On Language

(boy do I miss the New York Times...just not the same online!)

But I just wanted to stop in here and say first of all, yesterday was national kanelbulle day, and I had the best one of my life.  So, in case you were worried.  It was SALTY, people.  From a little bakery here in Uppsala.  The butter they used was so salty and the perfect match for the cardemom and sugar, and I made coffee in my little coffee-maker-thing from Brooklyn, warmed up the bun, and sat outside in the beautiful but terribly cold fall weather here.  Bliss!

But also, I keep forgetting to recount for you a silly thing that happened to me with Swedish/English a few days ago.  My brain is SO tired of being like halfway to proficiency.  I still have to work hard to be a part of conversations, and I know that I still miss many words along the way.  Erik and I have had some pretty annoying mix-ups because I pretend I understand (or I honestly, truly THINK I understand).  Or like just now: "jag var mite ler intresserad"...I meant to say, "jag var lite mer intresserad" (I was a little more interested)...I'm developing some sort of short-circuiting.

But we were discussing something the other day, is fashion art or did you read the article on Swedish fashion I sent you? (it's one track over here).  And I wanted to say something along the lines of, "you could say that...[whatever brilliant thing I had in mind]"...but I somehow translated that into a more Swedish thing to say, "Man kan säga", and then....said it in English? I said, "Man can say", which sounds like the beginning of some important statement on human development.  And they are relatively close in pronunciation.  But we don't even use "one" so often as third person, which is closer to "man"...and...just how weird!

Is this interesting to anyone but me?  I think it is.  Plus I get to brag about how I had a whole conversation with the woman at the bank today and only missed a few words and they were not the important ones (like, "account" and "deposit"), so there!  Very exciting.  Is it more exciting that I understood her or that she understood me?  Reading helps, watching TV (with subtitles still) helps.  Watching French or German films with Swedish subtitles can be done, excruciatingly.

Are you impressed yet?  It's such a beautiful language, and I'm secretly really glad that I am into a relatively obscure language.

P.s. did I mention that it was 9° this morning? (about 48°).  Cold!  But so beautifully sunny.....I think I'm the only one excited for fall and the cold....because I'm probably the only one around here who hasn't lived here through the whole winter yet! Yikes.  But...the leaves are falling and we can make soup every day and we're wearing (Erik-)knitted socks!  Plus then I don't feel so badly about just reading books all day....