#SpeakingIn20Hardcore

[nordic-language-love]

Still hesitating a lot, still making a lot of mistakes, still talking painfully slowly, still a bit disjointed and nonsensical, but it’s all part of the process. It’s only week 1, after all. I’m kinda cringing uploading this, but I wanted to be honest with myself and everyone else about where I’m at instead of just rerecording until I had a “perfect” take (although I’ll probably do a couple more attempts seeing as I still have 6-7 mins of practice to get in).

Transcript below. Corrections, criticism and suggestions welcome/greatly appreciated! (Srsly I can handle criticism and I really wanna improve so go wild)

Norsk:

Hei alle sammen. I dag er lørdag den syttende august, klokka er fem på tolv, og i dag skal jeg snakke om klær, så jeg skal snakke litt om hva jeg liker å ha på meg. Så som du kanskje vet, jeg er litt av en... “goth”. Jeg vet ikke om det er et ord på norsk, men ja, jeg liker å ha på meg svarte klær. Jeg liker å ha på meg korsett og gulvlengde (idk if that’s actually a word lmao) skjørt eller kjoler. Jeg liker sateng og knipling og fløyel og silke - jeg liker veldig dyre klær. Derfor er jeg fattig. Jeg liker høyhælte støvler.

Men jeg har sånne klær på meg... jeg har ikke sånne klær på meg hver dag, fordi de er litt ukomfortabel, så på en vanlig dag har jeg på meg t-skjorter, korte skjørt eller shorts... jeg liker ikke å ha på meg bukser elle olabukser fordi jeg synes de er litt ukomfortabel, så, jeg foretrekker å ha beina mine ut... (thought process: did I say ut or ute? Which one’s even correct? P sure it’s ute in this context? Fml) ...ute. Jeg foretrekker å ha beina mine ute. Ja, så, nesten alle klærne mine er svarte, jeg eier noen (searching for word ‘klesplagg’ but nope brain’s decided that’s not in there rn) klær som er grå eller rød. Men de alle fleste er svart. (Should be røde and svarte, I know!)

Så jeg tror det er alle jeg ville si, så jeg skal slutte å snakke. Ha det godt!

English:

Hi everyone. Today is Saturday the 17th of August, it’s five to twelve, and today I will talk about clothes, so I’ll talk a bit about what I like to wear. So, as you might know, I am a bit of a... “goth”. I don’t know if that’s a word in Norwegian, but yeah, I like to wear black clothes. I like wearing corsets and floor-length skirts or dresses. I like satin and lace and velvet and silk - I like very expensive clothes. Therefore I am poor. I like high-heeled boots.

But I don’t wear clothes like that every day, because they’re a bit uncomfortable, so on a normal day I wear t-shirts, short skirts or shorts... I don’t like wearing trousers or jeans because I think they’re a bit uncomfortable, so, I prefer to have my legs out. Yeah. So. Nearly all my clothes are black. I own some clothes that are grey or red. But the vast majority are black.

I think that’s all I wanted to say, so I’m gonna stop talking now. Bye!

[nordic-language-love]

Today’s #SpeakingIn20 adventures: trying to practise differentiating between ‘i’ and ‘y’ by repeatedly saying “blyge bier bygger byer. Byene blir bygget av blyge bier” and feeling ridiculous but also enjoying the notion of shy lil bees building cities

[nordic-language-love]

Fuuuuuck me this was painful, to the point it’s actually kinda funny. I have weird, super niche hobbies, which makes talking about them in other languages really difficult, because they’re not the sort of shit that pops up on vocab lists or even in the dictionary. Eventually I just gave up and talked about the hobbies I have that are actually normal.

I made a lot of mistakes, but you can tell I’m trying. Still gotta practice saying ‘vet’. And fml ‘merkelig’ as well jfc I didn’t expect to struggle with that one that much. Why is that so difficult to say?? And I got some genders wrong and put the stress in the wrong place a lot. But my god I am trying.

As always, feedback and criticism super welcome/appreciated! Like I said last time I really wanna improve so go ahead and shred me, I can handle it lol.

