16. I wrote some Norwegian sentences

Michal Ryszard Wojcik (2002 January 15):

An American teacher of Norwegian sent me an email message in Norwegian. He wrote that he was a linguist and that he could answer my questions about the Norwegian language. I replied to him in Norwegian. I wrote my own Norwegian sentences to communicate with him. Below I quote what I wrote to him.

my Norwegian:

Jeg er takknemmelig.

Mine spoersmaal maa vaere i norsk fordi jeg kan bruke bare norsk for aa laere norsk. Jeg kan ikke bruke engelsk for aa snakke om det norske spraaket. Jeg kan bruke engelsk for aa snakke om laereprosessen min, men ikke om det norske spraaket selv.

Jeg har problemer med aa skrive i norsk. Jeg kan ikke stille spoersmaal om det norske spraaket. Men jeg er takknemmelig.

my translation:

I am thankful.

My questions must be in Norwegian because I can use only Norwegian for learning Norwegian. I cannot use English to talk about the Norwegian language. I can use English to talk about my learning process, but not about the Norwegian language itself.

I have problems with writing in Norwegian. I cannot ask questions about the Norwegian language. But I am thankful.

This is an important moment for Norsk Experiment because I wrote in Norwegian although it is one of the principles of my learning method that I refrain from producing my own sentences.

I often wonder when the moment will come for me to start writing in Norwegian. Let me call that moment the breakthrough point. According to the principles of my method, after the breakthrough point I will write in Norwegian fluently and my level of correctness will be similar to how I write in English.

Today I am not past the breakthrough point because I cannot write fluently. Perhaps I could write correctly but my ability to express myself would be very limited. This is how I feel after writing to the linguist.

Writing those sentences wasn't really hard. In fact, I found it rather easy. But the problem was that I had to write many versions before I arrived at the final sentences. Perhaps I rejected many good versions, but I simply wasn't sure enough if they were correct.

So I wrote some sentences but they are not the final correct sentences which I announce in my declaration. In fact, I spotted two mistakes. I used the wrong preposition twice.

The corrected sentences are:
Mine spoersmaal maa vaere paa norsk fordi jeg kan bruke bare norsk for aa laere norsk.
Jeg har problemer med aa skrive paa norsk.

If my goal was to be able to write fluently and correctly by the end of 2002, then I wouldn't write anything until then. I don't think that writing now can speed up the process. I think that it would be best to continue only reading and listening until the end of November 2002 and then practice writing for the whole of December 2002.