5. Finished reading the first Norwegian book in my life
Michal Ryszard Wojcik (2001 August 09):Today I finished reading a normal Norwegian book for Norwegian natives - the novel Naiv. Super. by Erlend Loe. The first one in my life. I found the book very interesting. It is one of my favorite books now. It was worth learning Norwegian if only to read this book.
I am so glad that I have read this book that I think it was worth my time to learn Norwegian for two months even if I was to stop learning now and forget everything.
The book is about a young man about my age. The man is looking for meaning and trying to arrange his life. Many of the man's problems are similar to mine. I am philosophically inspired by this book.
This book was not my first contact with Norwegian. Before I started reading it, I spent about one month reading the Norwegian catalog which I wrote about in my first report.
I was reading the first two chapters very slowly. I read some of the paragraphs two or three times. I read the first chapter twice before going on to the second. I read the second chapter twice before going on to the third.
While I was reading the first two chapters, I was also reading the beginner-book from the previous report. It taught me grammar and basic words. It was very useful for understanding the novel Naiv. Super.
When I finished the beginner-book, I started reading the novel much faster. I no longer needed to repeat chapters. I read the third chapter only once and all the next chapters only once.
It is true but misleading to say that within the first two months of learning Norwegian I managed to read a Norwegian book. It is misleading because it does not take into account the time I spent in my life on learning English and German. I learned English and German for more than eleven years. You can count these eleven years as learning Norwegian. You can treat all my life as preparation for learning Norwegian.