Hei alle sammen! I dag er onsdag den tjueførste august, og dagens spørsmål er: hva liker du å gjøre på fritiden? Dette er en ganske vanskelig emne (realised after listening back that emne is in fact neuter fml) til meg, fordi jeg har mange merkelige... merkelige... (fml I give up) hobbyer. Jeg liker å poledans (should that be poledanse? Jeg liker poledans?) og jeg liker mange andre ting som er litt rar.

Jeg er luftartist, og jeg vet ikke hvordan å snakke om det. Jeg vet ikke om det er et ord til hva jeg akkurat gjøre. Uhh... så, jeg gjøre... det heter “lyra” eller “aerial hoop” på engelsk, men jeg vet ikke om det er et ord på norsk til det. Det er en slags metallsirkel som henges fra himmelen med ved en et tau, og jeg utfører på sirkelen.

Du skjønner hvorfor jeg finner denne emnen (*dette emnet) vanskelig å snakke om.

Jeg også... også jeg... jeg liker å sette visse ting i brann og danser med dem??? Ja, jeg vet ikke hvordan å si dette på norsk. Kanskje jeg burde bare snakke om ting jeg kjenner litt mer (feel like that should be bedre rather than mer). Kanskje... å, jeg liker å skrive. Jeg skriver fantasybøker. Av og til skriver jeg også dikt og sanger, men jeg er ikke veldig flink til å gjøre det. Jeg liker å spille dataspill, jeg liker Final Fantasy. Jeg liker musikk også- musikk? Jeg liker å danse til musikk, jeg liker å spille piano, jeg har også en saksofon, ei fløyte, men jeg er ikke veldig flink til å spille dem. Ja, jeg har mange hobbyer. Å, og jeg liker å lære meg språk, selvfølgelig. Og jeg antar (I know the stress is wrong there blehhh) at jeg liker å prate norsk til meg selv foran laptopen min.

Okay, jeg skal slutte å snakke nå. Ha det godt!

*

Hi everyone! Today is Wednesday the 21st of August, and today’s question is: what do you like to do in your free time? This is quite a difficult topic for me, because I have many strange hobbies. I like to pole dance and I like many other things that are a bit strange

I am an aerialist, and I don’t know how to talk about it. I don’t know if there is a word for what exactly I do. I do... it’s called “lyra” or “aerial hoop” in English, but I don’t know if there’s a word in Norwegian for it. There’s a kind of metal hoop that’s hung from the ceiling by a rope, and I perform on the hoop.

You understand why I find this topic difficult to talk about.

I also like to set things on fire and dance with them. Yeah, I don’t know how to say this in Norwegian. Maybe I should just talk about things I’m more familiar with. Maybe... oh! I like to write. I write fantasy books. Sometimes I write poems and songs too, but I’m not very good at that. I like to play computer games, I like Final Fantasy. I like music too. I like dancing to music, I like playing piano, I also have a saxophone (lies, I have two lol), a flute... but I’m not very good at playing them. Yeah, I have lots of hobbies. Oh, and I like learning languages, of course. And I suppose that I like to speak Norwegian to myself in front of my laptop.

Okay, I’m gonna stop talking now. Bye!

[nordic-language-love]

Today I tried to talk about school for #SpeakingIn20 and honestly? It was painful lmao. I ended up looking up a lot of words and my accent got steadily worse throughout and I don’t even know what the fuck I was talking about, I literally just rambled about how shit my school was for 10 minutes straight.

Defo not uploading it (tumblr wouldn’t let me anyway bc it’s over 10MB), but it’s good motivation for me to work harder. I really want to be able to listen to it in a few months time and be able to hear my progress!

