burnout. Essentially, I wanted to learn too much in a short period of time, without ever reviewing what I had learned. That’s also why my level in Swedish is pretty much the same as last year. Now it’s time to finally change it.

30-day challenge

Since I’m not a complete beginner in Swedish, I’m gonna be using mostly resources on B1 level. I do understand a lot of Swedish, but the real difficulty for me is speaking. I can’t speak Swedish at all. It’s because I never really had anyone to talk to in this language. Of course it’s just an excuse, I could’ve started speaking alone or to my stuffed animals! That would’ve been so much better. But here we are. In the next 30 days I'd like to practice as much Swedish as possible (both input and output!). By the end of this challenge, I want to be able to have a conversation in Swedish (with a real person). So, I came up with a list of activities that I’m gonna be doing on a regular basis for the next 30 days and I want to document the whole process. We’ll see how much Swedish I can learn in a month!

Goals

As I already said, my main goal is to be able to communicate in Swedish without using a translator after finishing the 30-day-challenge. To achieve that, I want to do many different activities - to avoid boredom and burnout. Overall, I want to read 15 short articles in Swedish, listen to 30 podcast episodes, write 30 entries in my journal, study from my textbook 18 times, finish my online B1 course (6 more classes), watch 3 seasons of Young Royals (18 episodes) and attend 6 online meetings for Swedish learners. During each meeting I want to step out of my comfort zone and say at least a few sentences in Swedish, ideally without looking up too many words. This will be the hardest part, I think. Anyway, I made sure to include activities that let me practice different skills in Swedish (that's the key tu successful language learning!).

Resources

When it comes to resources, I also made a list. Pretty much all of them are free and available online. Important: don’t choose too many resources because it can become really overwhelming! I think 2-3 resources for each skill is enough. For reading articles in simple Swedish, I’m gonna be using these 2 websites: Minibladet and 8sidor. They are awesome for beginners and more advanced learners! My 3 podcasts of choice are Morgonstund (by Joakim), Simple Swedish Podcast (by Swedish Linguist) and Coffee Break Swedish (by Coffee Break Languages). All of them are available on Spotify. For journaling, I’ll use my own paper journal (what a surprise). The textbook’s name is Rivstart B1 + B2 (there's a free pdf on the internet!) and the online course was gifted to me and it’s available on Udemy. I’m gonna be rewatching the TV show on Netflix (this time with only Swedish subtitles) and the online meetings take place on Tuesdays and Wednesdays on Meetup. That’s basically it!

Study routine

When you study languages, it’s always good to have a routine that works for you. I like to divide my daily study routine into 3 parts: morning, afternoon and evening. I especially enjoy journaling first thing in the morning, so (ideally) I can write in my diary in Swedish every day after I get up. Then, in the afternoon, I usually have some spare time which I could use to study from either my textbook or the online course. After that, I think it would be a good time to unwind a little and just immerse myself in the Swedish language by watching Netflix or YouTube. Before going to sleep, I always listen to some podcasts - ending the day with a Swedish podcast would be perfect! So that’s essentially my new routine - flexible and not too complicated. Let’s hope it’s gonna be easy to follow! I'd also like to keep track of all the activities I do each day and write my daily reflections - which, of course, I’ll share with you later!