My life, my languages

Since this is one of my first blog posts here I thought an introduction was in order. I am a song writing/tune singing, amateur novelist and wannabe linguist. People ask me what I do for a living and to be honest it’s not easy for me to give an answer to that. Most of the time I answer that I’m a singer/songwriter, because that’s what I have always been and always will continue to do until the day someone decides to press mute (and then I will continue anyway).
To pay for my bills, on the other hand, I do various translating jobs and have just got involved with a small business to be their official photographer of online goods.

I was born in the north of Sweden in a little house in a big forest and has to days date moved 14 times, a fact that I blame on my traveling ancestors. My native tongue is Swedish and thanks to the Swedish educational system I started learning English at a young age and quickly became proficient in this. I was not terribly gifted in school so I was happy to discover that I was at least good at music and English. I also started studying German and Spanish but quit both classes for various reasons. Let me just say that a bad teacher can severely ruin the pleasures of learning.

After the normal run of school years I was tired of homework and exams and decided on a sabbatical year. I worked teaching little children to paint and sing and spent my days reading stories and playing, which was fun until it got to the end of the day and I had to go home to an empty apartment, without any friends, in a town I didn’t know. In hindsight the year passed quickly but I know it felt like an eternity. With my sabbatical year finished I couldn’t wait to get back to studying and I thirsted for singing something else than “Twinkle, twinkle” all day long. I applied to a Rock Musicians College and got accepted after auditions. Another year passed and I applied to study abroad, English speaking places only. I got accepted to two very good universities but chose the one in Scotland since they offered one-on-one instrument tutoring.

The following is complicated but please bare with me. I managed to understand the Scottish accent and got my diploma in Music Performance. I got myself a boring job as a switchboard operator for an international computer company, just so I could make enough money to get away from the constant rain I had endured during my years in Scotland. By a series of fortunate consequences I moved to France. I didn’t know a word of French before I arrived here less than two years ago and now I’m close to fluency level of understanding and speaking but in writing things are a little slower. But I am still learning and I enjoy it tremendously.

I’ve always found languages very interesting and my dad always told me that people will listen to you if you speak in their own language, both literally and metaphorically. I call myself trilingual plus extra and I try to constantly learn more in as many languages as possible. I’m not sure, but I suspect my love for languages is closely linked to my firm believes of the notion that music is a universal language that can speak straight to our hearts.

There you are, the factual me. If you want to learn more I guess you’ll have to stick around and read as I update.

Tack, thank you and merci for reading.