[nordic-language-love]

#SpeakingIn20 Adventures 31/08

Tried to talk about my city, got distracted and completely lost the thread, whoops

Tried again, struggled to say “i midten av England”

Practised saying “i midten av England”

Tried yet again, got distracted by a big ass spider on the wall (I’ve named him Nils and we’re buds)

Thought I was saying “dag” but it still sounds like ‘dæg’ ugh

Practised saying “i dag”

Talked a bit about animals given yesterday was Not Good

Really gotta work on that ‘y’ sound in dyr (and in like any other word)

I think I’m just gonna accept I say ikkje instead of ikke? I mean I use both but it’s like 75% ikkje and 25% ikke and ikkje feels more natural sooo maybe I should just use ikkje. I don’t think it makes me any more impossible to understand? But then it might sound a bit weird idk (feel free to advise pls)

I pronounce ‘vet’ a lot better now (I think) without thinking about it so that’s awesome

Total practice time: 26m7s

[nordic-language-love]

#SpeakingIn20 Adventures

04/09

Tried to talk about clothes. Google translated crop top and hotpants, got definitely the wrong translations, died.

Babbled a bit about generic stuff

Total practice time: 15m21s

05/09

Talked about healthy habits, attempted to talk about health problems and the NHS, it went badly

Is saft the Norwegian word for juice? I feel like I pulled that out of GCSE German lol

Tried talking about healthy habits again, did way worse

Need to practice saying ‘to’ because it sounds like ‘tå’ fml “DRIKK TÅ LITER VANN” wtf no

I’m so fucking awkward wtf why

I really need to figure out when to use burde and when to use bør and how to pronounce either/both of them correctly

Practised saying bør/burde

Practised saying to/tå

Total practice time: 22m55s

[nordic-language-love]

Today’s #SpeakingIn20 Adventures:

I worked on my pronunciation a bit, particularly focusing on getting that ‘r’ at the end of my present tense verbs rather than just letting it drop off. I still hate that rolled R but it doesn’t make me want to actually die all the time anymore so that’s progress I guess?

If I’m not concentrating as much I mostly say “ikkje” instead of “ikke” and idk how big of a deal that is but I feel like I should maybe work on that

Worked on just saying the alphabet a bit

Worked on pronunciation of ‘svarte’ but I’m still not sure I’m saying it right lmao (srsly the more I say it the less confident I am), and also ‘vet’

Talked about food for a bit - no audio today because I don’t feel like I had anything interesting to say and I just repeated myself a lot trying to get my pronunciation right (6:44 mins total)

Felt like I spoke a bit more fluidly and didn’t hesitate quite as much, but then I was basically just listing foods I like to eat so it wasn’t a difficult topic lol

[nordic-language-love]

#SpeakingIn20 Adventures

06/09

Tried to talk about gymnastics, could not say ‘turn’

Practised saying ‘turn’ instead

Tried to talk about gymnastics again. Failed pretty badly.

Opened wikipedia to use as a reference. Things went slightly better. Very slightly.

Total practice time: 17m 25s

07/09

Talked about various snacks and how I have the worst eating habits of any human known to mankind despite having a master’s degree in nutrition

Did speaking exercise for Min Vei (I need to redo it though so I can actually submit it)

Total practice time: 15m 10s

08/09

Got home later after being out all day, basically forgot

Forced myself to talk about my day and then about housework. It didn’t actually go too badly - still messing up infinitive vs present tense, should probably work on that

^^Worked a bit on that (still fucked it up but paid more attention to it)

Practised words with y sounds

Total practice time: 19m 45s

[nordic-language-love]

Today’s #SpeakingIn20 adventures:

Talked about my daily routine

Talked about what I did yesterday

Realised I pronounce “står” and “sto” almost exactly the same

Practised saying “står” and “sto” until they started to sound weird

Realised I’m still mispronouncing ‘vet’

Practised saying ‘vet’ until it started to sound weird

Talked about what I did today, forgot all words related to food, said “fuck” a few times

Realised I said “femten over åtte” instead of “kvart over åtte”, wanted to die

Other than that felt like I spoke a little bit more fluently and my pronunciation was a bit better

Total practice time: 22m58s

[nordic-language-love]

#SpeakingIn20 Adventures 28/08

Tried to talk about my neighbourhood, was largely unsuccessful

Practised pronouncing her vs har

Are her and hær homophones? Because I’m p sure I pronounce her as hær and idk if I’m doing it wrong

Babbled about random shit, started mixing dialects again waaaah (I need to practise rolling my Rs so I stop doing this!)

Babbled about more random shit, managed to not mix dialects. Got yelled at by a cat the entire time.

