Swedish Day 58: The Swedish Tree Has Been Conquered!

At long last! My Swedish tree on Duolingo is FINISHED. As I said in my previous post, completing the Duolingo tree is bitterly underwhelming. You just get a golden owl statute and a short Congratulations message.

Fortunately for me, this time I happened to be listening to a live performance of “Du måste finnas,” a powerful and beautiful ballad. As I finished the last Swedish lesson, the song swelled and reached its crescendo. Then, as the “Congratulations” message and golden owl appeared, the audience clapped and cheered. While I know that they were actually applauding the brilliant Helen Sjöholm, I could pretend that all the adulation was for me and my accomplishment. Pretending was easier than usual, because it was 2 A.M. and I was becoming a bit delirious from exhaustion (but I was so close and couldn’t go to bed until I was done). Duolingo really needs to include some recorded cheering at the end of its trees. I felt much more exhilierated after finishing this tree than finishing the French or Spanish trees.

I feel so much freer now in my Swedish language studies. The tyrannical reign of Duolingo Swedish is officially over. I even went back to Memrise! I am also digging deeper into my Swedish textbooks/workbooks. Since I have a lot of concepts and vocabulary bouncing around my head (thanks mainly to Duolingo), I would like to synthesize all that data and figure out where the gaps still are.

I am using Duolingo Swedish for some light reviewing, but I’m not committing myself to any kind of practice schedule. I may lose my 53 day streak (53 and not 58 because of some judicious use of streak freezes), but I’m okay with that. Due to vacations, and life, and forgetfulness, and time zone changes, and pure exhaustion, I always lose my Duolingo streak eventually. And 53 is less devastating than, say, 350 days or some such. Might as well lose it while I’m not too far ahead. I am proud of myself for this particular streak, though – this is my longest running streak. My last record was about 30 days.

Swedish Day 56: Not As Far As I Hoped

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I’ve been plugging away at Swedish. Mostly, I’ve become obsessed with completing the Swedish tree on Duolingo and that takes up all my Swedish time and mental energy. It is exhausting trying to finish all the lessons and do the review, but more about that later.