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Danish is the hardest Germanic language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Corinwright1994 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4610 days ago 27 posts - 29 votes Speaks: Spanish Studies: Portuguese | Message 1 of 40 21 July 2012 at 8:47pm | IP Logged |
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Hello fellow language learners, today I ask not for advice, but for an opinion on the
statement I make that "Danish is the hardest Germanic language to understand", I should maybe say apart from Icelandic. I may not be hugely qualified to make this assertion but I have experience (in terms of Germanic languages) with English, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and German. The fact i'm studying Danish may also come into play for me thinking this but I have to say (Noticing a post in the forums "If i hear "Spanish is easy" one more time" ) Spanish is a walk in the park comapred to Danish. My argument is that, despite Germans reputation for it's strange grammar, the spoken language sounds very distinct and crisp and clear. Words are said as they're written and said in a very "sticatto" manner. I would say is also the same for Swedish and Norwegian, all though the ups and downs of the Swedish tones may make understanding slightly more difficult, but I think in Danish due to the overall throaty, gutteral sound of the language it can be very difficult to distinguish one word from another, especially sinse a lot of the words almost sound unfinished before going into the next one, and as I have heard Norwegians say (who also have told me even they find it hard to understand the Danish) that it sounds like they're speaking with a hot potato in their mouth. Which is so true :-). I can't say much for Dutch but I "hear" it's supposed to be rather simple for an English speaker to learn, and the only Germanic language I think could be more difficult to understand is Icelandic, but that's only based on things I've heard about it being incredible tricky. let me know your thoughts guys :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 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 2 of 40 21 July 2012 at 9:01pm | IP Logged |
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Icelandic is harder for sure:)
Yeah, that's tough. I've learned embarrassingly little Danish from watching football matches, compared to Spanish and Italian. I have a feeling that I'd know a lot more after the same amount of input in Swedish or Norwegian. The problem is that I'm more interested in Danish;) As you're not giving up anyway, you'd benefit from having a more positive attitude. Danish is also fascinating, isn't it? *_* 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Corinwright1994 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4610 days ago 27 posts - 29 votes Speaks: Spanish Studies: Portuguese | Message 3 of 40 21 July 2012 at 9:05pm | IP Logged |
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it's fascinating for sure! and I very much enjoy studying the written language (which
isn't difficult at all, in terms of language learning), but it would be good to think when I get frustrated about listening to Danish that it's a hard language to understand for everybody :-P Hence why i'm wanting opinions :-P 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4522 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 4 of 40 21 July 2012 at 9:13pm | IP Logged |
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You forgot Faroese. I've heard that the dialects of the different islands are not mutually intelligible.
As to Icelandic: I've studied it for 3 semesters (+several semesters of Old Icelandic) and can't comprehend a single sentence spoken by natives at their normal speed of articulation (which is pretty fast). Didn't put in much time into listening comprehension exercises though, my main target was reading Old Norse. Danish might well be the hardest of the continental Germanic languages to understand orally, but that doesn't say a lot. None of the Germanic languages are really hard to understand (at least for native speakers of a Germanic language). The hard thing about Danish certainly isn't the Danish language, but the way some (or many) Danes pronounce it. This almost unintelligible pronunciation isn't a necessity however. Not all Danes are that hard to understand. And there are enough Danish learners out there who could manage to get used to the pronunciation. I'm still struggling myself in that particular area of study, but if others can manage, so can I and so can you. Just hang in there ;) Edited by daegga on 21 July 2012 at 9:17pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 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 5 of 40 21 July 2012 at 9:17pm | IP Logged |
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Even the TV commentators are difficult to understand though.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| nuriayasmin70 Diglot Senior Member Germany languagesandbeyoRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4522 days ago 132 posts - 162 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: SpanishB1, Portuguese, Czech, Hungarian | Message 6 of 40 21 July 2012 at 10:18pm | IP Logged |
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I find all three continental Scandinavian languages difficult to understand and difficult to pronounce. I spent about a year studying Norwegian on and off and can read it fairly well but my attempts to listen to podcasts and television programs turned out to be very frustrating experiences. When I was in Denmark this year, I could read quite a bit and Danes understood me when I spoke Norwegian (as I can't pronounce it well they may have even thought I'm trying to speak Danish) but I didn't understand anything although my native language is German and many words are very similar or even alike.
Well, as difficult as Czech grammar may be, now that I've spent a couple of weeks intensively studying Czech, I do understand those words I already know when I hear them and actually find Czech much easier to pronounce than any of the Scandinavian languages. So in my opinion the difficulty of learning Danish (but also Swedish or Norwegian) shouldn't be underestimated. I'd still like to continue with Norwegian, though and am also interested in Danish. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 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 7 of 40 21 July 2012 at 11:55pm | IP Logged |
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How much listening have you done though? You do need a lot of it regardless of the language.
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| LaughingChimp Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4700 days ago 346 posts - 594 votes Speaks: Czech* | Message 8 of 40 22 July 2012 at 12:34am | IP Logged |
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Unfamiliar sounds always sound slurred. Danish uses many unusual sounds, that makes it worse. Also, if you learn from written sources, you probably got a very wrong idea of how the words sound and you will have to relearn them. Listen carefully how the words actually sound and remember that sound instead.
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