15 messages over 2 pages: 1 2
Guido Super Polyglot Senior Member ArgentinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6519 days ago 286 posts - 582 votes Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, German, Italian, Portuguese, Norwegian, Catalan, Dutch, Swedish, Danish Studies: Russian, Indonesian, Romanian, Polish, Icelandic
| Message 9 of 15 12 December 2013 at 7:06am | IP Logged |
Happyphantom wrote:
Would you suggest finding another course? Or just toughing it out and attempting to read books/watch films in Norwegian? |
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Happyphantom, try this TV series. Most of them are subtitled (either in Bokmål or Nynorsk)
Here are some other resources:
NRK TV
Bokmål > Engelsk ordbok (also to Polish simultaneously)
Nynorsk > Engelsk ordbok
Bokmål / Nynorsk ordbok
Norske dialekter
Klartale (News with podcasts)
Hope it helps!
Enjoy,
Guido.
3 persons have voted this message useful
| Happyphantom Newbie United Kingdom Joined 3994 days ago 4 posts - 5 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Thai, Russian
| Message 10 of 15 13 December 2013 at 12:19am | IP Logged |
Thanks for all the suggestions (and saving me nearly £400!)
2 persons have voted this message useful
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6588 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish
| Message 11 of 15 13 December 2013 at 3:38am | IP Logged |
I'm so glad you don't seem to be their employee! Sorry if you've encountered any hostility, we get them here sometimes, praising their super mega amazing program but not having anything meaningful to say/show. But it's perfectly understandable that with their reputation you considered buying their product.
3 persons have voted this message useful
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4698 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish
| Message 12 of 15 13 December 2013 at 9:31am | IP Logged |
Happyphantom wrote:
I've recently taken up Norwegian to be my first foreign language
(after
playing with a few others before), however I'm nearly at the end of my Teach
Yourself course.
So my question is this; would it be worth learning Swedish to improve my
Norwegian?
I understand this isn't obviously logical but my primary problem with
Norwegian is the lack of opportunity for me to speak it!
So my solution is to buy the Rosetta Stone Swedish course. I have used the
software before and found it great for pronunciation practice. I don't know
what sort of reviews the software gets though and whether it'd be worthwhile.
I had intended to study Swedish in the future regardless, but I wouldn't want
to confuse myself with the two languages.
So does this seem like a viable route to success?
Any advice or alternatives will be gratefully received! |
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Swedish is not Norwegian at all. Yes, the languages are similar, but you're dealing
with lots of idiomatic things, false friends, and so on which you will have to keep
apart - which you can do better when you're really good at one of them already. I've
got a good enough level in Swedish where I could think about studying Danish or one of
the forms of Norwegian, but right now it's not on the cards. If you need Norwegian,
stick to Norwegian and learn Swedish when you won't basically speak Anglo-Svorsk
anyway. I'm assuming you're going for a more Bokmal-oriented approach?
I think that lack of practice (and I mean active practice) is probably the biggest
problem people have when learning a language and they are not in situ. This is easily
remedied BUT you have to know how to do it. If practice with people is what you're
after (and there are loads of ways to do this), then you need to realise the following
things:
1. You will mess up and you will sound like an idiot the first 30 times. That is okay,
because that is something everyone does. The first time I spoke Swedish it was NOT
PRETTY either (or Korean, Chinese, Russian, Twi, French, etc). Accept this like you
accept that your partners occasionally have moles on their face. It's not a blemish,
it's just there.
2. Finding conversational partners is NOT ABOUT finding someone to practice with. If
you want that, pay a tutor. They get money out of it. Finding a partner is about making
a friend whom you only speak to in that language (you can approach it as an exchange,
but since I absolutely loathe those because they never work out for me, you should ask
someone else about exchanges). Finding a partner is about finding a way to make friends
that speak Norwegian. So when you address someone, don't do it JUST BECAUSE they speak
Norwegian - do it because you have a common interest like parasailing or language
learning or fly fishing. Long-lasting friendships are based on this sort of thing, not
on the language you were born to speak. Someone who speaks Norwegian but is a total
diva is someone you want to avoid (unless you like total divas).
An addendum 2b is: though: you're studying Norwegian. This means that you, god oh god
forbid, have to... START. IN. NORWEGIAN. Address them as if you are Norwegian, check
your spelling, make sure you proof-read everything. Don't worry if you miss a few
mistakes - you'll figure it out soon enough whether the message got across if the guy
responds "what are you saying" or "I didn't know what you meant" - if he responds
properly, then, well mission accomplished.
Another reason why you have to START in Norwegian is because the language you start in
is the language that speaker associates with you. Not all people are polyglots who can
do the switching on a dime thing to 7 language while they're sleeping or preparing
carrot oatmeal cake. You want to practice Norwegian, make the sacrifice.
