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Talk to me about Norwegian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| neoinarien Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6339 days ago 13 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 1 of 15 12 May 2011 at 5:41am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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So I have looked around about Norwegian vs. Swedish. I am still trying to round out my own personal preferences
before taking the 'plunge.' But I wanted to throw it out there: comments on Norwegian? Comments on Norwegian vs. Swedish? I understand the basics: Swedish is far more uniform and codified whereas Norwegian can be much more regional, etc. More resources exist for Swedish, etc. First hand experience? Part of this is that every Swedish person I have met speaks perfect to near perfect English with minimal accent whereas every Norwegian person I have met speaks heavily accented and passable English at best. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Alexander86 Tetraglot Senior Member United Kingdom alanguagediary.blogs Joined 4980 days ago 224 posts - 323 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, Catalan Studies: Swedish | Message 2 of 15 12 May 2011 at 9:07am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Then you've clearly not met enough Norwegian people, who speak beautiful English, just
like the rest of Scandinavia =) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jazzboy.bebop Senior Member Norway norwegianthroughnove Joined 5417 days ago 439 posts - 800 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian | Message 3 of 15 12 May 2011 at 11:13am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Indeed, I have been to Norway every year for over 20 years and most people I have met speak very decent English, albeit with a bit of an accent but that is somewhat expected but I have also met quite a few people who learned to speak with a regional English accent but the overall standard of English is far above passable. @neoinarian: What does it matter what level of English your average Swede or Norwegian has though? I am not sure about the dialect situation in Sweden but you are right that in Norway the dialect spectrum is very wide and can differ quite a bit from bokmål which is the main written standard and is basically the only standard of Norwegian taught in books or courses for learning Norwegian. The dialects can be quite different but then the same can be said about English. Here is an article about why Norwegian is probably the easiest language to learn for English speakers. It also makes some comparisons with Swedish and Danish and how learning Norwegian opens the door to understanding the other two languages more so than learning either of the other two. There may be fewer resources for learning Norwegian, but what resources you can find are perfectly adequate and once you get to the intermediate stage you can get more advanced textbooks from Norway that teach completely in Norwegian. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6908 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 15 12 May 2011 at 1:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Simply not true. I can't see how Sweden is "uniform", regarding the number of dialects/accent, actors/artists/other media persons, and the likelihood of meeting just any dialect in any working place in any town in Sweden.
Possibly true.
Debatable. I've heard maybe two-three Norwegians with a non-Norwegian-sounding accent in English, but Swedes do really not speak English with a minimal accent. Maybe those you've met, but not "Swedes in general" 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Polyglot_gr Super Polyglot Newbie Greece Joined 5094 days ago 29 posts - 64 votes Speaks: Greek*, FrenchC2, EnglishC2, GermanC2, Italian, SpanishC2, DutchC1, Swedish, PortugueseC1, Romanian, Polish, Catalan, Russian, Hungarian | Message 5 of 15 12 May 2011 at 2:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Norwegian is actually Danish spoken with a Swedish accent!
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6581 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 6 of 15 12 May 2011 at 3:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Norwegian is actually Swedish written in Danish. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5129 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 7 of 15 12 May 2011 at 4:26pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
When I started learning Norwegian, I was under the perhaps mistaken belief that it was the most neutral of the three languages. Well, there was also the fact that I had grandparents that emigrated from Norway (I also had a great grandfather that came over from Denmark, but I don't remember much of him. I do clearly remember my Norwegian grandparents). I can, in fact, read a fair bit of Danish without too much trouble, and even some Swedish, because of Norwegian. But the further I got into my Norwegian studies, the more I discovered the seemingly endless number of dialects. If you're worried about the amount of spoken variations in Norwegian, don't. Having watched a good number of Norwegian films, it's not so bad. And it's actually kind of fun to discover all the differences. And the differences are fairly straightforward, once you get into the swing of it. In the end, if what you're worried about is being understood, you'll be understood by most everyone with Bokmål. Even if it seems there aren't that many learning resources, the ones that are out there are of pretty good quality. After completing a beginner course with descriptions in English, I highly recommend two Norwegian-only courses: På Vei and Stein på stein. R. == 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Haldor Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5614 days ago 103 posts - 122 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Swedish Studies: French, Spanish | Message 8 of 15 13 May 2011 at 3:49am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Hey. We speak English at an equal level I'd say. Our accents turn out the same way. As for which language to choose, well that depends which country you would like to visit. Also, I have no trpouble understanding swedes, whereas they often ave trouble undrstanding us, if we don't switch to Swedish. So, on that basis, Norwegian would be the better choice 1 person has voted this message useful |
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