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Swedish after German

  Tags: Swedish | German
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages Post Reply
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ellasevia
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 Message 9 of 18
27 November 2010 at 9:04pm | IP Logged 
Since others have already explained the reasons for why it shouldn't be too hard, I'll just chime in to say that I've found the above to be true. I speak German and am studying Swedish, and I've found the connections between German, Swedish, and English to be very helpful.
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Impiegato
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 Message 10 of 18
29 November 2010 at 10:49am | IP Logged 
RVFA wrote:
tracker465 wrote:
.. though finding someone with whom to practice might be a bit harder ;)


Yeah, like most Europeans, swedes will not speak Swedish to you unless you can speak it quite well (= intermediate level at least).
I don't know about other Europeans but swedes do not do this in order to be rude but to make the communication effective - if you ask me something in Swedish I want to answer you in the best way possible, and if hear that you really struggle in Swedish it does not give me confidence that you will understand me well. If however,you speak Swedish acceptably well, it gives me confidence that you will understand my explanation in Swedish and so I will use Swedish.

In response to the first question.
I definetely think that knowing German will make learning Swedish easier. For one thing you find the same vowel-sounds in Swedish, and the consonant-sounds are similar too but are not as strong as in German. As a swede I also recognize 30-40% of German words, so I assume it works the same the other way around. As far as tones go, I don't think it differs much from German, they are both even-tempered cultures after all. So we only use tones to emphasize words.

Choosing between Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian is a more difficult task I think. Although there seems to be more language material available for Swedish. Culturally and politically, Sweden probably has a stronger international influence (apart from oil-matters). Norway is not an EU member so that could be a problem if you decide to work there one day. Economically the Danish economy is slightly better than the Swedish. Danish is only spoken by 6 million or so people, Swedish by 10 million plus its the 2nd official language of Finland (home of Nokia). Do some investigation about the countries and their cultures and see which appeals to you the most.


Correction:

We don't use tones only to emphasize words in Swedish. Pronounce "anden" and "buren" in two different ways and you will find that the accent can be grave or acute depending on if it is a verb or a noun in the example "buren" and two different nouns in the example "anden". That is a sign of Swedish being a tonal language, even though it doesn't have reference to many words like in Mandarin.

We can stress a specific word in order to make it more important (for example putting an adverb at the beginning of the sentence), but that is a different thing.

Edited by Impiegato on 29 November 2010 at 7:37pm
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RVFA
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 Message 11 of 18
29 November 2010 at 6:02pm | IP Logged 
Impiegato wrote:
RVFA wrote:
tracker465 wrote:
.. though finding someone with whom to practice might be a bit harder ;)


Yeah, like most Europeans, swedes will not speak Swedish to you unless you can speak it quite well (= intermediate level at least).
I don't know about other Europeans but swedes do not do this in order to be rude but to make the communication effective - if you ask me something in Swedish I want to answer you in the best way possible, and if hear that you really struggle in Swedish it does not give me confidence that you will understand me well. If however,you speak Swedish acceptably well, it gives me confidence that you will understand my explanation in Swedish and so I will use Swedish.

In response to the first question.
I definetely think that knowing German will make learning Swedish easier. For one thing you find the same vowel-sounds in Swedish, and the consonant-sounds are similar too but are not as strong as in German. As a swede I also recognize 30-40% of German words, so I assume it works the same the other way around. As far as tones go, I don't think it differs much from German, they are both even-tempered cultures after all. So we only use tones to emphasize words.

Choosing between Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian is a more difficult task I think. Although there seems to be more language material available for Swedish. Culturally and politically, Sweden probably has a stronger international influence (apart from oil-matters). Norway is not an EU member so that could be a problem if you decide to work there one day. Economically the Danish economy is slightly better than the Swedish. Danish is only spoken by 6 million or so people, Swedish by 10 million plus its the 2nd official language of Finland (home of Nokia). Do some investigation about the countries and their cultures and see which appeals to you the most.


Correction:

We don't use tones only to emphasize words in Swedish. Pronounce "anden" and "buren" in two different ways and you will find that the accent can be grave or acute depending on if it is a verb or a noun in the example "buren" and two different nouns in the example "buren". That is a sign of Swedish being a tonal language, even though it doesn't have reference to many words like in Mandarin.