3. Because you want practice, there are certain ways to go about this. Here's your
options
1: Face-to-face
2: Communication via internet (in real-time using video/audio)
3. textchat
4. letter writing.
These are your main options.
1. is the hardest one to do, but here's what you do - check your social networks for
meetup places of speakers (whether foreign or native) of that language. Even if you get
to speak with some foreigners, chances are they can point you in the right direction
for practice. Someone among them will be a clever clogs who knows all about where the
Norwegians hide. The other option is to message people through the social networks
directly and meet up with them for coffee. I guarantee you, you can find some
Norwegians this way! (I found Russians this way). For this, Couchsurfing is a good
option!
2, 3, 4 use the same methodology, but here you can have a wider range of people to
message, namely also people that don't live within 10 miles of where you live. And here
you can take advantage of all the places where you can find people on the internet
without you needing to go there. Italki, Interpals, Facebook groups, SharedTalk,
LiveMocha, Verbling, whatever. You can find everyone using these sites.
If that country has particular social networking sites popular among its own population
(maybe not in Norway, but if you study Russian or Chinese it's an option), get a
VKontakte or Weibo account and go that route.
4. The best way to convince someone not to switch to English isn't to impress them with
your knowledge of their super-subjunctive tense, knowledge of the 30 cases or complex
etymological and morphological processes. These things are useful for you to know
because they tell you how you can build up a language. Not for impressing your
partners, because grammar is largely something you do subconsciously. The Number One
indicator by which people judge you is pronunciation, so please, for the love of Pete,
make it a NUMBER 1 PRIORITY.
Yes, rolled r's, guttural g's, tonal melody, strange sh sounds, etc. are hard. But you
can't speak the language if you don't know how it sounds and most of all you will not
understand the other person. Pronunciation is everything in speech. Focus on it because
it will make things 40 times easier. ESPECIALLY if you're studying Norwegian, because
these are the guys who speak better English than you do Norwegian, and if your
Norwegian is terrible they will be tempted to switch to English to facilitate
conversation (they want to make life easy for both parties, that's how Norwegians do
it). If they do switch to English, ask them politely to speak Norwegian - they usually
oblige. But the first way to do it is to fake the accent and show you can do some
Norwegian of your own. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it does have to be good - and
if you are an English speaker that means the letter r is the thing you should go fix
right now.
Edited by tarvos on 13 December 2013 at 9:33am
8 persons have voted this message useful
| Happyphantom Newbie United Kingdom Joined 3994 days ago 4 posts - 5 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Thai, Russian
| Message 13 of 15 13 December 2013 at 5:06pm | IP Logged |
@Serpent: haha no, I don't work for them. If I did I doubt I'd worry about
spending that sort of money, I imagine they earn considerably more than I do!
And thank you Tarvos, that's a very comprehensive list! You are right to
assume I'm focusing on bokmål. I'm also beginning to understand why I'm not
progressing as quickly as I had in Thai and Russian (I used VK.com almost
daily and spoke Thai with a customer at work).
I think my own self-consciousness is holding me back too, public speaking when
you know you will make massive mistakes makes the task even more daunting!
I've already made improvements in the short time I've been here. I had never
heard of anki, any of the TV streaming sites, or even Grant and Cutler! I'm
even contemplating joining the Scandinavian TAC! So thanks everyone, I wasn't
expecting this level of support.
No excuses now *gulp*
1 person has voted this message useful
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6588 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish
| Message 14 of 15 13 December 2013 at 6:20pm | IP Logged |
Yes, join TAC!
There's also a team for people aiming for fluency in their first foreign language, Team STARt. (*or the first one after English - it's a special case)
There's also Team Russian.
1 person has voted this message useful
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4698 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish
| Message 15 of 15 13 December 2013 at 10:34pm | IP Logged |
Happyphantom wrote:
@Serpent: haha no, I don't work for them. If I did I doubt I'd
worry about
spending that sort of money, I imagine they earn considerably more than I do!
And thank you Tarvos, that's a very comprehensive list! You are right to
assume I'm focusing on bokmål. I'm also beginning to understand why I'm not
progressing as quickly as I had in Thai and Russian (I used VK.com almost
daily and spoke Thai with a customer at work).
I think my own self-consciousness is holding me back too, public speaking when
you know you will make massive mistakes makes the task even more daunting!
I've already made improvements in the short time I've been here. I had never
heard of anki, any of the TV streaming sites, or even Grant and Cutler! I'm
even contemplating joining the Scandinavian TAC! So thanks everyone, I wasn't
expecting this level of support.
No excuses now *gulp* |
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It's like asking a person out, except you don't have the heartbreak when they say no.
Low investment, high reward.
3 persons have voted this message useful
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