Less is More

I read a really good comment on another Swedish blog today. Concerning the government sponsored SFI language course. And the speed of the course. I've also read a lot of people mouthing of about how they "knocked the course off in 3 months". And I wonder how they are faring today. Maybe I'm just a bit slow when it comes to learning languages, this being my first attempt and all. But think about it for a moment: Can you REALLY learn and understand a foreign language in 3 months ? I started off with a hiss and a roar. Ripping through my assignment books and asking to sit a new exam every week. Ticking off each of the 21 levels in my course with a sense of triumph. Then it dawned on me. This isn't about getting an SFI certificate. That wasn't going to help me at all. Finishing the course meant bugger all. I wasn't going to suddenly have implanted in me a Swedish language translation chip on graduation day. The point of the exercise was for me to learn Swedish. Sufficiently well so that I could survive out there in the big cruel world. So my strategy changed. I finished the first 8 of my 21 assignment books in the first 3 months. The final 13 took me a year. And I'm bloody happy about that. A year and a bit of dedicated language study has given me so much more confidence and a much clearer understanding. I'm no Swedish language expert, I figure that's going to take a few years more yet. But what I've learnt, I've retained. And I understand it. And surely that has to be the point. I could have sat every test in 3 months also. Cramming the night before. But how much of it would I really have understood ? How much of it would I have retained after 3 months, with the intensive information overload regime. Sod all, is how much. It's not some state requirement, you don't have to go to school. So why shoot yourself in the foot by trying to get rid of it as quickly as possible ? There are no shortcuts to learning a language. Not in my experience. I needed to pull it apart, start from the ground up. Understanding fully all the whys and hows of language is vital if you intend to be more than a repeating chimp. SFI gets a bad rap around the place. But I'll wager that the negativity comes from people who saw it as a necessary evil to be tick off as quickly as possible, the "3 month" club. Rather than viewing it as a vital tool to building a new life. If you do the bare minimum required to pass a test, it won't be enough. And you'll say that SFI is rubbish. The level of education in an SFI course is limited by your own participation. We had brilliant indepth group discussions that went way beyond the scope of the course. There's no law against that. No teacher jumped in and says "stop talking like that, your Swedish is becoming too good". They loved it. You can only get to that level of confidence if you take the time. Rush it, and you're wasting your time. It's that simple. My advice: So long as you are progressing, make the most of the system and stay as long as you can. It's your life, after all. And there ain't no prizes for finishing first.