Today, there were eventually four of us in class. Two of them turned up late. The teacher started off teaching just me. One of the first things she said to me referred to the importance of being punctual. She then pointed to the whiteboard and a sentence from the textbook which said “What is it like in your country?” I replied that it’s the same. Shortly afterwards, the other two students turned up.
Then we learned how to tell the time.
Now, I’ve been telling the time for a while now. Not boasting, but I reckon I’ve mastered it. In English, anyway. The thing is, though, there are a couple of odd things in Swedish. The weirdest thing is where half past the hour is more like half to the next. The other odd thing relates to this in that 25 minutes past the hour is expressed as 5 minutes before half an hour before the next hour.
That makes it a lot more complicated than it is, however, it took a while for me to get my head around the concept. I found this frustrating to say the least. Possibly not as frustrating as one of the other students who’s been coming to class for years and still can’t tell the time. And I can vouch for that. I think a little less time on her phone and a little more on the class could help. Just saying…
Anyway, according to the teacher, she found the time difficult as well when she learned Swedish, given her native language expresses it the same as in English. She went on to say that she once had a Lithuanian student who said they told the time the same way as the Swedes.
Naturally, the other three students drifted off early until, for the last half hour, it was just me and the teacher. She was teaching me about sentence structure. I was once more frustrated because I didn’t have a lot of words to practice with. This was helped later, when I met Mirinda in Trosa, and she supplied me with a few test questions.
I was also helped by Nicoline, who I unexpectedly saw at the bus stop. Actually, I was at the bus stop and she was driving. She stopped and asked me the time…after I told her that’s what I’d been learning. “Tjugo över tolv,” I said, after she reminded me of the Swedish word for 20.
As the bus arrived, I bade her farewell – she was headed off in the opposite direction – and headed into town.
In the meanwhilst, at the house, construction resumed.
Adventures in decking – Day 6
After a two-day hiatus, during which Harald waited for the railings and extra wood to arrive, they were back this morning and hard at it all day. We decided to have lunch in town so, by the time we got back home, they had finished work. While I didn’t see them, I certainly saw what they’d been up to.
If only we had a table, we’d have eaten out there tonight. Mirinda took me through a few options and we’ll be ordering one soon.
