An aging dog goes back to skole

Let’s check in on everyone’s Norwegian skills.

Annalise is doing fine. What about Allison?

Allison is also doing fine, though she demonstrates it less often in song form. Norwegian is Allison’s fourth language, and she’s pretty good at memorizing things like vocabulary.

I am much less fine.

In high school, I was required to take a language, choosing among Spanish, French, German, and Latin. I chose Latin for unremembered reasons, probably because of my bad-boy approach to life. I liked it! There was a historical component that I enjoyed, and I stuck with the language through three years in high school, and two semesters in college. That’s a lot of Latin, and a lot of effort! What a waste!

Obviously, nobody speaks Latin, so we never practiced speaking or listening. There’s not even a lot of reason to write Latin, except as practice for reading. So, Latin is not something you practice to achieve fluency.

I am also really bad at memorizing things. For example, names. A secret of mine is that there are a very large number of people who I consider friends, and who I value, and who I talk with regularly, whose names I cannot consistently remember. I have gotten good at faking it. Allison helps me cover. One of them might be you!

What all this means that I’m ill equipped to learn my first additional language at the age of 41. But, it’s time to dig in and fill this hole in my education. We’re taking a Norwegian class this semester here at the university!

We decided to shoot for placing out of the level 1 course. We’ve worked pretty hard on the DIY apps like Duolingo and Pimsleur and didn’t think we needed to start from the beginning. To prove it though, we had to pass a placement exam. This would be our first test in 20 years! Our performance objectively should not have been a stressful thing. We do not need this class, and we do not need this language, and we do not need anybody’s approval out here, yet, I was a mess (Allison was a little stressed, but quickly figured out she was fine). I worked very hard over a few weeks to study, and make the little bit of Norwegian I knew line up with the little bit of Norwegian they teach in Norwegian 1. This involved learning two new verb tenses and a lot a lot a lot of flash cards and memorization, which always threw me into a fury. I do not like memorizing things that do not follow rules. Present tense of “walk” is går. Past tense is gikk. Past perfect is har gått. Why? Because screw you, that’s why.

The exam would have a listening component, a written component, and an essay. Going into the exam, I had gotten a high score of a 76 on a practice written exam. We did not know what a pass was. There was no practice listening exam.

Everything but the essay went pretty bad! I have taken, and graded, enough tests to know my score would be low. The only question was where the cutoff was for passing. Fortunately, it turns out it was pretty low. I’m in Norwegian 2! When I’m done, I should be a B1 or B2 speaker. Allison is also in Norwegian 2, but that was less of a surprise as she had actually answered questions correctly on the exam.

So, after undergoing the chaos of a “first-come-first-served” schedule selection process, on Monday I will restart being a college student, after 14 years of being a college professor. I do not expect to do very well, and in fact expect to continue to be the third-best Norwegian speaker in my own household, but hopefully well enough to start to get by.