Keeping the End in Sight

I don't about you, but learning a language is like running a marathon. Not that I have experience running one, I just admire those who do! it's cliche, but if you want to see your goal to the end, you might want to adopt that marathon mindset. Learning a language is incredible, and it's been too long for to me admit when I started fresh from zero. I dabbled in Arabic and German while in college. Arabic was fascinating, who knows, maybe down the line I'll rekindle that goal. My three loves are Spanish, French and Italian.

My recent goal sprang up on me, very quickly! I'm learning Swedish. My motivation is to converse with my brother's partner, Marcus. Keep in mind, Marcus is fluent in English so there's no "need" for me to learn Swedish. Maybe my motivation is my love for my brother and for a man who makes him so happy. There is it, Matty and Marcus are my motivation! My deadline is right around the corner, they come to visit us in the second week of July. This will be the first time the whole family meets Marcus, my parents already visited Sweden to met him and love him.

I follow and learn from many fellow polyglots who share their motivations and steps to learning a language. It's evident that they are language lovers and experience first hand how it creates an unspeakable humanly bond. Maybe that's why I got into this so many years ago? It started before I graduated High School. Spanish was my first love, well my first epic fail then my first love! The reason for that fail, was I didn't see value and didn't think it was possible, a false mindset. Once my mindset changed, I fell in love with French! Another post on how I skipped 3 years of French. Je te remercie, Sam. Italian was an obvious third language, my grandparents were Italian on both sides! It's interesting how each language has a life of its own. Have you found that there are some words that are so exact to that language that some of the beauty gets lost in translation. You live the language, you feel it.

So, to wrap it for today, keep your goal in mind, and remember to keep it specific and attainable. My Swedish goal is...I have it written in French, does anyone else do that? Learn a new language and use a second language as your new base language? I'm a native English speaker but my Swedish notebook is in Swedish and French.

"Mon but: parler de la vie quotidienne, de la bouffe (hehe), les activitiés d'été" (My goal: talk about daily life, about food (hehe) summer activites)

With that said, here's some accountability, here's some expressions I learned around my goal...HURRA HURRA!

" Hur mår du? " (Comment ça va?)

"Vill du kaffe?" (Veux- tu du cafe?)

"Jag bor i NY" (J'habite à New York.)

"Jag är så glad!" (Je suis si heureuse.)

"Jag tycker om att simma" (J'aime nager)

À plus les amis!

-Juliana