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You are not a real polyglot if... | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6919 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 153 of 299 24 October 2013 at 5:11pm | IP Logged | ||
Yeah, I've heard people use the umbrella term "Scandinavian" for this one language (...continuum). A friend of mine even saw it in a(n American) book about linguistics. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Maralol Nonaglot Newbie France Joined 5028 days ago 35 posts - 75 votes Speaks: Spanish, French*, English, German, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, Catalan Studies: Polish, Danish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 154 of 299 24 October 2013 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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" couldn't we
say that there really is one Scandinavian language with three variants?" As far as I know several linguists share this point of view. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4838 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 155 of 299 24 October 2013 at 8:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting contrast of perceptions between Cristina and Tricoteuse:
Cristina says that Norwegians have an inferiority complex vis-a-vis Swedes, whereas Tricoteuse says that only Swedes will accept telesales jobs in Norway. BTW, how would you define Svorsk? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4632 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 156 of 299 24 October 2013 at 11:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Has anyone ever seen a polyglot who speaks 7 or 8 languages really well? Most of the guys on youtube
seem to excel in 2 or 3 and speak the rest in broken fashion. The British bloke Richard Simcott is exceptionally good. Edited by beano on 24 October 2013 at 11:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4717 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 157 of 299 25 October 2013 at 12:08am | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, I have.
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| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5344 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 158 of 299 25 October 2013 at 12:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Could anyone post a reference to any place where the Scandinavian languages are considered one language by linguists? I have never seen that. The only times I hear that used, is when Finns say they do not understand Norwegian, but that they understand "Scandinavian". What they mean to say is that they understand Swedish.
Norwegians' inferiority complex is if historic origin. Sweden has been a colonial power, Norway has been a colony. Their colony. I have read that when king Karl Johan came to Oslo for the first time (he had demanded Norway as his prize for siding with England against Napoleon), he looked around him in disgust (Oslo was a poor, dirty city, nowhere near the brilliant streets and palaces of Stockholm) and said "Have I let my men die for this!" We are slowly trying to shake off that inferiority complex, but it will take time, and not all the oil in the North Sea can change that. In sports however, we are never as happy as when we can beat the Swedes. In fact we do not really care if we lose against everyone else, as long as we beat the Swedes. I am a little puzzled to hear about the supposed crowd of Swedes in telesales, I have never come across any. They are very prominent in restaurants and bars and shops though, not because the Norwegians do not want those jobs, but because the Swedes (sadly for us) have a better reputation when it comes to work ethic and customer service. They are simply more popular :-) Svorsk, as we use it, is when you speak your mother tongue (either Swedish or Norwegian) and you mix words from the other language into it in order to facilitate understanding. It is generally frowned upon. When it comes to amazing polyglots, I agree that Ricard is uncommonly good, and so is Luca. As to s_allard's question whether we do not mind Swedes speaking Swedish in Norway, I can't say that we do. Most of us are used to the language, they have a very good reputation in Norway, and like tractor said, we hardly even consider them foreigners. We have a news channel which is on 24/7 and which is unable to fill their time with Norwegian news only, so particularly late at night, they fill their slots with Swedish and English radio. I have sometimes wondered how many countries, where people would be perfectly ok with having two languages on the news channel which were not official languages of the country. I have never heard anyone complain about that though, and I have never ever heard anyone complain about Swedish (or English)being spoken by personnel in the restaurants or in the bars. I can only remember one time when I have been a little annoyed, and that was in a bakery at the airport, when I wanted a particular product, and the Swedish assistant did not understand the word, even if I repeated it three times in case it was just a matter of pronunciation, or that I did not speak loud enough. If you work at a place where you sell 50 products, and you need to learn the Norwegian word for two of them, I felt it was not too much of an effort for her to do that. I ended up having to use the Swedish/French term for it, which felt a bit awkward. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 25 October 2013 at 12:31am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4675 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 159 of 299 25 October 2013 at 12:40am | IP Logged | ||
I think about this as well. Certainly it's possible to develop a "fluent" command of the basics in a number of languages, as we can see from YouTube, but I wonder how many languages those people would consider themselves to have a "deep" proficiency in (e.g. rich and idiomatic active vocabulary, using the more pitfall-prone bits of the grammar correctly the great majority of the time, able to speak about both quotidian and more abstract topics with ease). Edited by tastyonions on 25 October 2013 at 12:51am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6592 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 160 of 299 25 October 2013 at 7:02am | IP Logged | ||
Haha, and it's the same way here, though depending on the sport. In skiing, we need to beat the Norwegians and in ice hockey we need to beat the Finns. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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