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Easiest Scandinavian language? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5333 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 9 of 74 17 October 2013 at 8:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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I guess that grammatically there is not much difference, but unless you have a serious reason for learning Danish, (girlfriend, family, immersion opportunity) the pronunciation of Danish would give you so much extra trouble, that I would have chosen Swedish or Norwegian.
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| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4667 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 10 of 74 17 October 2013 at 11:23pm | IP Logged | ||
Only 20 % of Norwegians speak in accents close to Standard Eastern Norwegian. While native speakers of Norwegian can understand people from Sarpsborg, Stavanger, Bergen, Florø, Ålesund, Molde, Trondheim, Tromsø, Bodø with ease, most foreigners have problems with these dialects (and dialects mentioned here are urban modern dialects and not some forgotten rural ones). I'd say that Swedish is the easiest of the 3 languages, after all facts are taken into consideration (pronunciation, standardization, dialects, number of norms, sociolinguistic situation). In terms of pure production, Danish is the easiest, because it has the simplest morphology, and it has no tonal accent (both Norwegian and Swedish pitch accents are difficult to imitate, so only few foreigners can sound native-like). I don't really think the Danish pronunciation is that ''difficult'' to understand. Spoken Danish and written Danish are much much closer than the Norwegian written in many parts of Norway and the spoken Norwegian. (I'd say that spoken Danish is easier to understand than Trondheim dialect of Norwegian). Edited by Medulin on 17 October 2013 at 11:36pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5333 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 11 of 74 17 October 2013 at 11:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Why do people tend to forget that Swedish also has dialects? After I once said that I had listened to so many
Swedish dialects for such a long time that there was not a single dialect I had trouble with, Ari made me listen to a tape with someone speaking an obscure Swedish dialect. I found it extremely difficult to understand. My consolation was, that so did he. Where do you have the figure of 20% from by the way? I would put it closer to 70% based on the contact I have on a daily base with people from all over Norway. A lot of the dialects, even if they are a little bit different from the standard, would still be easy to understand for a foreigner, presuming his Norwegian was good. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 17 October 2013 at 11:38pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 12 of 74 17 October 2013 at 11:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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It in effect doesn't matter. I picked Swedish 'cause I liked it best, but I would have no
problem learning the other two either. I don't understand this "easiest language" thing anyway. I find Korean easy. Easy is an attitude. Edited by tarvos on 17 October 2013 at 11:36pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4289 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 13 of 74 17 October 2013 at 11:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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I do not have much expereince in Scandinavian languages compared to Romance, but few
years ago when I learnt Norwegian from books (I am not sure what to call standard Norwegian, but only what was in my books), the grammar seemed fairly straightforward, a bit like Dutch, not as many tenses as Portuguese, for example, and indicative mood is usually predominant. I tried Finnish for fun for several months when I was around ten years old and was bought a self-teaching book, and it was quite difficult for me, but I am not sure if that experience truly counts. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| languagenerd09 Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom youtube.com/user/Lan Joined 5099 days ago 174 posts - 267 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Thai | Message 14 of 74 18 October 2013 at 3:26am | IP Logged | ||
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I find it fairly adaptable to be able to read something in Danish or Swedish and take a sensible guess at what the word would mean in English when I translate it in the
back of my mind from Norwegian. Example being: Norwegian (Bokmål) - kan jeg hjelpe deg? Danish - kan jeg hjælpe dig? Swedish - kan jag hjälpa dig? So there's a lot of common/shared similarities in terms of grammar and vocabulary, some of course with slight changes of spelling. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4252 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 15 of 74 18 October 2013 at 8:55am | IP Logged | ||
If you heard Älvdalska, that is not a dialect but a language of its own. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| caam_imt Triglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 4861 days ago 232 posts - 357 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, Finnish Studies: German, Swedish | Message 16 of 74 18 October 2013 at 10:49am | IP Logged | ||
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I would go for Swedish, as it has the most learning materials (am I wrong?). There is
also the Finland-Swedish variation, where there are no tones in pronunciation. This could make pronunciation easier for some people (e.g. me). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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