We can stress a specific word in order to make it more important (for example putting an adverb at the beginning of the sentence), but that is a different thing.



Correction 2:

Well yes, but all languages have tones in this regard, that's what happens when you speak unless you are as monotone as a robot when you talk.
However, what I was referring to was in the context of systematic tonal languages such as Mandarin and Thai, in that context Swedish is for all practical purposes atonal. Perhaps I generalize on this but I am certainly not apologetic about it.

What you are referring to are stress or accent marks: with the second word you give as example, emphasis on 'bu-' leads to the definition of 'the cage', while emphasis on '-en' leads to an example of a surname 'Burén', and pronouncing it in mid-tone gives the meaning of 'being carried'.

However there are very few words like these in Swedish that have double or even tripple meaning depending on accent, such as your given example. At worst placing the accent wrong will make the word sound weird to a "native" but it will not change the meaning of it, in stark contrast to Mandarin and other "real" tonal languages.

To generalize (here I go again), the only practical tonal rule Swedish has is that the accent is usually on the first syllable. But this is not different from German (as well as English) where the accent for most words is indeed on the first syllable: 'warten, hungrig, dunkel, etc'. As already mentioned, placing the accent wrong in a Swedish word rarely changes the meaning of it.

This leads us to the second, but rather weak rule for Swedish "tones" (=accents).
Accent on the second syllable in Swedish words mainly occur in words of foreign origin such as 'kebab, maskin, trafik, Andén etc'. Assuming that the learner has not studied German, Danish, or Norwegian beforehand (because how else would a learner know that 'maskin' is not of Swedish origin and thus has accent on the '-in' ? ), the learner has to memorize such words as s/he encounters them because there is no other rule or principle for when this accent applies, other than "being of foreign origin". But then not all foreign derived words have accent on the second syllable: 'taxi, fotboll, sushi etc'

Thus besides the "only practical tonal rule" mentioned above, the Swedish tonal system is rather un-systematic, and speaking of a "swedish tonal system" is impractical because it does not help the learner much. The only rule that helps is the first one, and one rule does not a system make.

But wait!
What is that I see ?...a plane, a comet, or Superman ?
Nein Dummkopf,...das ist Deutsch!    [apologies if I got that wrong]

Prior knowledge of German here is highly beneficial because many of these "unclear accent" Swedish words have the same accent as their German counterparts (perhaps they are of German origin ?): 'Mirakel, Minute, interessant, gemeinsam, etc'.





Edited by RVFA on 29 November 2010 at 6:03pm
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Teango
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 Message 12 of 18
29 November 2010 at 6:42pm | IP Logged 
RVFA wrote:
As a swede I also recognize 30-40% of German words, so I assume it works the same the other way around.

I found Swedish word order very close to English, making it a real joy to navigate after learning German. Nevertheless, my knowledge of German would often come in particularly handy when trying to best-guess similar words and expressions. So I'd say the combination of two Germanic languages certainly gives any beginner a head-start in the game.

Pronunciation, on the other hand, is far from straight forward, and corresponds less closely with the text than you would get with German (in this respect, you also need to keep an eye out for variations in dialect from time to time too).

The biggest surprise for me, however, was to discover that the similarity between Swedish and German is not as strong as I was first led to believe. In fact, I think it's a far cry from the correspondence between other languages like French and Spanish, and my initial reading score for Swedish started out much lower at 31% (it was approximately double this for Spanish), falling pretty much in line with what RVFA suggests above (30-40%).

Edited by Teango on 29 November 2010 at 6:46pm
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Impiegato
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 Message 13 of 18
29 November 2010 at 7:46pm | IP Logged 
RVFA wrote:
Impiegato wrote:
RVFA wrote:
tracker465 wrote:
.. though finding someone with whom to practice might be a bit harder ;)


Yeah, like most Europeans, swedes will not speak Swedish to you unless you can speak it quite well (= intermediate level at least).
I don't know about other Europeans but swedes do not do this in order to be rude but to make the communication effective - if you ask me something in Swedish I want to answer you in the best way possible, and if hear that you really struggle in Swedish it does not give me confidence that you will understand me well. If however,you speak Swedish acceptably well, it gives me confidence that you will understand my explanation in Swedish and so I will use Swedish.

