I have learned so much about Serbian lifestyle, society, culture, politics and culture. But its strange how little Serbian I have managed to learn.

These are my conclusions and observations:

• The cyrillic alphabet is not very hard to crack. The problem is getting up to speed while reading it.
• I just love the phonetic spelling system which reminds me of Norwegian. Very logical, and most often very elegantly implemented. I love solving these little riddles that are everywhere: Чиз кејк – čiz kejk – cheese cake!
• The pronunciation is—at least initially—the toughest part. When you for example can’t hear the difference between ć and č, how should you then be able to pronounce it? Normally, I am a person that keeps experimenting with other languages without feeling embarrassed, but for once in my life, I feel inhibited.
• The shelves in my memory are designed to remember germanic and latin words and expressions. Slavic stuff just seem to fall of the shelves.

But I am sure that as long my Serbian friends keep motivating me to storm the strong citadell on the hill, I will attack—again and again!

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!
(Shakespeare: Henry V)