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Easiest Scandinavian language? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6899 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 17 of 74 18 October 2013 at 10:49am | IP Logged | ||
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According to the thread, it was Överkalix.
Still, Swedish has dialects, but some people stress the Norwegian dialect issue as if it's something unique...
This makes no sense. As long as the natives use somewhat transparent vocabulary (or even pure Norwegian vocab that every Swede knows anyway), I have no problem at all understanding them. I'm used to hearing people speak with different accents in my native Swedish, in English and the list goes on... 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4612 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 18 of 74 18 October 2013 at 1:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would imagine that the mutual intelligibility of the Scandanavian languages is aided by close economic links,
ease of travel between the regions and the ability to receive cross-border radio and TV broadcasts. Do Scandanavians read in each others languages? If a Norwegian businessman was in Oslo, would he buy a copy of the local paper or pick up a book in Norwegian to read on the journey home? Now, in Greenland, Danish is apparently spoken as the main foreign language and it plays an important administrative and business role. Given Greenland's more isolated location, I wonder how they would cope with Norwegian and Swedish? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5324 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 19 of 74 18 October 2013 at 2:11pm | IP Logged | ||
Norwegians watch Swedish TV, goes shopping in Sweden (lots of "cheap" booze :-) listen to Swedish radio, read Swedish and Danish books and newspapers and sing Swedish songs. I suspect that the Swedes and the Danes do that to a lesser extent with Norwegian - but some of the Swdees and Danes here might be able to shed more light on that issue? I cannot comment on Groenland, but on Iceland it seemed that those who had learned Danish had no problems with Norwegian. In fact Danish, with Icelandic pronunciation, was for all practical purposes Norwegian. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4658 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 20 of 74 18 October 2013 at 3:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I saw Swedish people writing comments like '"What language is this''
on Herborg Kråkevik's songs on youtube ;) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlGQeFcO0q0 Edited by Medulin on 18 October 2013 at 3:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4612 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 21 of 74 18 October 2013 at 3:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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I know that Finnish isn't a Scandanavian or even Germanic language but is the country of Finland regarded
as Scandanavian in a geographical sense? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5324 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 22 of 74 18 October 2013 at 4:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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No. They are however a vital part of the Nordic community, and in Nordic cooperation they count just as much
as everyone else. They are just not Scandinavian. We had a Nordic freight project some years ago called Scan+. I asked my Finnish colleague what the "+ " stood for, and he smiled brightly and said "Finland"! 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5218 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 23 of 74 18 October 2013 at 8:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Recently I decided to drive a North Germanic language. I settled on Swedish because as the most widely spoken it would likely have more and better resources (and more use once learned). As to grammatical simplicity, I can't comment. I imagine the three big Scandinavian languages are a similar distance from English (which isn't far).
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4999 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 24 of 74 18 October 2013 at 9:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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As I was choosing between the three some time ago, I'd like to add a note about available resources. It is always a major factor for me directly influencing how hard it is to actually learn the language, so I hope the following info will be of some use.
-there are the most learner aimed resources for Swedish, closely followed by Norwegian. The rest, including Danish, falls behind a lot. But still it is a much narrower selection than when you learn a huge language. -there is a lot of literature in all of them, even though the Danish are less known worldwide due to being less translated and marketed. -there appears to be the most tv series and movies in Swedish at first sight but there are things in all three. And quite often, they are made in cooperation of film makers from more than one coutry. When it comes to music, too high % of the bands from all the nordic countries uses English. However, there are exceptions and they are worth exploring. I've even heard an interview with a quite known Czech folk musician who said the scandinavian folk is one of the few genres he listens to and really likes. -intensive in country immersion courses are quite non existent, unless you can get on a university there. It is the same for all three, even though I digged mostly Swedish and Norwegian. -travel opportunities to practice-Norway and Sweden are known to be very expensive countries. Danemark not that much (info from a cousin who spent there for half a year) -there are very few eshops with scandinavian books, dvds etc. most are situated in the countries and tend to have high delivery fees. Again, I found more for Swedish than Norwegian. -Swedish does have the best public relations and the largest network of centres across the world where you can take Swedex. There is a similar exam for Norwegian but much less accessible in terms of getting to the exam centre. No idea about Danish. The bottom line: Swedish does have the easiest accessible resources. It is probably due to better marketing and perhaps the self-fullfilling prophecy about Swedish being the largest and therefore most popular and the easiest accessible. Edited by Cavesa on 18 October 2013 at 9:37pm 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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