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Kurkko’s Nordic log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Kurkko Diglot Newbie Finland Joined 5677 days ago 21 posts - 23 votes Studies: Swedish, Finnish*, English Studies: German, Dutch, Danish, Icelandic | Message 1 of 6 05 August 2009 at 2:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Alright! Hello and welcome to my log. Here I try to keep track on my language studies. Right now, I want to learn Icelandic, Swedish and Danish.
My goal is to learn to understand, speak and write all Nordic languages. I am from Finland, so I can happily leave Finnish out of my list and concentrate on learning the Scandinavic languages. Since Norwegian seems to be so close to Danish and Swedish, I'm leaving it out until I know those two languages better. After I have hold of the other North European languages, I've been planning to study Estonian and Russian ( and maybe Japanese and Spanish). :-) Where I'm right now with my studies... : Swedish: Since Finland is bilingual country, I've been studying Swedish for the past six years, from the sixth class to the last year of high school. You'd easily suppose that I'd be very good at it by now, but no. Unfortunately, my plans have been changing tragically since I got out from High School. I will continue learning Finland Swedish, which is the Swedish dialect spoken in Finland, because this far I can speak it better than the Swedish they speak in Sweden. I've been planning to move to Sweden at some point, hopefully to study. Finland is a good place to live if you need to study Swedish. I have lots of material, and I still have even all seven Swedish books(+CDs) from High school. I also bought "Pappan och havet" by Tove Jansson. I love moomins. Icelandic: I started studying Icelandic at the beginning of June, when my summer vacation started. I knew I was going volunteer work camping in Iceland for two weeks in June-July, so I studied the languages as much as possible. I used our great library and found an Icelandic-Finnish-Icelandic dictionary. I also bought a textbook ("Allt í lagi", Finn Lectura 2004) and I learned to pronounce Icelandic. In Iceland, one Icelander taught me some Icelandic too, so nice people they are. :-) From Iceland, I brought lots of books (I had to drag them in my hand luggage since otherwise my check-in luggage would've been too heavy) and a great English-Icelandic-English dictionary. I also brought every kind of papers and brochures that had some Icelandic written in them. And because I'm just a typical Finn, I actually learned to read using comic books, mainly our Donald Duck comics. Therefore I decided to use the same method and bought an Icelandic Donald Duck book. Danish: I only started it. I borrowed a Danish grammar from our local library. It's nice, and I've been reading it. I also have a Danish-English-Danish dictionary and because I find it important to learn words by seeing and hearing them, so I downloaded this weird Byki express. It has many flashcards and examples what the words sound like. I still can't pronounce Danish, but one day I'll learn! With Swedish I have time to the beginning of the next year, when I hope to get my plans started and can move to Sweden. Of course, I'd continue the learning in the country too, but I need deadlines. For Icelandic I had the end of this summer as a deadline, because I didn't get any summer job and I've basically been at home all summer, not having any money to travel anywhere by bus. Anyway, I failed with my deadline. I understand Icelandic pretty well now, at least some grammar and I can read the Donald Duck book and understand what's going on. I'm ok with that. Anyway, the schools start soon and I have two exams on the first day of school, when the lazy students go to do the exams they failed last year. :-D After that, I'll surely continue studying... Alright, I study languages even if I have to concentrate on studying accounting. I found an awesome Finland Swedish radio station I've been listening to lately. <3 /Edit: Oh so many spelling errors. This is why I should always check the grammar before posting anything. :0 Edited by Kurkko on 10 August 2009 at 11:29am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5840 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes  Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 2 of 6 12 August 2009 at 6:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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This is a great topic for a log! I hope you will continue it!
It would be particularly interesting to see how you find Icelandic, as a speaker of Swedish.. and Norwegian. There have been some debates earlier on how hard Icelandic is, (or isn't) for speakers of other Nordic languages. Most Nordic people look outside Scandinavia when they start learning languages other than English. In fact, many of us neglect the languages of our neighbours (particularly Finnish, hehe....) Great to have somebody on the forum who sticks with the beautiful languages of the North. 
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kurkko Diglot Newbie Finland Joined 5677 days ago 21 posts - 23 votes Studies: Swedish, Finnish*, English Studies: German, Dutch, Danish, Icelandic | Message 3 of 6 15 August 2009 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hi again! Now I have again more time to concentrate on learning languages. Last week (besides reading to the tests,) I listened to Pimpleur's Danish course. It was interesting and I learned to pronounce some words. I might need to listen to it again though. I can now ask things like "What is your name?" and "Would you like to eat something?", but I know my pronounciation is still horrible. I even recorded myself and listened to it.
