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Swedish/Norwegian/Danish and Icelandic. | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| maaku Senior Member United States Joined 5576 days ago 359 posts - 562 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 9 of 11 29 May 2010 at 9:06pm | IP Logged |
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Unless you have a reason for learning Icelandic, I would wait on that. It's not quite as useful as the others outside of Iceland, unless you have a burning interest in reading the old epics.
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| michi Nonaglot Newbie Austria Joined 5303 days ago 33 posts - 57 votes Speaks: Dutch*, German, French, English, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese Studies: Turkish, Arabic (Written), Serbo-Croatian, Indonesian, Japanese | Message 10 of 11 16 June 2010 at 9:32am | IP Logged |
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Like you, a few years ago I wanted to learn one Scandinavian language - i.e. Swedish, Norwegian or Danish - well. I like Scandinavia and for a Dutchman those languages are not so difficult to learn. Although I had already learned some Norwegian and have some relatives in Norway I finally decided to study Swedish. I have learned it for two years at the university of Vienna and attended a two week summer course in Uppsala. I am able to speak it quite well and read literature in Swedish - and sometimes in Norwegian and Danish as well.
The main reasons that I choose Swedish were 1) it is the most spoken of the three 2) it is an official language in both Sweden and Finland 3)of the three capitals I like Stockholm far the best. Sweden also has a rich literature, but so have Norway and Denmark. I would say that the mutual intelligibiliy of spoken Swedish and Norwegian is quite good. I was in Norway last week to make a radio programme. I have interviewed people in Swedish who answered in Norwegian and it worked out quite well. Although written Danish looks nearly the same as written Norwegian - in the bokmål form - it is more difficult to understand for both Swedes and Norwegian. However I have read some of Andersen's fairy tales in Danish, although I have never learned the language. I have also tried to learn a little bit of Icelandic in the past, because I was fascinated by the country. The Icelandic grammar however is much more complicated and it is a very small language spoken by only 300.000 people. I you want to learn a language that is understood well in the whole of Scandinavia I would advice to learn either Swedish or Norwegian. I have already put forward the reasons why I have chosen Swedish, but Norwegian is a bit easier to learn. And the Norwegian landscape is definitely spectacular! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| exscribere Diglot Senior Member IndiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5281 days ago 104 posts - 126 votes Speaks: English*, Danish Studies: Mandarin, French, Korean, Hindi | Message 11 of 11 16 June 2010 at 3:25pm | IP Logged |
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I was lucky enough to have the chance to go to Denmark as an exchange student when I was 16. I learned to speak Danish (by the end of the year there, I was being told I sounded like a native, and since I've retained both language and some of my Holte-accent, I probably confuse anyone I speak with). I was once in a situation with a Norwegian man, a Swedish man, and myself: we all chatted away for about an hour with no language stumbles or "I didn't understand that, sorry." situations. There are some spelling & grammatical differences, but in general, I think there's a sufficient similarity and accessibility that you should just look at what you have the most access to, or interest in the materials in.
You will effectively get all 3 from whichever one you choose, so if you have a school that teaches Norwegian nearby and they have a conversation group: go with that so you can practice. If you have friends whose parents are Danish, maybe that's an option so you can speak with them. If you've got a colleague who's Swedish, there's a reason there. I've never had a problem understanding, or being understood, by a speaker of Swedish or Norwegian when I speak Danish (either native speakers, or people who have it as an L2). Based off my experiences, I find Danish cheerfully easy, straightforward and uncomplicated, but... I picked it up when I was 16 and lived there for a year. :) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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