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Swedish Norwegian Danish - intelligible | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| tricoteuse Pentaglot Senior Member Norway littlang.blogspot.co Joined 6679 days ago 745 posts - 845 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, Norwegian, EnglishC1, Russian, French Studies: Ukrainian, Bulgarian | Message 17 of 49 30 November 2008 at 10:36am | IP Logged | |||||
I saw someone on TV once, but I think it was a model or a footballer's girlfriend or possibly a female football player or something like that, either Danish or Norwegian, who spoke the other language, and I remember my boyfriend going "oh wow, she actually speaks [whatever it was]". I think it is rather rare though. Most people who move around seem to end up speaking a mix of for example Swedish and Norwegian.
For me it feels very much like putting on a false accent, and that's why I only write in Norwegian but never attempt to speak it. I certainly use Norwegian words, but I pronounce them as if they were Swedish, and I don't really realize how many words I exchange until I speak with another Swede (extremely rare) and have to stop myself every other sentence to NOT blurt out a Norwegian word that would only make them laugh. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 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 49 30 November 2008 at 12:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
There are really two issues here. Learning another Nordic language is not difficult at all, but you have to adjust the way you normally learn languages. It is just too easy to slip into the habit of pronouncing the words from your own language with a slight accent in the belief that the result will be a string of perfect sentences in the other language. But no, you MUST treat the other language like a separate entity, which means that you have to learn even the basic elements from scratch - if you are Danish and try to learn Norwegian or Swedish then you should use learning materials for Anglophones or Arabs rather than anything written in a Scandinavian language, otherwise your attention won't be drawn to the basics of the other Nordic language. And you HAVE to use the excellent opportunities to listen to the other languages on TV or through the internet - with the unexpected lack of interscandinavian interintelligibility that Tricoteuse has described in mind you should be prepared for some minor problems understanding your fellow Scandinavians unless you actually take the time to listen to the strange sounds they emit. Your consolation will be that it is much easier and faster to work your way through the usual series of stages with a closely related language than with something totally foreign. The same thing applies to learning new dialects of a language you already know well. The second issue is the attitude of the native speakers: I'm fairly sure that my Swedish accent would be judged more severely by a fellow Scandinavian than the same sounds emitted by a Chinese or Russian or just about anybody else. Their errors would be forgiven because nobody expects them to speak a word of any Nordic language, while my errors might be interpreted as part of a deliberate attempt to make fun of the other language by one of those irreverent and incomprehensible Danes. But rather being misinterpreted than succombing to the mortal sin of speaking English to a Nordic kinsman. Edited by Iversen on 30 November 2008 at 12:33pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tricoteuse Pentaglot Senior Member Norway littlang.blogspot.co Joined 6679 days ago 745 posts - 845 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Norwegian, EnglishC1, Russian, French Studies: Ukrainian, Bulgarian | Message 19 of 49 30 November 2008 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
It is indeed a sin! :) But, sometimes necessary it seems... When a Swedish friend of mine was in Norway, he spoke English with the Norwegian he was staying with, that which they even do when speaking online. In a bar they met this Norwegian's brother, who immediately went "What are you doing?! Speaking English? That's just shameful!" But after speaking Steinkjer (Trønder) dialect with my Swedish friend for some minutes the brother simply gave up since even if they could understand his northern Swedish dialect, he had no clue about what they were saying. Then when I met this same Norwegian, he was absolutely set on speaking English with me since he thought I would understand nothing of what he said, but I refused. And we did manage to communicate quite well, even though I for a moment, during a discussion on Africa, thought "koffor" was some African country I had completely missed the existence of or one with a weird name in Norwegian... ("Koffor" is how they say "hvorfor", Swedish "varför", up north, meaning "why") 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 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 20 of 49 01 December 2008 at 4:16am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have also noted that a lot of common Norwegians words have initial "kv" (apparently pronounced as "k" in Trøndelagen) where Swedes have "v". In Danish we have 'hv'. The 'h' is silent in Standard Danish in this position, but it is pronounced in several Jutish dialects (almost like Scottish 'ch' in Loch or Dutch g/j), so I don't have too much of a problem there. But our dialects are dying out these days so that people from for instance Copenhagen may never hear true 'himmerlandsk' or 'vendelbomål'.
btw. "hvorfor" in ordinary spoken Danish is pronounced as "våffo" (with a closed å-sound and a short open o at the end). Edited by Iversen on 01 December 2008 at 4:18am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6273 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 21 of 49 09 December 2008 at 8:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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There was a film in the 1990s called Insomnia, later remade as an American film. In the original, a Swedish detective (I think played by Stellan Skarsgard) investigates a murder in a remote part of northern Norway. He can communicate with the Norwegians, but not perfectly, and the partial language barrier adds to his frustrations with solving the crime etc.
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| Taka Diglot Groupie China Joined 6093 days ago 47 posts - 48 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, English Studies: Swedish, Portuguese | Message 22 of 49 02 March 2009 at 8:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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Not being a scandinavian myself, I've no idea on how similar are Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. But when I watched this Danish film "Sult(hunger)" and found that I could actually catch a little conversations, that surprises me. I am learning Swedish actively now and don't speak any Danish. Having been thrown into a Swedish speaking environment for 2 weeks I am sure I understand much more Swedish than what I can speak, but I was never exposed to any Danish language before. Even though I bear in mind that Danish has a "hot-potato-in-the-month" pronounciation which I read somewhere in a book I still think that film was in Swedish..Wasn't that? Does anyone know what language was it?
If a Swedish beginner can understand a little bit of a Danish film, then these two languages must be very similar. Edited by Taka on 02 March 2009 at 8:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6273 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 23 of 49 02 March 2009 at 3:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The dialect of the southernmost part of Sweden (once Danish-ruled) is supposed to be particularly close to Danish. This is what I have read - I have never studied any Scandinavian language.
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 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6910 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 24 of 49 02 March 2009 at 5:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't think I have seen the film, but Per Oscarsson (the leading actor) is Swedish, it's shot in Oslo (Norway) and directed by Henning Carlsen (a Dane). According to Wikipedia and IMDB the language is Danish, but I doubt that the Swedish actors would speak it. When a film has actors from several Scandinavian countries they usually speak in their native language, whatever that is, as in Hamsun:
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