Transcription
Today is January 14th, and this weekend, the video where I explain how I learned Norwegian has gotten a million views on YouTube. Yes, it's crazy! When I made this video, I had no idea that so many people would be interested in the way I learned this language that nobody learns.
And many people ask me every day if I have some spots that are available to take classes with me, if I have some resources online that I'm selling. And I always say no, I'm always full booked. And up until now, I had nothing to sell. But this year, 2025, this is changing now.
For you to understand where this project comes from, let me take you through its creative process.
[Music]
Okay, I wanted to make a book. Perfect. Now I just had to write that book. I started thinking about what kind of book I wanted to make. I wanted to create a concept, a new way of learning. And in my head, it was really easy. But when I started developing it, it was a mess. I was asking myself, should I make a website? Should I make audio files? Should I write a book about me? Should I make characters? Should I explain grammar? No, I shouldn't. I don't like grammar. Yeah, but people who start learning Norwegian need grammar. Which levels should I make this book for? No, I don't like levels. I want it to feel like it's just a normal book, not like it's school. Yeah, but if I don't have levels, then people will not buy my book because they will have no idea if it's for them or not. And the more I was working on it, the more lost I was with all my thoughts and ideas, and honestly, I was going nowhere. Perfect.
So I decided to take a break. In the beginning of the summer, I went home to France, and I shared with you a bit of my holiday on Instagram on my stories, and you guys loved it. The second part of my holiday, I didn't share on social media. I was in Norway, living a slow life in the nature, and honestly, it was all I needed.
But while I was relaxing, my home country, France, was going through a lot. The Olympics and unexpected elections. I don't really read the news because it brings so much stress in my life. But that time, I really wanted to understand and to know what was happening. And I started buying the newspaper in Norway. It started with the daily news, but after a while, I got a passion for magazines. I thought it was so nice to be able to read articles that weren't too long. It was surrounded with pictures. I don't know, I just liked the vibes of magazines.
Now, you're probably wondering, okay, L, that's really good, but what does it have to do with your project? Well, everything. I want to make a fun project that helps you learn Norwegian. And you happen to love when I share a little bit of my life with pictures and small texts that describe what I do. And during the summer, I found out that I loved magazine vibes. So I thought, wait, why don't I make a little journal where I share a bit about my life, and I make exercises, activities, and everything you need to learn Norwegian?
And so I did. I made an ebook of my summer holiday in Norway to help you learn Norwegian. Some of you don't even live in Norway, and I thought it would be so nice to share everything that I was experiencing. One day, I just thought, why don't I just make a little journal where I share the pictures that I took? I write a bit about the days that I spent, and I make some exercises for you guys to be able to practice. And you guys loved it. I got a lot of really nice feedbacks, and a lot of you guys asked me if I was going to make more.
So there we go. I'm making more. This year, in 2025, I'm sharing one journal a month where I'm telling you about my life in Norway. I'm going to tell you a bit what I've been up to that last month, and based on this, I'm making exercises, memo cards, games, you have audio files, and everything you need to learn Norwegian.
So now that you know everything about how this project was born, I'm going to show you what it looks like so that you know exactly what to expect if you decide to get this membership and to get this journal every month.
If you want to get the journal, here is how it works. You click on the link in the description, and it's linked to my Patreon account. Patreon is a big and known platform that a lot of creators use to make memberships. So this journal is going to be a membership where you're going to receive the journal, the audio, and the flashcards every month.
The membership costs $6, it's €6.50, and it's 75 kroner. And on top of this, the platform takes a little bit more for taxes, but this is not money that I decided to take from you. You can stop your membership at any time, which means that if you want to take one month to try, then you can do that. If you like it, you keep going, and if you don't like it, you just stop, and you're just out of the program.
I say that I'm going to start this project in 2025, but I actually already started in 2024. I can't launch a project without knowing where I'm going or how I'm going to make these ebooks. So I decided to do the months of November and December 2024. I decided to start in November because in November, me and my boyfriend bought an apartment in Oslo, and I thought that it was a perfect occasion to make an ebook about moving. And in December, I celebrated Christmas in Norway, which I do every second year, and for the first time in my life, I celebrated Christmas at a cabin. So there was a lot of snow, and it was really, really Christmasy.
So if you get the membership right now, you already have two ebooks that are available, and every one of them is going to look exactly like this. I mean, like the construction is going to be the same. So I'm going to show you a bit what these ones look like.
Let's take the example of the December Journal. When you open the first page, you're going to have a table of content, and on there, you can see that the journal has three parts. Two big parts and one little one at the end. The first part is the journal in Norwegian and the exercises. The second part is all the translation and the correction of the exercises. And the third part is a really small part, it's only two pages where I'm telling you what I watched this month, what I've listened to, if I read any book, and you can just like get inspiration from this.
