FAQ

- What’s the best way to study?
Spend sixty minutes studying every day, but broken up into twenty-minute
segments. Morning, mid day and evening. Many of our customers use their
mobile phone’s calendar function to provide them with reminders. At the
very least, do twenty minutes every day. It’s more important that you study
often than that you study for long periods of time. What is MOST IMPORTANT
is that you record
yourself saying each sentence at least five times – preferably ten times.
You need to listen to the way you sound when you speak Swedish.  Repeatedly
trying to sound more and more like a native speaker, through comparing
'how you sound' with 'how they sound' and making adjustments when necessary
is the only way to improve your pronunciation.  Listening again, and again
to native speakers speaking their language at its normal rhythm and speed
is the only way to become capable of understanding them at high speed.
There are no shortcuts here.  As a bonus, you also remember words better 
when you say them over and over, and hear yourself saying them. So this
is good for vocabulary-building as well.

XXX only Swedish??

- Is there any way to get my work graded?

Not at the present time.   We do not provide any grades or accreditation. 

The focus of this course is to train you in how to evaluate yourself.
You get immediate feedback when you listen to the recordings of your
attempts to say the sentences in the course. Do you sound like the native
speakers that are recorded in the course? If so, you are making progress.
If not, keep practicing saying that sentence until you do sound like them.
Similarly, if you understand a new sentence immediately then you are making
great progress. When you get to the point where you no longer have to
think about what to write in the blank spaces, but 'just know' what belongs
there, then you are obviously progressing.

But be patient with yourself.  This takes time.  Speaking is a physical
activity, and like all physical activities, it improves with practice.
Sometimes progress comes slowly.  Sometime you learn things in leaps 
and bounds.  We try very hard to produce a course that will have you
speaking a second language as quickly as you can, but there is a real
physical limit in how quickly you can absorb new things, put down new
neural connections, and learn to recognise and pronounce new sounds.

- How long is the course?
There is a one-year time limit on the use of the program,

XXX where did this one year time limit come from??  I think this is
a very bad idea -- laura

 but it is
designed to give you fluency within three months if you use it for one hour
a day, in 3 twenty minute periods, at least five days per week. Depending on 
how much time you spend practicing each sentence your actual time may vary. 

- Is it possible to go back and repeat exercises as I choose or am I stuck
with a particular order.

You can use whatever exercise you want, and move back and forth as much as
you like.

- Is the course material specifically chosen to prepare me for a
standardized Swedish test?

No. 

- Can I get a certificate after completing the course?
No. No mobile course can provide any legal certificate. Only SFI-schools in
Sweden have the legal right to do so.

If you need certification, please consult one of these pages:
•    Folkuniversitetet
•    Studyinsweden.se
•    Stockholms Universitet

- All of this has got me very interested in the science of how we learn
languages.  Got any books you recommend?

Reading in the Brain, Stanislas Dehaene --  amazon link
The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker --- amazon link
add more here and descriptions of what they do