In response to the first question.
I definetely think that knowing German will make learning Swedish easier. For one thing you find the same vowel-sounds in Swedish, and the consonant-sounds are similar too but are not as strong as in German. As a swede I also recognize 30-40% of German words, so I assume it works the same the other way around. As far as tones go, I don't think it differs much from German, they are both even-tempered cultures after all. So we only use tones to emphasize words.

Choosing between Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian is a more difficult task I think. Although there seems to be more language material available for Swedish. Culturally and politically, Sweden probably has a stronger international influence (apart from oil-matters). Norway is not an EU member so that could be a problem if you decide to work there one day. Economically the Danish economy is slightly better than the Swedish. Danish is only spoken by 6 million or so people, Swedish by 10 million plus its the 2nd official language of Finland (home of Nokia). Do some investigation about the countries and their cultures and see which appeals to you the most.


Correction:

We don't use tones only to emphasize words in Swedish. Pronounce "anden" and "buren" in two different ways and you will find that the accent can be grave or acute depending on if it is a verb or a noun in the example "buren" and two different nouns in the example "buren". That is a sign of Swedish being a tonal language, even though it doesn't have reference to many words like in Mandarin.

We can stress a specific word in order to make it more important (for example putting an adverb at the beginning of the sentence), but that is a different thing.



Correction 2:

Well yes, but all languages have tones in this regard, that's what happens when you speak unless you are as monotone as a robot when you talk.
However, what I was referring to was in the context of systematic tonal languages such as Mandarin and Thai, in that context Swedish is for all practical purposes atonal. Perhaps I generalize on this but I am certainly not apologetic about it.

What you are referring to are stress or accent marks: with the second word you give as example, emphasis on 'bu-' leads to the definition of 'the cage', while emphasis on '-en' leads to an example of a surname 'Burén', and pronouncing it in mid-tone gives the meaning of 'being carried'.

However there are very few words like these in Swedish that have double or even tripple meaning depending on accent, such as your given example. At worst placing the accent wrong will make the word sound weird to a "native" but it will not change the meaning of it, in stark contrast to Mandarin and other "real" tonal languages.

To generalize (here I go again), the only practical tonal rule Swedish has is that the accent is usually on the first syllable. But this is not different from German (as well as English) where the accent for most words is indeed on the first syllable: 'warten, hungrig, dunkel, etc'. As already mentioned, placing the accent wrong in a Swedish word rarely changes the meaning of it.

This leads us to the second, but rather weak rule for Swedish "tones" (=accents).
Accent on the second syllable in Swedish words mainly occur in words of foreign origin such as 'kebab, maskin, trafik, Andén etc'. Assuming that the learner has not studied German, Danish, or Norwegian beforehand (because how else would a learner know that 'maskin' is not of Swedish origin and thus has accent on the '-in' ? ), the learner has to memorize such words as s/he encounters them because there is no other rule or principle for when this accent applies, other than "being of foreign origin". But then not all foreign derived words have accent on the second syllable: 'taxi, fotboll, sushi etc'

Thus besides the "only practical tonal rule" mentioned above, the Swedish tonal system is rather un-systematic, and speaking of a "swedish tonal system" is impractical because it does not help the learner much. The only rule that helps is the first one, and one rule does not a system make.

But wait!
What is that I see ?...a plane, a comet, or Superman ?
Nein Dummkopf,...das ist Deutsch!    [apologies if I got that wrong]

Prior knowledge of German here is highly beneficial because many of these "unclear accent" Swedish words have the same accent as their German counterparts (perhaps they are of German origin ?): 'Mirakel, Minute, interessant, gemeinsam, etc'.





There is acutally an important difference between the three ways of pronouncing "buren":

1. bùren = the cage
2. búren = been carried
----
3. Burén = a surname
____

Please note that stress falls on the same syllable in example 1 and 2 (penultima), but on a different syllable in example 3. What I mean is that the distinction between the first and the second example is exactly the same as distinguishing two different words which are spelled in the exact same way in Mandarin.

