Easiest Scandinavian language? (Advice Center) Language Learning Forum

Easiest Scandinavian language?
Tags: Easiness \| Scandinavian Languages \| Choosing a Language
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Alamo Joe
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Message 33 of 74

20 October 2013 at 2:21am | IP Logged

1e4e6 wrote:

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.

Would you say that Scandinavian languages are easier, harder or equally as difficult as Dutch for a native English speaker?
1 person has voted this message useful

montmorency
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United Kingdom
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Message 34 of 74

20 October 2013 at 2:41am | IP Logged

Alamo Joe wrote:

1e4e6 wrote:

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.

Would you say that Scandinavian languages are easier, harder or equally as difficult as
Dutch for a native English speaker?

In my limited experience, slightly easier, but overall, probably about the same.

In all cases, listening comprehension is (IMHO) the really tricky part.
3 persons have voted this message useful

tricoteuse
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Norway
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Speaks: Swedish*, Norwegian, English^C1, Russian, French
Studies: Ukrainian, Bulgarian

Message 35 of 74

22 October 2013 at 11:56am | IP Logged

I think that the only non-Swedish Scandinavian culture Swedes get would be Danish crime
series. I never had access to anything Norwegian, had hardly ever heard it spoken (I
heard a Norwegian hold a presentation once at my school, that's pretty much it) and never
read a newspaper or a book in it before moving to Norway. There was never any Norwegian
or Danish TV available, either.

And to answer the original question, I think Swedish would be the easiest to learn of the
three.
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Solfrid Cristin
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Norway
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Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
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Message 36 of 74

22 October 2013 at 12:01pm | IP Logged

tricoteuse wrote:

And to answer the original question, I think Swedish would be the easiest to learn of the
three.

The original question was which language which would be easiest grammatically. Which grammatical difficulties do you find in Norwegian that are non-existant in Swedish?

Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 22 October 2013 at 12:01pm
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tricoteuse
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Message 37 of 74

22 October 2013 at 12:08pm | IP Logged

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

tricoteuse wrote:

And to answer the original question, I
think Swedish would be the easiest to learn of the
three.

The original question was which language which would be easiest grammatically. Which
grammatical difficulties do you find in Norwegian that are non-existant in Swedish?

Ah, I managed to lose track of the original question then! But there is the issue of
genders, which simplifies matters a little bit in Swedish. Trying to come up with other
things here... personal pronouns used as demonstratives/articles! We don't have that in
the standard language, as far as I know. Less variation with pre- and postposed
possessives and the co-occurrence of definiteness. Not big things, admittedly :P I
think the use of various future modals may also be more complex in Norwegian. I've
never heard people (= foreigners) misuse "ska/skal" as brutally in Swedish as they do
in Norwegian, so I suspect the different semantic spheres of the auxiliaries are more
clear-cut in standard Swedish, whereas they may overlap more in Norwegian.

(This is not based on any research :P)
4 persons have voted this message useful

aokoye
Diglot
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United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
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Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese

Message 38 of 74

23 October 2013 at 1:52am | IP Logged

Josquin wrote:

Well, in terms of morphology Danish is simpler than Swedish and
Norwegian, but this is compensated by the complex Danish phonology, i.e. pronunciation.

Danish phonology made me so frustrated when I took it. It is one of the reasons that I
ended up dropping the course (the other being that i just didn't have the energy to take
it at that time).
1 person has voted this message useful

eyðimörk
Triglot
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France
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Message 39 of 74

23 October 2013 at 8:42am | IP Logged

tricoteuse wrote:

This may be a product of WHERE and WHEN I grew up in Sweden, but until the advent of digital television I always had access to Danish television (multiple channels), and for most of that time I also had access to Norwegian television (single channel). In fact, when TV3 was launched we got the same channel in all three languages.

Growing up, Danish TV was very much a part of the repertoire. I was actually very bitter about that at the time since my grandparents refused to miss even one episode that Danish "Wheel of Fortune" show that I could barely follow at the time, and it aired before the children's programming was over on Swedish television.
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jeff_lindqvist
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Message 40 of 74

23 October 2013 at 9:50am | IP Logged

tricoteuse wrote:

I think that the only non-Swedish Scandinavian culture Swedes get would be Danish crime series. I never had access to anything Norwegian, had hardly ever heard it spoken (I heard a Norwegian hold a presentation once at my school, that's pretty much it) and never read a newspaper or a book in it before moving to Norway. There was never any Norwegian or Danish TV available, either.

Huh? I've never had access to Danish or Norwegian TV channels, but I remember watching children's programs in both languages (on SVT) when I was a kid. A while ago, I thought we got more input when I was young, but a few months ago when I leafed through the TV guide, there was hardly a day without a show/series/movie/life style program in either of the languages (on both SVT1 and SVT2). Some days, we had half a dozen (!) programs from Danmark, Norway and Finland.

1 person has voted this message useful

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