Speaking in Tongues

We just spent two months in Sweden this year, which gave me some time to practice speaking the language.  Or so I thought.  Armed with one unit of Swedish Part One under my belt, courtesy of Rosetta Stone and my thoughtful father, I set out to conquer the new language.

The thing I didn't count on is this:  Almost everyone in Sweden speaks English.  Quite well, in many cases.  My good friend in Södermalm speaks so well, you can't even detect where her very slight accent might be from. 

And every time someone caught a whiff (what is a whiff in the ear, anyway???) of my American accent, they would immediately unleash their (far superior) English on me.  Even our 7-year-old found it easier to converse with me in English.  Leaving me to practice my Swedish on our 4-year-old.

Because of this, my grown-up (vuxen) Swedish is not so great.  I can say things like "I am a purple butterfly princess," "I need to go potty NOW," or "Fish can't drive cars," while I have difficulty asking someone where the escalator is or understanding what I am told if I ask the price of those blackberries.

I have in fact found that it is quite fun to make these random comments to grown-up Swedes, upon first meeting.  But then I'm sort of lost, leading them rightly to conclude that Americans are pretty much daft.  Oh, if only they knew about Christine O'Donnell (most of them do).

And even the 4-year-old got frustrated with me.  Right in the middle of playing something like Littlest Pet Shop (I have a remarkable command of animal names and colors!), she would decide to inform me of something much more profound and interesting.  WHOOSH!  Right over my head!

My standard reply, in Swedish of course, was at first "I don't speak Swedish so well,".  But she got wise to me quickly, and would point out that I just said THAT in Swedish.  So I learned to say "I don't know," a very dangerous thing to learn since you can use it, just like "I don't speak Swedish so well,", for just about any situation where you are in over your head.  While playing Littlest Pet Shop.  With a 4-year-old.

I have found that I can play a mean game of I Spy in Swedish.  We would all walk around "spying" things that were blue, red, orange, yellow, white (did I mention my excellent command of the colors in Swedish?), black, brown, purple, gold and even turquoise.  But I quickly learned that I can only point out the things for which I already know the Swedish name, and the kids whomped up on my in I spy.

Oddly enough, we had a lovely argument that nearly came to blows, over whether turquoise was in fact blue or green.  I mostly observed and blocked punches.  Mostly.  Then in my broken Swedish, I tried to explain that people have had that same argument through the years, and you just have to agree to disagree.

I learned a lot about ducks, water, and swimming in Vaxholm harbor, the day our 7-year-old got tired of just feeding the ducks.  She jumped in to swim with them (accidentally she claims).  After this incident, one would think I was also very familiar with the words for "heart attack" and "duck poop".  But strangely, the only one of those two I can say…  Well, it ISN'T heart attack.

Another odd consequence of trying to learn to speak Swedish was that my latent German from age 2, seemed to pop up at the most annoying times.  I would remember to ask if the 4-year-old could have some apple juice, just not in the appropriate language.

And even better, my "default" language when I switch out of English is Spanish.  So if I got really excited and wanted to say something really fast and witty, it came out in Español instead of Svenska.  In the words of a former student, "NOT helpful!".

Needless to say, we are back in the US and my ability to practice speaking is pretty much limited to talking with my husband.  Who, like a true and educated Swede, tends to respond in English.

And after a full year, I am quite unprepared to take on Rosetta Stone Swedish Level Two…  In part because my lila fjäril prinsessa was quite fond of wearing my headphones as a part of one costume or another.  To her, they seem to look a lot like ladybug antennae.

This language is going to be much harder than I first thought!