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Swedish x Danish x Norwegian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5325 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 17 of 24 07 January 2012 at 12:55am | IP Logged | ||
Your facts are correct, but they do not tell the full story. You have picked the only two words I can think of which most Norwegians would use in feminine - but only in the definite form. In the indefinite form (en jente, en sol), there are just as many people who use the masculine form. So yes, we do have three genders, but if you disregard the feminine form, you will find two words which are unusual in masculine. If a foreign learner choses to learn masculine and neuter only, he will basically do ok. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6694 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 18 of 24 07 January 2012 at 1:50am | IP Logged | ||
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Actually the Danish dialect spoken on Fyn (or Fuhnen or whatever) also had three genders, but the dialect in its pure form is little used nowaday - it has just left a faint trace in the form of extra weak final consonants - for instance "Ged" (goat, normally sproken with a soft d at the end) would be simple "ge' " in Fynsk.
As for the other Scandinavian languages I have always wondered why anybody from Denmark should have trouble understanding them - but those who can't have probably not watched enough Norwegian and Swedish TV. I rarely hear things on television which I can't understand, but if I should point to one TV program which I have to concentrate to understand then it would be "Parlamentet" (both in the Swedish and the Norwegian version) because speakers here deliberately distort their voices, play with dialects and registers and interrupt each other. In German "Genial Daneben" serves more or less the same purpose, and standup comedy in any language is also am pleasant way to test your comprehension skills. I'm listening to standup in English from the Apollo theater right now... Edited by Iversen on 07 January 2012 at 1:59am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Camundonguinho Triglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4740 days ago 273 posts - 500 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish Studies: Swedish | Message 19 of 24 07 January 2012 at 5:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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This site is good for Norwegian:
http://norwegianlanguage.info/ One of the most accurate descriptions can be found (paradoxically) on a virtual tourist page: http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/d4110/ Most young people in and around Olso use EN article with female nouns, but -A definite forms, so you get the neutralization in indefinite forms only, but not in definite ones, this is close to German in the nominative case: both das Kind and der Vater share the same indefinite article in this case: ein Kind, ein Vater ;) That's why many people encourage learners of Norwegian to learn the definite forms with the nouns: Sola (The Sun). [ei/en sol], as in German: ein Kind and ein Vater does not make any sense, but das Kind and der Vater does. And das Kind and der Vater is easier than: ein Kind n, ein Vater m. ;) Edited by Camundonguinho on 07 January 2012 at 5:11pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| KimG Diglot Groupie Norway Joined 4968 days ago 88 posts - 104 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Portuguese, Swahili | Message 20 of 24 08 January 2012 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ive seen Danish speakers adapt quite well to speaking with Norwegians, sometime better than some Swedes even. In my class in primary school, i think in 3. or 4. grade or something, a danish boy moved here, and we spoke Norwegian (one of the thickest Trønder accents possible), he spoke Danish, and all was ok. Exept he got teased a bit by some boys in his class due to having an really odd first name. Now I think it was from Greenland, to be honest. Though he didn't look as he was from there..
Sometime I do wonder if its wise to only use "standard" Norwegian as the goal for foregin learners, since I've seen foregin speakers learn Dialects quite well, and also, as an example, foreginers learning "standard Bokmål"ish norweigan, and living, say, in Trøndelag, REALLY don't end up sounding completely as someone from Oslo area, at all. It's some subtle, or not so subtle tone and accent differences they pick up. But on pluss side: Once foreginers understands such an hard dialect as an extremely thick Trøndersk, Swedish and Danish is a lot easier to figure out. :) Edited by KimG on 08 January 2012 at 5:02pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4819 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 21 of 24 01 June 2012 at 2:40am | IP Logged | ||
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A slightly different question to the usual: does Scandinavian X understand Scandinavian
Y better than Scanindavian Z:- Which is: How many Scandinavians actively learn another Scandinavian language? Presumably only if they move to the country of the language in question to live and work on a long-term basis. This question kind of came up in the interesting Danish-Swedish TV Drama "The Bridge|Bron|Broen", in which (I think) a Swedish detective who had been originally born in Denmark but moved to Sweden in childhood or youth, was seen to be giving an interview on Danish television in Danish (not Swedish) and this had caused comment. (And according to some comments from native Scandinavian speakers on a blog I was following at the time, the actor really was bilingual in Danish and Swedish, although may not have been genuinely bilingual). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6900 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 22 of 24 01 June 2012 at 1:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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A good question. Unless there is a good reason to really learn the language, most people are happy with passive skills and mutual understanding. Apart from a few Swedish actors who speak Danish (e.g. Jakob Cedergren and Thomas W. Gabrielsson), I've heard two Swedes switch to Danish and Norwegian respectively. One has a Danish mother, and the other has lived in Norway several years.
I quote myself: Danes/Norwegians usually adapt to Swedish (to some extent) so they won't sound as "foreign". The native prosody is still there, but the vocabulary is more Swedish.(...) The Norwegian TV host Fredrik Skavlan doesn't speak pure Norwegian with his Swedish guests, but for me it's hard to say when he switches because he doesn't sound Swedish "enough" just because of the changes in vocabulary. (just like a Geordie doesn't sound "American" even if he says fries instead of chips and so on) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4819 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 23 of 24 01 June 2012 at 3:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks Jeff. (I hadn't realised Jakob Cedergren was Swedish, BTW).
I suppose actors have a good incentive to make the effort in order to increase their chances of getting roles. (Going slightly off-topic): I had been thinking that one could equally well ask why don't English people learn Welsh or Gaelic, but a moment's consideration makes one realise that the cases aren't on all fours, since:- - The Celtic languages aren't spoken widely, even in their homelands. - English is not at all like Celtic, except for loanwords, etc. - Er, to a first approximation, English people don't learn foreign languages :-) (people on HTLAL being the exception that tests the rule of course :-) ). Neverthless, I have long cherished the slightly naive and eccentric belief that English children should be taught at least some Celtic from an early age; if not to speak it, then at least to recognise and respect it. And children in Cornwall should definitely be taught Cornish. ) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6588 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 24 of 24 01 June 2012 at 7:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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