GH 1.2 - Procrastination Kills Success

Procrastination Kills Success

Since this is a blog, I'm going to be completely honest. I definitely forgot about the Genius Hour project until Wednesday of this week. I still got my goal completed from my action plan for the week, but I didn't achieve my goal from last week to practice every day. Truthfully, procrastination and forgetfulness are going to be my worst enemies for this project. 

Despite my failure of being lazy, I did learn some interesting things about Norwegian today. When you are saying "the" in front of a subject, you put "en" at the end of the word. I found that to be really cool and helpful. Some of the words/phrases sound weird and some words are super hard to pronounce. One word that threw me for a loop was "kjøtt" (meaning meat), which is pronounced "shet". That was pretty hard to figure out when I was just reading the word, before I heard it pronounced.

In spite of the confusion, learning Norwegian is a lot of fun. I really am enjoying myself and I can't wait till I am able to speak at least decently normal. In order for that to happen though, I'll need to avoid procrastination and push myself to actually make Norwegian a daily habit. ;)

GH 1.1 - Learning Norwegian for Dummies

Learning Norwegian for Dummies

Starting to learn a new language can be difficult. It takes time, patience, and unrelenting focus. Within the first week of learning Norwegian, I have already failed in all three of these categories. 

1.   I had made a goal to take 15 minutes each day to work on Duolingo. However, I ended up only using the time I was allotted during class for the Genius Hour. This is no beuno (I haven't learned that phrase in Norwegian yet) because learning a new language requires daily practice. As I get better at making my practices a part of my daily routine, I will begin to recognize the Norwegian phrases more readily and with greater ease. 

2.   Through the Duolingo program, it can sometimes be hard to have patience. I was hoping to at least learn the basics of Norwegian, as in regular conversational phrases, but that's not how Duolingo works. With the program, you start out with a few words in each category, which you build off of as you continue to learn. It can be frustrating to learn random words at the beginning before you get to learn "normal" words. I guess I will just need to gain more patience and just follow the program.

3. Well I obviously didn't have focus on my Norwegian aspirations. I got distracted easily while I was learning/practicing and slacked on memorizing the phrases that I learned. As I put more time into my practicing, I'll also set aside any distractions so I can put all my focus into my lessons.

Despite my many failures, I did succeed in one thing: I completed three categories! This had been my goal for the first week, but I wasn't quite sure I would accomplish it. I learned some weird words and enjoyed testing out the Norwegian accent. It's a fun language and I think I'll learn to love it. Hopefully next week there will be more success than failure to share!

Phrases I learned this week:

Jeg elsker eskrem.     Meaning: I love ice cream.

Jeg er en jenta.     Meaning: I am a girl.

Han spiser en fin smørbrød.     Meaning: He is eating a fine sandwich.