Better than last week!

Class was much better than last week, thankfully but we still have the same teacher. I really hope Irma comes back as I found her much easier to understand. Anyway, the work was hard, I had to do some exercises in grammar and then we took a test to see how our writing skills were. Not so great! We had to write to an airline telling them we had lost our baggage, this is how the slightly corrected version of mine goes -

Claire Williams

Mariesomewhere 2C, 90453, Umeå

072-851 4851

2010-03-17

Hej!

Jag heter Claire Williams och jag bor i Umeå. Jag har tappat mitt bagage. Jag var på en flight från Stockholm till Umeå. Mitt bagage är en liten väska. Den är grum och brun och har blommor på baksidan. De väger kanske tio kilo.

I min väska är det kläder på ett bröllop. En fin hatt och ett par jätte fina svarta skor. Det är också en jacka och byxor, som är rosa. Min tandborste, hårborste, smik och balasam ligger också i den.

Om du hittat väskan ring mig på 072-851 4851 är du snäll och jag ska hämta den.

Tack for hjälpen!

Med vanliga hälsingar

Claire Williams

(All numbers and addresses have been changed as you never know who is reading!!)

It pretty much says that I have lost my bag when flying from Stockholm to Umeå. It is a small case which is green and brown with flowers on the back. In it there are clothes for a wedding, a nice hat and gorgeous black shoes, a jacket and trousers both in pink (sounds lovely doesn't it!!!). It also says my toothbrush, hairbrush, make up and conditioner were in the case too! If they find the case they are asked politely to call me and I will go fetch it!

Clearly I had blocked out all memory of these things being so traumatic from my GCSE French texts. I sat for ages totally frozen not having a clue HOW to write never mind WHAT to write! It was pretty embarrassing having my text torn apart in front of the group too but I wanted to make sure it was marked before I left so I wasn't tempted to take it home and cheat! I hope it will get easier. I find sentence structure and word order really hard in Swedish. Seems to somehow matter less when I am bumbling my way through an oral sentence. Another thing I need to work on. The girl I sit next to in class is from Cuba and speaks only a tiny bit of English so our common language is Swedish. She has lived here for many years so her spoken Swedish is amazing but reading and writing is a bit of an issue. We kinda help each other out with points and nods - I think it is a bit frustrating for her when I don't know what she is saying but I am trying.

I really need to talk Swedish to more people that aren't S or the dog, even Cassie looks at me weirdly when I am bumbling my way through talking to her. Poor S! Oh well, maybe one day I will buy a LOT of beers and turn up at Maria and Lars' place and babble at them instead...then again pigs might just fly!

I think I might add more of the texts I have written up here, it is good for me to repeat the stuff I do and typing it up will surely help a bit!? Feel free to stop reading any time you like!

For now, I must get some work done, or at least some studying done.

Vi ses snart...kanske!