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| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6896 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes  5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 97 of 140 09 February 2013 at 4:23pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you for the recommendation, when I have just a little bit more time I'll give it a try. Any other ideas will be appreciated :).
By the way, would you like to try an English-Polish Skype language exchange with me sometime? I'm out of practice with my English, and I'm pretty good at helping foreign learners of Polish.:) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Mareike Senior Member Germany Joined 6217 days ago 267 posts - 323 votes Speaks: German* Studies: English, Swedish | Message 98 of 140 09 February 2013 at 4:38pm | IP Logged |
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I don't like romance stories, but I really enjoy Diana Gaboldan's Outlander series.
I read it German, so I can't say anything about their English. A friend of mine recommanded that I should read Watching the English by Kate Fox. I dropped it, because it was to difficult to read without the dictionary for me. I moved to Agatha Christie afterwards. In German I like Besuch der alten Dame. I know it's a typical novel you read in school. I read it at school, but it was the only book that left a mark (out of school novels). So I think it's worth mentioning. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6896 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 99 of 140 28 February 2013 at 4:50pm | IP Logged |
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@Mareike, thank you for your recommendations! I had a look at "Watching the English" and it seems indeed very interesting - I'm definitely going to read it as soon as I have some more time.
I read some excerpts from "Der Besuch der alten Dame" at the university and I loved the movie (unfortunately I can't remember which of the numerous film adaptations it was); I should wait much longer to read the whole book :). My February log update is coming soon... For now, I've got some news that may be interesting especially for my Viking teammates... I'm learning Icelandic To be more specific: at the university, I'm obliged to take a 2-semester course in Old Icelandic. It has started just this week, it's 60 hours (1 h = 45 mins) in total. The course is quite 'philological' and reminds me a bit of how Latin is taught (for example, we were given a list of words and translated - or decoded - a simple text from TL into Polish). We use Old Icelandic: An Introductory Course. Part of the course will be devoted not to the language itself but to the culture and the early history of Iceland and Scandinavia. On the other hand, we'll also get an introduction to the Modern Icelandic pronunciation. Personally, I think the course is too soon - most of students have been learning Swedish (or Danish) for less than half a year, just like me. After e.g. 2 years of Swedish we would probably progress much faster and get more out of the lessons. Well, I still want to enjoy the course in my happy language-geeky way :) and learn a bit of Old Icelandic / Old Norse. I'm actually more interested in Modern Icelandic, I was even thinking about learning it a couple of years ago (for some reason, I always felt some kind of fascination/attraction to Iceland, partly because of a movie I watched as a little girl), but decided to postpone it to "maybe sometime in the future", considering how hard the language is supposed to be and the limited practical use of it. As Old Icelandic and Modern Icelandic are not all that different, I'm going to learn a bit of the modern variety on my own. So far, I've done the first few pages of "Teach Yourself Icelandic". I'm not taking this very seriously, I just want to have some fun and linguistic pleasure that getting a wider comparative perspective should bring. Have you ever tried learning Icelandic? Or maybe you're thinking about it...? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4514 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 100 of 140 28 February 2013 at 5:33pm | IP Logged |
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For Old Icelandic, you might find this book helpful. It's a handy small grammar book that is especially useful for use while translating (not so much for learning). For example, there are tables that tell you how the infinitive of a verb will probably look like if it has this or that vowel surrounded by this or that consonant in the past tense or perfect participle (it helps you guessing what verb you should look for in the dictionary).
I hope learning Old Icelandic will be as enjoyable for you as it was for me. Reading sagas is very entertaining (especially the fornaldarsögur) Edited by daegga on 28 February 2013 at 7:04pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4837 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 101 of 140 28 February 2013 at 6:59pm | IP Logged |
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Congratulations on learning Icelandic! I can imagine it might be a bit overwhelming in the beginning, especially if it's taught grammar-heavily, but it really is a wonderful language. I took quite the opposite approach from yours, as I started with Modern Icelandic, learned the grammar more or less on the go, and then turned to Old Norse.
When your Old Norse/Icelandic reaches a point where you can actually read texts without having to think about inflections too much, this book is the best you can get for easy and yet entertaining readings. It's a selection from the Edda, the sagas, and other sources and there is an excellent glossary in the back of the book, which makes reading quite easy and enjoyable. The best book for learning Modern Icelandic (in my opinion) is this one. Good luck with learning Icelandic! If you have any questions, feel free to contact me via PM any time. Gangi þér vel! EDIT: You might also find this, this, and this interesting. Edited by Josquin on 28 February 2013 at 7:13pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6896 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 102 of 140 01 March 2013 at 1:06am | IP Logged |
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Daegga and Josquin, thank you for your tips! I will first check whether any of these books are available in my university library but some investments are possible, especially as I may be able to avoid some of international shipping costs.
How well did you know other Scandinavian language(s) when you started with Old Norse/Modern Icelandic? (I'm assuming it wasn't your first Scandinavian TL.) Josquin, if it was up to me to decide, I would probably start with Modern Icelandic as well and then turn to Old Norse. As I don't want to focus on Old Icelandic exclusively, I think I'll mix it with learning some Modern Icelandic on my own. I even have my own copy of "Colloquial Icelandic" - it looked a bit intimidating at the first sight but after your recommendation I won't let it scare me so easily ;). I also found icelandiconline.is - it looks pretty interesting and is free of charge. The materials from vsnrweb-publications seem really good, especially the reader - I don't think I'll be patient enough to get through a lot of it but these glossary notes are like every linguist's dream :). Well, now I just have to figure out how to find time for everything and combine learning Icelandic with all my other language activities, work etc. Edited by Julie on 01 March 2013 at 1:07am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4514 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 103 of 140 01 March 2013 at 1:29am | IP Logged |
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I had one year of Norwegian behind me and started with Modern Icelandic at the same time as with Old Norse. Norwegian wasn't very helpful though (Nynorsk would have helped a lot more than Bokmål), but learning Modern Icelandic at the same time reinforced things (and this way I had 6h/week of Icelandic instruction instead of 2). It's not like knowing a Scandinavian languages doesn't help you with Icelandic, but I think you have to be pretty good in that language to reap the benefits.
German is very helpful actually, so you are up for a good start ;) Edited by daegga on 01 March 2013 at 1:34am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4837 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 104 of 140 01 March 2013 at 11:52am | IP Logged |
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I already knew Swedish (one year of self-studying and one year at university), when I started with Icelandic. It didn't help much with the grammar, but with some of the vocabulary. In terms of grammar, German was much more useful, so I second what daegga said.
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