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Norwegian: Most Difficult Language? | ||
Tags: Norwegian | Difficulty | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Skandinavisk & Nordisk |  | |
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4668 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes  Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 17 of 36 01 July 2013 at 12:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Once I recorded myself speaking Nynorsk, and some Norwegians found it cute, but some said I sounded Swedish. I guess, it's better to sound Swedish while speaking Norwegian than to sound Croatian LOL
As for the tones: 1) it's relatively easy to learn the tone of an isolated word 2) when words are combined into sentences, the tones of individual words and the sentence intonation can get intermingled (this is called Trondheim model, and it's not dissimilar to tone sandhi in Mandarin). 3) I guess you can do what natives of Nordhordland and Midhordland outside Bergen do, they merged the two tones, and just use the general Norwegian singing melody both tone 1 and tone 2 are realized as HL (falling intonation), so øya (the island) and øya (øyar) øya - har øya (to moan, moaned) are pronounced the same. 4) in Bergen, all 2 syllable verbal forms have tone2, so both like and liker are pronounced with the same tone. In some Norwegian dialects like (infinitive) and liker (present form) have different pitch. 5) speaking of Bergen, both tone1 and tone2 in Bergen have a similar contour: LHL (low high low), but tone2 has different timing, the falling component (HL) comes later than in tone1. 6) the tamest accents (least singy) are the Tromsø accent (search for Lene Marlin on youtube) and Songdal accent (search for Tone Damli), but they're still obviously Norwegian sounding and might sound singy to any speaker of English (outside of Wales or Newcastle, where the singy Norwegian-sounding intonation is used). 7) I kind of like tones/pitch in Norwegian (and Mandarin) since my native language (Croatian) has the pitch accent too. In Croatian: ''Luka'' (Lucas) and ''luka'' (port, harbor) differ in pitch, just like "bønder" (farmers) and "bønner" (beans) in Bokmaal. Compare pitch patterns of various Norwegian accents/dialects: http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/ipa/no/tema_008.html PS Norwegian is difficult until you start learning German (or Mandarin.) Then it becomes very easy. PS2 Unless people are reading isolated words, some words carry more stress than others, when combined in a sentence, these words get a ''full tone'', and other words get a more of a neutral tone (to use the Mandarin nomenclature), think of them as waves... Edited by Medulin on 01 July 2013 at 1:27am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4828 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 18 of 36 01 July 2013 at 11:35am | IP Logged | ||
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I've been learning German for quite a long time, but I can't say I found Norwegian easy.
Yes, with the written language (as with Danish) one can easily pick out a lot of words that are like German, but I found the spoken language rather a challenge. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4668 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 19 of 36 01 July 2013 at 5:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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You may be right. Newscasters' Norwegian (both Bokmaal and Nynorsk) is well-enunciated (if not overpronounced) and slow, but in real life and in Norwegian movies, the language is much faster and somewhat muffled. (In other languages, I haven't really noticed difference in speed, for example in Italian: both on RAI news and in Italian movies, the language is spoken at the same speed). Edited by Medulin on 01 July 2013 at 5:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5847 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 20 of 36 06 July 2013 at 7:53am | IP Logged | ||
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I have started to learn Norwegian Bokmâl in June this year and with my background knowledge of Danish I find it very easy to learn. Let's see how it will develop further...
Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 06 July 2013 at 7:53am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5453 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 21 of 36 06 July 2013 at 11:24am | IP Logged | ||
Funny that you say so, because people from South-Eastern Norway often claim that we northerners "sing" when we speak (while they, presumably, don't have a "singy" accent at all...). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7144 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 22 of 36 28 July 2013 at 2:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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For those interested, I think this is the link that tricoteuse provided:
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_%C3%B6ver_svenska_ordacce ntsskilda_minimala_par 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4668 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 23 of 36 19 September 2013 at 3:37am | IP Logged | ||
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Another article>
''A linguistic tangle Norwegian language. It is virtually impossible to learn perfect oral Norwegian. It prevents me from becoming equal citizen in the Norwegian society. Everything is permitted. Have you ever talked to a first-generation immigrant who speaks Norwegian as any Norwegian - without a trace of accent or wrong? Hardly. On the one hand, one in Norway speak at will. Almost everything is allowed. On the other hand, Norwegian has very strict rules of intonation and audio usage which are hardly found in other Western languages. The combination makes it virtually impossible to learn perfectly spoken Norwegian. I see this as an obstacle on the road to become equal citizens in the Norwegian society.'' (Google translation of this page: http://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/kronikker/article3691016. ece ) ''Ligg unna riksmål! Rådløsheten som oppstår i møte med det norske språket kjente jeg for første gang for fullt på et norskkurs for voksne innvandrere. Jeg hadde avlevert min første ordentlige norskstil, og jeg hadde brukt en del nye ord som jeg hadde lært gjennom Aftenposten, som jeg «studerte» daglig. Jeg var stolt over å ha brukt litt mer avanserte ord, for eksempel «hverken», «deltager» og «godkjennelse». Stilen jeg fikk tilbake, lyste av røde streker. Flere av Aftenposten-ordene var markert med rød penn. FEIL. Skuffet og en smule obsternasig gjorde jeg læreren oppmerksom på at disse ordene ikke kunne være feil siden de var brukt på samme måte i avisen. «Det er riktig», sa hun og så strengt på meg. «Men ordene blir feil når du som utlending bruker dem. Dette er riksmålsord, og riksmål skal ikke du blande deg bort i.»'' Edited by Medulin on 19 September 2013 at 3:46am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5334 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 24 of 36 19 September 2013 at 6:25am | IP Logged | ||
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I think it is correct that it is very difficult to get a native accent in Norwegian when you learn it as an adult. I
know a few who have managed, but they remain exceptions. What I ask again is whether this is exceptional for Norwegian. The only language I know where it is fairly easy to blend in for a foreigner is English - because there are so many possible accents that if you have a really good accent but with something just a little bit odd - people will assume you speak a different variant. But for other countries: Is it common for adults to be able to learn a native accent in Croatian, Czech, French, German, Russian, Korean, Arabic, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese? Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 19 September 2013 at 6:31am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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