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Tell me about Swedish vs. Norwegian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6428 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 1 of 21 26 May 2012 at 8:45pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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I've heard these languages are similar but I don't really know anything about either of them.
Some of my noob questions: Do nouns have gender? If so are they easy like Spanish or hard like German? Is there any sort of declension system? How are the verb endings? Are they easy like English or are there like 60 to memorize like Spanish? How is pronunciation? Is there anything that tends to pose a problem for English speakers? Is there any confusing grammar that just makes you scratch your head as an English speaker? In your opinion, what is the hardest part of the language? What is the easiest? Which one is more useful? Which one is more necessary? Does everyone in Sweden/Norway already speak English anyway so it doesn't matter? Which people treated you nicer? I seem to recall hearing somewhere that all things considered, both of these languages are "easier" than German, but I can't remember where I heard that or if it's even true. Edited by IronFist on 26 May 2012 at 8:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4656 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 2 of 21 26 May 2012 at 9:09pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Never learned Norwegian, just read a bit about it, but I am guessing it might be hard for us Anglophones to tell apart the voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant, voiceless palatal fricative, and voiceless retroflex sibilant in ordinary speech. In other words, where we have one "shh" sound in English, Norwegian has three. :-)
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| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5444 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 3 of 21 26 May 2012 at 10:23pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Yes.
Hard like German, I think.
Like in English, cases and declensions are a thing of the past.
More or less like English and German, but with only one form for all persons, singular and plural: e.g. er = am, are, is; var = was, were
Plenty, but I doubt it's much worse than French og German.
They are equally useful, in their respective countries. And there's a high degree of mutual intelligibility.
Everyone speaks English in both countries. However, it's a myth that everyone speaks excellent English.
I think it's true. You won't have to worry about cases and declensions. Edited by tractor on 26 May 2012 at 10:24pm 5 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 4 of 21 27 May 2012 at 2:57am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Both Swedish and Norwegian have the pitch accent, but the Central Swedish accent (''standard Swedish'') is easier to imitate than the tonal accent in ''Standard Eastern Norwegian'' (which corresponds to the pitch accent used in Gotland part of Sweden).
Swedish is more balanced: 1. only one norm (in Norwegian you have 3 different norms within Bokmaal, and if you learn the moderate Bokmaal, most people will find it old-fashioned; if you learn Bookmal with 3 genders: ei kvinne, many people will say it's ''provincial, rural, Northern, Western'' etc...You will never be able to please all Norwegians if you learn only one version of Bokmaal. In Oslo, most pupils write in radical Bokmaal [Sola, boka, kasta...] when they write informally and in moderate Bokmaal (bordering on Riksmaal [Solen, boken, kastet...] when they write essays in school). 2. although many Swedes may speak a dialect informally, they are willing to speak the standard Swedish, when needed (for example: in formal situations, or speaking with foreigners or with Swedes from another regions). This does not happen in Norway! People are so proud of their local dialect! They are more readily to not talk to you at all than to be forced to ''speak'' Bokmaal. (In Norway, Bokmaal is just a written language, which exists in 3 forms: radical (with 3 genders, the past tense in -a and diphthongs: blei, aleine etc), moderate (2 genders with an occasional feminine), and conservative (2 genders with no feminine), the more formal text it is, the more Riksmaal-like Bokmaal is, it's very confusing for a foreigner; Norwegians seem to code switch easily when they write, more ''radically'' informally, and more Riksmaal-like (Dano-Norwegian) in the most formal texts, but for us learners, it's difficult) So, even though in theory Norwegian may be easier, in practical life, Swedish is easier. Norwegian pronunciation is not easy at all! And the tonal system is phonetically more difficult! I've been learning Norwegian for a year, but I find Swedish easier to understand, since most Swedish people speak standard(-like) Swedish, while in Norway, every village has its own dialect, with totally different pronunciation!!! Oslo Norwegian, Bergen Norwegian, Stavanger Norwegian (the dialects of the three biggest cities in Norway) sound like 3 completely different Scandinavian languages to a person learning Norwegian! Not only pronunciation is different, but the vocabulary too! (Stavanger dialect is closer to Nynorsk than to Bokmaal; Nynorsk is an alternative written standard of Norwegian; used in all of Western Norway except for the city of Bergen). In Norwegian, in theory, there is no conjugation, and declination, but take a look at how these words are changed: CURTAIN: ei gardin - gardina - gardiner - gardinene en gardin - gardinen - gardiner - gardinene et gardin - gardinet - gardin/gardiner - gardina/gardinene (a curtain - the curtain - (some) curtains - the curtains) TO THROW: å kaste - kaster - kasta/kastet - har kasta / har kastet (to throw - throw/throws - threw - have thrown) For many nouns and verbs you have to learn all 4 forms together, because there are at least different 6 categories + irregular ones In most cases you cannot be sure if you know only the basic form. So, it's much more difficult than in English where 99% of nouns and verbs are regular, and we have only to learn the irregular ones, since the regular ones can be ''derived'' from the base form. But in Norwegian there are 5 different categories of verbs and nouns, you have to learn in which category a verb/noun is in, a bit like in Latin: defendo, defendere, defendi, defensum :( (But unlike in Latin, verbs don't change according to person and number) Norwegian is interesting if linguistics (or more precisely: sociolinguistics) is a hobby of yours. But if you are not interested in sociolinguistics, Swedish will seem much more easier, and less frustrating! There are many foreigners learning how to write Norwegian Bokmaal. Many can write it perfectly (as I witnessed on various language forums). But most of them can't speak Norwegian at all, and they don't understand dialects from many important cities of Norway like: Bergen, Stavanger, Trondheim, Tromsø... Good luck! Edited by Camundonguinho on 27 May 2012 at 3:38am 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6650 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 5 of 21 27 May 2012 at 