Now let me show you everything that's inside. On the page next to the table of content, you have a little sum up of the four days that I'm going to tell you about this month. On the next pages, you have the four days that I'm telling you about. On the page on the left, you have the journal. So it's me telling you what I did that day. You have the date, a title, some pictures, a vocabulary list to help you learn new words and maybe understand the text, and a text that's about 200 words. Then on the right page, you have exercises that are connected to this text. The first exercise is a true or a false. The second exercise is sentences to translate with the words from the vocabulary list. And the third exercise is a personal question for you to be able to speak about yourself.
The whole point with this journal is for you to be able to learn words, to be able to speak about yourself, and to develop your personality in Norwegian. Not just learn about Norway, but also about feelings, about what people do in everyday life. So I thought it would be really nice to ask you a question so that you get to speak about yourself as well.
You have the whole translation of every single text to English in the second part of the journal, and you also have all the translations of the exercises and their correction. On top of this, you have one audio file for each text.
What you're also going to get is another document with flashcards. You can print them on both sides, and if you cut them out, you have nice flashcards that you can use to practice the words that you learned. So you have one side in Norwegian and one side in English, and I organized them so that they match when you print double-sided. And the colors of the cards match the colors of the days, so you can also study the vocab words with these cards. On each of them, I wrote the word and a little sentence that you can try to translate so that you always learn a word in context and not just one word on its own. If you cannot print them double-sided, I have a student that gave me a really good idea. You can just print them on different papers, and then you can have a game of finding the ones that match.
The two last pages of the first part of the journal are crossword. I always pick some words from the vocabulary lists, so it's not just like any random words. It has to be from one of the vocabulary list from this month. You have about 20 words in these crosswords. Here, for example, you have 17. And what I chose to do is instead of writing the words in English and you have to find the translation in Norwegian, I wrote some definitions because I thought that we already have the translating exercise with the flashcards, so I wanted to do something different. And I think they can be really fun to try to read the definition and find the word in Norwegian.
And here, on one of the last pages, I wrote my playlist. I know that it's hard to find music, podcasts to listen to, or movies to watch, books to read. So I just thought I would make a list of everything that I've been consuming this month, and I just thought that you could do your own research and see if it's a resource that you would like to use.
Now, you might be wondering, okay, but how do I know if it's for me, for my level? Like, I don't know if I can read this, if it's the right resource for me. Don't worry, I thought about everything. I am not a fan of levels, like I said in the introduction. I think it's a shame that we try to measure everything all the time and that we have to classify everything, even when we learn something new. And I thought that instead of making different resources for each level, which I think is a bit stupid because maybe some people like it when it's more difficult, some people like it when it's easier. So I think the level you're at doesn't have to determine what you want to study. But yeah, I thought that we could all use the same resource, course, the same journal, but use different methods or do the exercises a bit different depending on how much time we have, where we're at, where our goals are, and how difficult we like things to be.
So I made a whole other video where I give you details on three study plans that I thought of. The study plan video came out at the exact same time as the one you're watching now, so you can just check it out if you want. In it, I go in details and I break down some methods and exercises that I think are perfect to work with this journal project. It's a project that is really free, so I thought I would give you a bit of structure and precise ideas so that it's easier for you to work on it and to find methods that fit you perfectly, so that you can build your own method.
And for it to be even more personal, I already started working on the January ebook. I'm going to write a bit about the first day back to work after the holidays. Then it has snowed a lot in Oslo in the beginning of January, so I went on beautiful walks that I'm going to show you. And a couple days ago, I went on a sauna with some friends, and it was really fun, so I'm going to write about that as well. The January ebook is coming out in the beginning of February, so I'm always posting in the beginning of the month after, because obviously I need January to be over to be able to post about January.
And one last thing, I'm also making a language coffee every month in Oslo based on this journal. So with the membership, you're also going to have access to a coffee every month where we're just going to gather, speak a bit about what you guys have been up to the last month, maybe we can speak about the journal, if you have any questions, you can share the answers that you wrote about the personal questions in the journal, and it can just be like a couple of hours where we're all together, we can speak, chill, and just, yeah, hang out. So if you live in Oslo and get the membership, then you're going to be able to come to a coffee every month, and this is really cool.
So yeah, I think that I told you everything about this project. I hope that it's interesting for you, that you're as excited as I am, and I can't wait to get your feedbacks. Don't hesitate to send me a mail or a message on Instagram. I would really, really love to hear what you think about it, if you got it, how you've been able to work with it. Um, yeah, I would really, really love to hear everything that you have to say about my project because I really want it to be as good as it can be. And if you have any ideas of improvement, then I'm really all of yours. Thank you so much for watching this video. I've been talking for so long. I really hope to see you on Patreon.