Really need to figure out how to use verbs å lære, å undervise i and other similar verbs because I’m honestly not sure what’s going on there

Still keep mispronouncing ‘har’ as ‘her’ but I’m aware of it now at least

Total practice time: 16m 50s

[nordic-language-love]

#SpeakingIn20 Adventures 24/08

Talked about work (including the admin job, teaching pole and performing)

Talked about some new words and phrases I learned recently

Practised pronouncing words ‘luke’ and ‘veke’

Noticed I say ‘har’ almost exactly the same as ‘her’ - practised pronouncing them (man this needs work wtf)

I genuinely feel a bit more confident with speaking now. Like, I know I make a LOT of mistakes, and sometimes idk what I’m trying to say so I just abandon sentences lol BUT I also spend less time searching for words and I don’t hate myself the entire time I’m talking so that’s good (pronunciation and accent are still shit but whatever, I’m working on it)

Total practise time: 20m30s

[nordic-language-love]

So, here’s a quick bit of speaking. It’s yesterday’s topic that I did today (because my prattling about climate and weather ended up being over 10 minutes long both times and I got super distracted all the time). It’s still not perfect obviously, and I’m still mixing up the present and the infinitive (trust me I know when I’ve used the wrong one when I listen to myself back - I’m working on it!) and I think my accent has got worse. But if you have any feedback then I’d love to hear it! (I can handle criticism and I really wanna improve so just go nuts lol)

[nordic-language-love]

Uploading this because I’m actually kinda happy with how it went. There are defo mistakes (I meant *bøker om finsk/norsk, not bøker på finsk/norsk for one thing) and my pronunciation’s not great and I probably just straight-up made up some words at some points, buuuut I didn’t prepare for this at all, and I’m hoping it’s still kinda comprehensible. I definitely feel like my fluency’s improved if nothing else!

I won’t write a transcript because I’ve gotta get ready to go to the boyfriend’s parents but as always, please do go ahead and be critical if you can be bothered, let me know where I messed up, if there’s words I’m mispronouncing, what sounds I’m struggling with, what sounds strange etc. I really value constructive feedback!

[nordic-language-love]

SpeakingIn20 Adventures 02/09

Tried to talk about books, couldn’t figure out how to talk about purple prose, settled for “tHeRe ArE tOo MaNy WoRdS” fml

My accent is still so cringy ugh why

Talked to myself in the car on the way home from work, didn’t record it though soooo idk how long for (probably like 5 minutes)

Total practice time: probably around 10 mins

[nordic-language-love]

#SpeakingIn20 Adventures 23/08

Sat in my car before going to the gym and babbled for 8 minutes about not wanting to go to the gym, tried to figure out how to pronounce ‘croissant’ in Norwegian, realised idk if that’s even a word in Norwegian, then babbled about my family. Felt kinda good, not amazing but much more fluent than the last time I tried to talk about my family

Talked about my bedroom

Tried to talk about the first house I lived in, realised I don’t know furniture vocab and can’t pronounce ‘bygd’ (not even the word I wanted but I didn’t know the word for hamlet so I just went for the closest word I did know) (the word for hamlet is en/ei grend btw)

Also did some random babbling about myself but I didn’t record it so idk how long I spoke for

Total practice time: 21m1s (recorded, + however much I didn’t record)

[nordic-language-love]

#SpeakingIn20 Adventures 20/08

I make a lot of really dumb basic mistakes like mixing up present tense and the infinitive while speaking which is hecka embarrassing (p sure it’s because they sound basically the same so I just forget which one to use but still), also sin/sitt/sine vs hans/hennes and position of adverbials (I know when I’ve said the wrong thing and correct myself but omg I need to not do that in the first place)

I say “sååå…” all the time as a filler word and I’m not entirely sure Norwegians use it that way? (I also mispronounce it and say it as ‘soooo’ which is even worse lmao fml)

Talked about today’s weather

Talked about climate in England

Got interrupted by a cat telling me off for not paying her enough attention

Still don’t always pronounce the ‘r’ at the end of words

Definitely better at pronouncing står/sto and vet (but only if I concentrate)

Total recorded speaking practice: 16m 26s