A wrong call and the next 10 minutes

"Hej, det är Lisa..."

I'm sure that is not the proper way to answer my phone in Swedish, but that is my American-English-translated-into-Swedish greeting and it has become automatic—proper or not.

"Umm, hallå. Det är ________ och jag har jobba i Tumba....<<undecipherable Swedish mumbling>>... (long awkward PAUSE)"

My mind is racing and all of these thoughts ping through my brain like the small white ball in a pinball machine. Ding ding ding.

He must be waiting for my response. Oh shit, I didn't catch his name or who he works with. Where is Tumba? Isn't that south of Stockholm? Why is someone from Tumba calling me? This has nothing to do with the kids because I would recognize their doctor's name. No...this may be someone calling for our house? I don't know. Someone always seems to be calling about our house, asking for money. Does this guy want money?! We don't have any. Should I hang up now? The pinball machine ball stops pinging around for a second.

"Förlåt, jag kan prata lite svenska, kan vi prata med engelska nu?" This should nip it in the bud. He'll switch to English once he learns I can't speak any Swedish...

...he continues in rapid-fire Swedish

"<<more Swedish words I don't recognize>> kompaniet....bolaget...(long pause)"

Is it my turn to speak again? Jeez! I have no idea what this guy is talking about. I'm registered as a sole-trader so maybe he has a business question? I don't know how bolaget has anything to do with this conversation. Gah, I wish I understood more Swedish. Normally they switch over into English by now but this guy won't quit.

"Förlåt, jag förstår inte." I'm sorry, I don't understand.

"Uhhh, hejdå..." Umm, goodbye.

The call ends and the hang-up is weird. I wasn't sure what had happened. Did he really need to talk to me and just gave up because I couldn't understand his Swedish? Ahh, screw it. This chick can't figure it out. Let's give the post-card lottery to another lucky winner. Or was it a misdial? I needed to figure this out. I CAN do this. I will!

With a flash of renewed enthusiasm and perhaps too much desire to right this wrong, I open up Google Translate and type in all of the words I think I heard during our very weird interaction. I reverse Google his phone number—yes, he has a business of two people in Tumba, doing what I'm not sure. The business name is generic and uninformative. No clues there. Moving on.

I type the equivalent of, "So sorry, my Swedish is horrible. You called me before and now I am prepared to answer your questions." into Google Translate. With my fingers poised over the empty Google Translate box, they are ready to translate our conversation as it happens. My fingers will attempt to transcribe the conversation so that I can keep up with it real-time. I am NOT an idiot. Technology will save the day!

As I press redial, I'm already smug. I was caught off-guard before but now I'm set. I have a tool at my fingertips and I practiced my little apologetic phrase twice. I even improved on the inflections provided by the Google Translate robotic voice. Easy peasy.

"Hej, jag är Lisa Ferland. Du ringde mig? Jag förståd inte innan men hur kan jag hjalpa dig nu?"

"Oy, nej. Det är okej. Jag ringde fel."  --- Oh no. It's okay. I called the wrong phone number.

And that, my friends, is how someone wastes 10 minutes trying to decipher all of the communication during a simple "Oops! Wrong number!" phone conversation.

Raising the stakes to learn Swedish

The Background
After living in Sweden for 2.5 years, we've attended classes, had a private tutor and bought Rosetta Stone and yet we still haven't greatly improved in our understanding of the Swedish language. It is not so much of an inability to learn as it is a lack of proper motivation. My job is entirely in English and I work from home, so I'm somewhat isolated. Jon works entirely in English and has some coworkers who are willing to have fika time in Swedish, but it isn't helping nearly enough. Jon's parental leave is beginning at the end of this week and we both decided that it was time to set aside dedicated language time each day. This is Jon's greatest opportunity to learn the language and if we don't commit, we will only continue to slowly struggle.

The Issue
One of the biggest motivating factors is Calvin. He is truly bilingual and can consciously switch between Swedish and English if we ask him. I wouldn't say we can count on him as our main translator as he has led us astray in the past - he's a practical jokester already - and also because he is 3 years old. We are responsible for our own integration. Our neighbors have told us that he speaks perfect Swedish when we aren't around but when we are present, his Swedish declines and he speaks in English. We don't want to be in a position where we are negatively affecting his social skills with his peers. We want him to be able to play and invite friends over to our house. It is a major issue if we can't communicate with his friends. We don't want to be the limiting factor here. That's not fair to Calvin.