On Thursday I went to the library, borrowed Teach Yourself Danish kit(a book and two CDs), and two Swedish books, one of them is a good-looking grammar book. I also noticed a small problem, which is a reason why I shouldn't study Swedish and Danish at the same time... I almost replaced Swedish "är" with Danish "er", which of course means a completely different thing in Swedish. I think I should study it like Danish - Icelandic - Swedish - Icelandic - Danish etc. and keep them far away from each other... I don't know how much that would help, but I'm going to concentrate on Danish for a while. From Thursday to Saturday, I've been reading, making exercises, and listening to the Learn Yourself Danish. I like how things are told in there, and I was surprised there were exercises, since there is none in my Teach Yourself Icelandic kit. I've been trying to find Danish books in the libraries, but looks like there are no easy Danish books. Kalevala in Danish would be quite an experience though. Earlier I was looking at Kalevala in Faroese! Faroese would be a nice language to learn after learning Icelandic and Danish. :D
Thank you! I actually like challenges. ;D
Thank you! :) Your comment gave me more confidence! I find Icelandic to be quite easy. I need to figure out and remember many things, but it's not as difficult as I first thought... And I speak a language of completely different language family! Of course, studying Swedish has helped with it. I have no problem pronouncing it, although I still have a Finnish accent and I don't get the 'rhythm' right. I must say that this spring I was studying German and Italian. They just kind of... Were left off when I started planning my life a bit forward. I've been planning to return to them after the main goals have been achieved. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| densou Senior Member Italy foto.webalice.it/denRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6134 days ago 120 posts - 121 votes Speaks: Italian* | Message 4 of 6 16 August 2009 at 1:58am | IP Logged | |||||
As a native Finn you can have less trouble to manage Icelandic grammar, imo ;)
Well said and well done. *blushing* I'd sell my soul for getting basic fluency in a Nordic language (my obsession) :P Edited by densou on 16 August 2009 at 1:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kurkko Diglot Newbie Finland Joined 5677 days ago 21 posts - 23 votes Studies: Swedish, Finnish*, English Studies: German, Dutch, Danish, Icelandic | Message 5 of 6 21 August 2009 at 10:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Last week I spent about 5 hours reading Danish every day. I also finished reading the Teach Yourself Danish... I'm not confident enough to write Danish yet, and I really need to work the pronunciation, but I'll leave Danish now for a while. I'll continue with it later again. I want to see how much of it I can remember after studying some other languages.
For a while, I'm going to study Icelandic. I have Teach Yourself Icelandic and I'm going to look at it. I spent two weeks with Danish, so I'll probably use a week or so studying Icelandic. Then I study some Swedish (I borrowed Harry Potter och Hemligheternas kammare from the library). I'll probably be just rotating them, learn the differences and such. One of my goals is to stop myself from trying to pronounce Swedish like Danish or Icelandic. It just... Doesn't sound good. I need to find movies that have Danish dubs... Disney Classics would be awesome, but in the Finnish Disney DVD's, there is only Finnish, Swedish and Icelandic dubs. I love watching Treasure Planet with Icelandic dubs! In Icelandic, my last great success was to realize how to use the possessive pronouns. I still need to practice the genders, though. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kurkko Diglot Newbie Finland Joined 5677 days ago 21 posts - 23 votes Studies: Swedish, Finnish*, English Studies: German, Dutch, Danish, Icelandic | Message 6 of 6 22 September 2009 at 12:57am | IP Logged | |||||
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Although I haven't updated my log in a while, I haven't forgotten the studying! I've just been busy with so many things. Currently I've been concentrating on especially to Swedish, since I joined a "Vi talar svenska" course my city has arranged. It's a nice course, and I'm hoping to learn much in there.
I've also been trying to read Swedish books, like Det osynliga barnet by Tove Jansson and Bröderna Lejonhjärta by Astrid Lindgren. I need to arrange a more time for them so I could finish at least one book. I've also been studying Icelandic. I studied the conjugations of the verbs and had some fun with the vocabulary by trying to translate Finnish text into Icelandic. It isn't ready yet, though. My Danish I've been practicing by watching movies dubbed in Danish and browsing Danish websites. Not much, I know. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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