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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4697 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 9 of 12 17 November 2014 at 5:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks. I believe you can use a boat from Tanzania too. Unfortunately, the travel stories I have read don't really seem to think that this boat is very high quality, but as you're a backpacker you may like roughing it. I have some particulars to mention on the Scandinavian languages (for foreigners), given my experience this summer and being a fluent speaker of Swedish:
1. Be prepared for the fact that these countries leave holes in your budget, especially Norway. The prices here are not for the faint of heart; strong labour unions and good working conditions ensure that salaries and wages are taken care of. Norway is especially expensive and you would do good to really budget here. I slept on the floor of my friend's tent for the three days I was in Norway and I'm glad I did. 2. There is mutual intelligibility between these languages, however, that only really works if you're pretty good at one of them already. I do not know how much time you have at your disposal or what your background in the Germanic languages is (I see you do not speak German yet?), but trust me, even for someone that has a pretty good bit of experience with the North Germanic languages (in my case, I speak Swedish), it's not as easy to navigate as you might think. I am helped by the fact that I have a very strong background in the Germanics because I speak Dutch, English and reasonable German (and I'd also seen some Icelandic before). I managed to navigate Sweden effortlessly, Norway without much issue and Denmark was... complex to say the least, and I'm considered a fluent speaker. You need to get good at one of the three, and whichever one you pick, you'll always stumble upon some issue. If it's Norway you pick - fine, which Norwegian? Should you pick Danish or Swedish, you'll do ok with Norwegian, especially if you picked Swedish because the pronunciation is so similar, but Danish/Swedish isn't that mutually intelligible in oral mode. You only get this bonus once you're pretty good. I'm very good at Swedish and I can deal with most Norwegian if it's not too dialectical (although I miss things), but Danish... not so much. Not to mention these countries are easy enough to navigate on English alone, of course, although I never had to. Edited by tarvos on 17 November 2014 at 5:41pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5046 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 10 of 12 17 November 2014 at 10:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Russian is an Indo-European language, so it doesn't suit you very well probably.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4037 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 11 of 12 18 November 2014 at 12:30am | IP Logged | |||||
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Icelandic.
Don't need to explain about Iceland, plus should be mutually intelligible to Faroese and it has cognates with English and the other Scandinavian languages. It is not non-IE, but it is a very ancient language so it's certainly not a boring one. The Icelandic people usually know English, but the average level is not very high from what I saw. During my travel in Iceland I encountered a fair number of Icelandic tourists (in addition to more or less half France, but this is another story). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Nieng Zhonghan Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Antarctica Joined 3661 days ago 108 posts - 315 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Japanese*, Spanish, Galician Studies: Finnish, Icelandic, Armenian, Mongolian Studies: Old English, Russian, English, German, Korean, Mandarin | Message 12 of 12 19 November 2014 at 1:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@Tarvos: As you said, I don’t expect to achieve a reasonable level in one of the
Scandinavian languages that easily, especially considering my previous lack of experience in Germanic languages. There is a recent thread written by Ari on this topic in which you have already commented on: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=39623&PN=1 Even though I may not choose any Scandinavian language for now, I still appreciate reading such threads. I haven’t visited the Nordic countries yet, but talking with many Europeans, especially Norwegian people, they have already told me that Norway is one of the most expensive countries. Indeed those countries (Norway, Sweden, and Finland among others) are quite easy to navigate on English alone. I only had to use my poor French skills in France, especially in Paris where people… well, better not to comment about the Parisian people because there are French people on this forum who might get offended…but other than that, people in the countryside were much nicer... @Марк: Well, actually Russian sounds really nice to me. I stopped learning it at A2 level because I broke up with my ex who was bilingual. She was a native speaker of both Russian and Estonian. I know it sounds silly. I know. In case anyone is interested in what I have used, I have basically followed up 90% of this log written by chokofingrz. I have tried so many materials, but I lost my motivation. Anyway, I take both Russian and Estonian as an experiment. I had lots of fun. http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=37865&PN=2 I also quit my Estonian studies which I believe I have achieved a solid active A2 level. At least, she taught me so many common expressions not taught in textbooks or in common courses offered in Tallinn or Tartu. I made few different Estonian decks in Anki, regarding many expressions used in daily life, but I have deleted them. I won’t say that I will never study Russian or Estonian again, but not for now. @Tristano: I think Icelandic sounds nice. My acquaintances have been learning Icelandic so far. I think they are in B1 level right now. . . . Yesterday I found out that there are already a recent discussion about Indonesian and Malay: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=19943&PN=1 http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=38418&PN=1 Right now I already have 2 languages (Mandarin and Korean). I dropped out both Russian and Estonian at same time, so, it seems reasonable to add just one as an experiment of 3 to 6 months. I have also stopped doing a research of Tenetehára, Ainu, and many other languages, so I have much more time than before. I don’t even care I am losing my basic fluency of some of them as I don’t need to make use of them anymore. I am not in a rush to decide which language I will add, too. I am aware that learning a language is a matter of lifestyle choice. There are those who are into playing sports at high level, even though they are not professional players; some others commit in a plan to be on a specific diet either to help them gain muscles (gym) or reduce their weight; some others simply enjoy learning languages as most of us. So, I am aware that only a regular commitment in a daily basis will give me a chance to achieve some of my goals at long-term. Adding a new language might slower the progress in both Chinese and Korean, but at least I have already found some resources that I have fun with. Despite the fact of German is an Indo-European language, it is the one I found more legal and free resources available on the internet. I may choose it because of my interest in coming back to Germany and visiting Austria as well. Anyway, guys, thank you very much. Edited by Nieng Zhonghan on 19 November 2014 at 1:03pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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