Edited by Impiegato on 29 November 2010 at 11:45pm
2 persons have voted this message useful



OlafP
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 Message 14 of 18
29 November 2010 at 7:46pm | IP Logged 
Teango wrote:
The biggest surprise for me, however, was to discover that the similarity between Swedish and German is not as strong as I was first led to believe. In fact, I think it's a far cry from the correspondence between other languages like French and Spanish, and my initial reading score for Swedish started out much lower at 31% (it was approximately double this for Spanish), falling pretty much in line with what RVFA suggests above (30-40%).


As for the similarity between Swedish and German vocabulary: I strongly disagree that the difference is bigger than in Romance languages. The truth is however that the German words that correspond to their Swedish counterparts often are not what one would use as the first choice in German, they often sound oldfashioned, poetic, or comical and may not be known to most non-native German speakers. This actually accounts for a big part of my fascination with Swedish: the vocabulary often sounds slightly off-track to me.

Some examples: the word "hastig" exists both in German and in Swedish. Both in Swedish and in German it means "fast" or "quick", but in German you would use it only for something that a chaotic person is doing in the last minute. It has the connotation of someone losing control. Or the Swedish word "vacker" reminds of the totally oldfashioned German word "wacker", only that the Swedish word means "beautiful" and the German word means "courageous". And so it goes on and on. There is hardly any Swedish word that I don't recognise as having the same root as a German one, but these German words don't belong to the first 6,000 or even 12,000 words anyone would learn.

That is indeed different than in the Romance languages. Having learned only French, I can read Spanish quite well and Italian almost fluently, Romanian however not at all. With that in mind I find it amazing that you could read 31% of Swedish words immediately. The similarity of Swedish and German words is there, but it took me some time to learn how to recognise it, because it doesn't always jump in your face like in the Romance languages.
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jeff_lindqvist
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 Message 15 of 18
29 November 2010 at 8:50pm | IP Logged 
Impiegato wrote:
There is acutally an important difference between the three ways of pronouncing "buren":

1. bùren = the cage
2. búren = been carried
----
3. burén = a surname
____

Please note that stress falls on the same syllable in example 1 and 2 (penultima), but on a different syllable in example 3. What I mean is that the distinction between the first and the second example is exactly the same as distinguishing two different words which are spelled in the exact same way in Mandarin.


Thanks for writing down my thoughts, Impiegato! This is exactly how I view the Swedish tones. Maybe RVFA also moves the stress for words pronounced with a grave accent? I've heard people from (mostly) Stockholm also give the ultimate syllable a slight stress (Gùstaf-SON, Ànn-A, bùll-EN) almost as if it was the second part of a word (hùvud-STAD, tàl-MAN, bìl-DÖRR).

I've heard people (from Stockholm...) think of it as acute=penultimate syllable, grave=ultimate syllable. I've even seen it explained like that in a course book. One course book (in German) displayed notes on a musical staff!

Anyway, I know precisely what you mean (and fully agree).
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Teango
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 Message 16 of 18
29 November 2010 at 10:35pm | IP Logged 
OlafP wrote:
With that in mind I find it amazing that you could read 31% of Swedish words immediately.

I guess as I'm not a native German speaker (knowing far less of the rarer words), I found about as much similarity between English and Swedish as between German and Swedish. I was often able to grasp the meaning of Swedish words through my knowledge of older and lesser-known English or Scots words and expressions. To use the examples you gave above, "hastig" looks like "hasty" in English, and "vacker" reminds me of the word "fæger" from my studies of Chaucer at school, meaning "fayre of face, beautiful" I think.

There are many other words like this that turn up in Swedish (another quick example that comes to mind is "pratar", which sounds like "prattle" (i.e. to talk at length in a foolish or inconsequential way) to me). And although I can't think of a specific expression right at this very moment, I remember reading a lot of Swedish idioms in Harry Potter and smiling to myself, as I realised they translated almost word for word with the lovely old sayings my mum brought me up with.

Edited by Teango on 29 November 2010 at 11:04pm


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