Raising the stakes
So, to really buckle down, Jon set a bet. We will be using the free online program, Memrise, and their handy iPhone app, to set daily competitions. The program awards points depending on how accurately and quickly you respond to reading and writing comprehension of a vocabulary set. Whoever has the least number of points awarded during their 30 min study session will have to do the laundry that day. We can practice in addition to those 30 minutes but only that session will be scored and will determine the winner and loser. Believe me, our house has a lot of laundry so this is truly a motivating factor.

So when you see us using a lot more Swedish on Facebook and in emails and texts, it is because I really don't want to do the laundry anymore and Jon is trying his best to beat me. BRING IT ON!

Learning Swedish - continued

Considering we have lived here nearly a year, we have been average-poor students in the Swedish language.  We have found that Swedes are very eager to speak English because they speak it so well and enjoy practicing.  The temptation to revert to your native language is so strong, that we haven't really been "forced" to even try.  The only real places where we have hit a brick wall with communications is at the playground with kids under school age.  Many times I'll be at the playground with Calvin and children will come up to me and blather in Swedish about a long story.  I'm left just nodding and agreeing with whatever they are saying with an "okej" and "jaha."

Not knowing the language is isolating and disorienting.  The tendency to just tune out our surroundings is in direct conflict with our desire to experience this new country and all it has to offer. Learning the language has become a high priority since it is clear that we aren't simply going to "absorb" it on our own.

Last night we started in earnest with

Language Lessons -- How do you say...?

I started taking Swedish language lessons at Medborgarskolan which is remarkably accessibly by T-bana and makes it easy for me to attend 2 days a week.  I have taken foreign language classes in the past and really enjoyed them so I was looking forward to my Swedish classes.  Really the only thing standing in the way of me socializing with the Swedes is the language, right?  So, after a few 2.5 hour classes I should be near fluent.  I've also been practicing on babbel.com which is a great free/cheap resource for learning languages.  I almost felt like I should have an unfair advantage to my other classmates.  I'm a whiz at languages AND I've been practicing on a free website.  This should be easy!

So, let's start with the Swedish alphabet/alfabetet.  It looks similar to the English alphabet but is pronounced in completely different ways.  This just throws me for a loop.  Also, there are 3 extra vowels -- Å, Ä, and Ö.  So, there are 29 letters in this alphabet.  YouTube has tons of videos on pronunciations if you're really interested.

OK, so once I mastered the alphabet and pronunciation, the rest should be learning vocabulary and figure out the sentence structures.  The Medborgarskolan's approach to teaching language is immersion.  The entire class is in SWEDISH.  That's all fine and good but I have no idea if the teacher is talking about predicates, nouns, vowels, verbs, etc.  That's the stuff I really need to know!  Without those important building blocks, how can I possibly know the rules of the language and grammar?  Alas, the entire course is like this and I've heard that other language courses in Stockholm are similar.  It actually makes sense because the students in each class are so international that sometimes the only language we have in common is Swedish -- which none of us really know.  The teacher stands at the front of the room gesticulating wildly to get us to understand "and" and "but" which is very difficult to do without words.

There are two brothers/cousins (I don't know) in my class from Iraq who are constantly talking with each other.  I don't know how one of them lives on his own because his brother/cousin is constantly feeding him the answer in Swedish.  We had a "closed test" and it was constant murmurs in the back with the two of them talking to one another.  STOP CHEATING!  My A-type personality doesn't handle these types of blatant infractions very well.

As it turns out, I am probably at the most disadvantaged in the class despite my babble.com experience.  Since Swedish is a Germanic language, anyone who speaks a Germanic language has the upper hand at the pronunciation and vowel stresses.  The German girl in my class who speaks zero Swedish sounds near fluent already -- purely because of her pronunciation skills.  I feel like the slow kid always raising her hand asking, "so...what is trött?" 


However, a lot of good things have come from this language course.  1) I am already able to read storefront signs and listen to the Swedish news without feeling quite so overwhelmed, 2) I get to experience adult interaction after spending 18 hours with a 9 month old and 3) I'm feeling like I'm accomplishing something important every class.  With each practice, homework and closed test I know I'm one smidgen closer to learning the language.  It is definitely a struggle and I imagine I will need to keep practicing but every little bit helps.

Maybe this book would help me make more friends...