5:52am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Gender, yes, Norwegian has 2 or 3, Swedish has 2. They're illogical just as in German, and have to be learnt with the word. Verb endings are few, about as hard to memorize ad English verbs. THERE ARE DECLENSIONS, gosh people stop lying. The declensions are classified depending on how nouns form their plural. Swedish have five or six declensions, and in one of them there's Umlaut. Norwegian is about the same. We don't have more than two cases though. We have strong verbs and a few irregular ones. We have morphological passive voice and some deponents, i.e. words that look passive but have an active meaning. Pronunciation is the hardest part of Swedish, afaik, I'd guess it's the same with Norwegian. Swedish has many vowels and foreigners often tend to have a hard time with u y and ö. We have a tonal accent that can be hard to learn, especially since it's not observed in the orthography. Both quality and quantity of vowels are important, this is not always observed in orthography. Consonants are geminated and this is important to the meaning of a word. There's a consonant sounds that is unique to Swedish and that is our sj-sound. We do have consonantal sandhi where R will color any following d, t, l, n or s and make them retroflex, this occurs even between word and sentence boundaries and sometimes affect more than one consonant. The Swedish R is an alveolar flap and that's something in between the English and the Italian one. Swedish grammar is easy. We have a rule regarding the placement of verbs in subclauses where we invert the word order, but that will probably be quite easy to learn. The subjunctive is dead for all words except "to be", and since that part is alive and breathing in English as well it will pose no problem. We have less tenses than English. Gender is generally what foreigners, grammar-whise, tend to have most mistakes in. Both are equally hard, but since Norwegians cant agree on how to write, Swedish does have one point there. Sweden has more inhabitants, but, it depends on what country you like the most, I'd say. Sweden is a part of EU, Norway is not, thus if you're an EU citizen it's easier to live and work in Sweden than in Norway, I think. Most people under 40, and all academics, are conversational in English. Some people, young academics especially, speak English at roughly the level I'm writing now. You will be able to get around and they will understand you as long as you don't use fancy words. We often don't know specialized vocabulary so curtain rack might be called "that curtain.. thingy" or a mantelpiece "that thing above the fireplace where you can place stuff". I myself am as nice in English as I am in Swedish. People who have bad conversational ability in English won't talk to you as much because it's to hard for them. These people tend to be the ones who endures crappy Swedish grammar the most, though, so if you're learning they will me a resource more than a problem. If you're language is really bad, some Swedes tend to be annoyed and switch over to English just to not having to rely on guesswork or not wanting it take too long for you to get your message through. This is especially true when we're tired. I think this applies to most bilinguals that have not agreed on "helping you learn" or "teach you". We do appreciate the effort and there are part of Swedish culture that is inaccessible without the language. Swedish humor is often self ironic and plays on Swedish stereotypes within society, sometimes very subtle. Unless you understand the Scandinavian mindset it can be very hard to grasp. People tend to find us chilly or hard to get to know but on the other hand you know who you're friends are ;). We're more talkative when drunk. I find Germans more "cold" than I find Swedes. I'd say German pronunciation is easier than Swedish, but Swedish grammar easier. I should be asleep now... 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5444 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 6 of 21 27 May 2012 at 9:12am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Through the EEA Agreement Norway is part of the EU's internal market. Norway adopts (almost) all EU legislation related to the single market, fisheries and agriculture excepted. Norway is also part of the Schengen Area and participates in several EU programmes that are not covered by the EEA Agreement. All in all, it shouldn't be more complicated for an EU citizen to live and work in Norway than in an EU member state. 5 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 7 of 21 27 May 2012 at 2:52pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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But there's a catch:
for many (nicer) jobs (medical jobs, jobs in legislature etc...) 1. Swedish language test is not required before applying for a job (you learn the language once you've immigrated in Sweden, they give you 6months to learn the language) 2. for Norway, a C1 test (called Bergenstesten) is required prior to applying for a job (and in the listening part of the exam, you are required to understand dialects too, because not every immigrant can get a job in Oslo; today, there are more job offers in other cities, in the South, West, and in the North...and in these cities, dialects are spoken, so...the Norwegian government has included them in the Bergenstesten). If you want to move to Norway, don't bother with the spoken standard Eastern Norwagian at all (because you WILL understand it if you master Bokmaal). Concentrate on the dialects from the major cities: Bergen, Stavanger, Trondheim, Tromsø. Local NRK news (available from their site) are of limited use, because most journalists use a normalized Bokmaal (with different pronunciation and tones). Tuning in a local radio is much more helpful. :) (Most Norwegian radio stations can be listened to online). (I have a friend from Italy (a doctor) who recently moved to Harstad in Northern Norway, and this is what she told me...She was thinking about going to Sweden or Norway, but the salary in Norway is 4 times higher, and the scenery is nicer. It is not true that Norwegians are distant, cold and arrogant.Maybe in Oslo, but in Northern Norway they are pretty warm and welcoming, maybe because the Northern Norway is where different cultures meet). I have an EU passport (my grandmother is Italian) so I might be moving to Norway or Sweden too. I would also like additional information, both linguistically related and culturally related. Takk / Grattis PS The weird thing: they always put subtitles when there are Swedes talking on NRK, but on TV2 they do not. I've recently seen a Norwegian horror movie about Norwegian returning home to Norway from Sweden, and the Swedish policemen weren't subtitled at all. ;) Edited by Camundonguinho on 27 May 2012 at 3:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6650 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 8 of 21 27 May 2012 at 3:32pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Norwegians tend to understand Swedish better than the other way around. I'm told it's because they often watch
Swedish television. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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