The 6 week challenge has been completed!  I ranked number 20.  Around week five I became pretty fatigued, but I stuck with it and inched on by.  It was fun.  It reintroduced the idea of studying every day for something that you want to achieve.  It also brought to light how much time I actually devote to English, as well as the plethora of Swedish opportunities I have around me.

One Swedish speaking opportunity that has all but been eliminated from my schedule is the baby café.  In order for me to go, my little one needs to be awake by 5:30 or 6:00 so she can squeeze her nap in before we go.  Then I have to be dressed and ready by 9:00, get her up, work in a diaper change and then try to fit her into some winter wear.  By this time, she is probably screaming her protest at being handled so brusquely.  That is an ideal situation.

What really happens is that pappa enjoys a quiet breakfast and then slips out of the house without waking anyone up.  We both oversleep, and by 9:00 she’s started to become fussy and hungry.  Trying to pack her down into her carriage for a 20 minute stroll is like trying not to drop an atomic bomb while ice skating.  It’s very delicate and ends up with a lot of tears.

Very recently I stumbled on the video logs of Christophe Clugston.  Something finally clicked in my ADD addled brain.  I think I was already open to see another point of view because following the examples of Benny Lewis and Moses McCormick just hasn’t done it for me.  I devote the time, make the goals and have the blog.  I have worked through the TeachYourself series for both my target languages.  I have read the Language Hacking Guide. I have even done Barry Farber’s Multiple Track Attack.  My memory must be coated with Teflon because I do not have “all-around confidence” to speak either French or Swedish.

In Clugston’s videos, he talks about several things.  The main theme is that good methods do exist, but they are not the enticingly quick and painless strategies that McCormick and Lewis advocate.  In a world before instant gratification, people did learn languages successfully, and they learned them well.  He points to the Foreign Language Service Institute programs as an example of things that worked and were not quick fixes.  Joy!  I have so many of them!

I purchased his German [Eastern Bloc] Volume Method, and I understand how much work it entails.  I am just tired of feeling like maybe I was dropped on my head a little too hard as a baby.  I know I cannot be incapable of learning a language.  How is that even possible?

The only real dilemma now is if I should continue with the French (which I really want), or ditch it for Swedish (which I really need).  Maybe I can do both, but I have read another recent blog that did not recommend it.   We’ll see what happens.