27. Russian and German thanks to Norsk Experiment

Michal Ryszard Wojcik (2004 July 07):

Thanks to Norsk Experiment I have refreshed and deepened my knowledge of the Russian language. A girl from Russia contacted me about learning Norwegian. She knew Erlend Loe - she had read his books in Russian. Our exchange of emails developed so that she sent me two books by Erlend Loe in Russian translation: Tatt av kvinnen and Fakta om Finland. I read these books last summer.

It was my return to Russian after neglecting it for many years. I had never read a Russian book before except for chess books. I have read a lot of chess books in Russian since primary school. With my Norsk-Experiment experience I had no doubts that I could read a book in Russian. Reading in Russian gave me a similar feeling of discovering the language through input like in the days of Norsk Experiment when I was reading the thick book "L" by Erlend Loe.

This summer I started reading Tatt av kvinnen in German translation. Erlend Loe is my favorite author and I keep looking out for his books in any language I can get.

Inspired by my success with reading in Norwegian, I had already read three or four books in German and two books in Russian since the start of Norsk Experiment. Norsk Experiment has become something bigger. It is my way of learning a number of foreign languages through reading books.