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My progress in Icelandic | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| uliuliuli Triglot Newbie Finland Joined 6255 days ago 22 posts - 22 votes Speaks: German*, English, French Studies: Norwegian, Finnish | Message 1 of 13 16 August 2007 at 8:22pm | IP Logged |
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After a long break I finally started learning this horrible, uhm challenging language again a few days ago. I mean, it's embarrassing. I spent one year studying at the University of Iceland, I took Icelandic courses there which I finished with good grades, now I'm living here again with my Icelandic boyfriend and still I'm not able to communicate in Icelandic. I rarely understand what people are talking about, I'm not able to form reasonable sentences, and I don't dare to say anything unless I'm really confident about it (which is hardly ever the case, of course). However, this is going to change now.
I finished Unit 3 (out of 6) of Icelandic Online 1 (icelandic.hi.is) today, trying to figure out what they were saying before looking at the text, and typed and mastered more than 100 words with my vocabulary trainer. If I'll go on like that, I'll be fluent very soon :) Edited by uliuliuli on 16 August 2007 at 8:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| rafaelrbp Pentaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 6956 days ago 181 posts - 201 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, Spanish, English, French, Italian Studies: German | Message 2 of 13 16 August 2007 at 9:53pm | IP Logged |
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Please keep us updated on your progress.
I'm not interested in learning the language myself, but I'm curious to know how your native German can help in your task (as both are Germanic languages), and how fast you will learn it staying in Iceland. Good luck on the task, by the way. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| uliuliuli Triglot Newbie Finland Joined 6255 days ago 22 posts - 22 votes Speaks: German*, English, French Studies: Norwegian, Finnish | Message 3 of 13 16 August 2007 at 10:27pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you!
Well, obviously it hasn't helped me enough, though I've already been staying here for two years (with some interruptions). I had made quite an effort in the beginning, but after some months I gave up. I consider myself quite gifted in languages and I never thought I'd be staying in a country without knowing the language, but Icelandic seemed impossible for me to learn, or at least the cost-benefit ratio would be way too high. Having German as a mother tongue does help with guessing some words, and the grammar has a similar structure. Still you have to the two big challenges of learning all that terrible grammar and of mastering and understanding the totally different pronunciation. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6646 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 13 17 August 2007 at 4:09am | IP Logged |
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Being a German should be a great help, - after all you have the same cases as Icelandic. The one thing you don't have is the suffixed article.
I made the following table to help me learn the declension of nouns and adjective. I wrote it on a sheet of green paper (in landscape format) to keep it separate from everything else and kept it visible while I was reading, so that I could immediately check any suspicious form in the text. I have only written the endings, but with a special mark at the forms with u-'Umlaut' (for instance Nom.+Acc. feminine af the strong adjectives).. In each column I have the forms for Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Genitive, - singular and plural. Across the sheet I have blocks for Masculine, Feminine and Neuter. In each block I have the following columns: The 'free' adjective* (-ur etc.) The 'free' article (hinn etc.) The most important 2-3 strong noun endings (-ur, -ir) The most important 1-2 weak noun endings (-i) The suffixed article (-inn) Note that dative [-umnum] is simplified to -u-num, - I have put a cross over the 'm' to remember this. The whole thing is written with thick and thin lines to mark the importance of each division. The columns woith noun endings basically are grouped according to the form of the nominative plural, because it is here you really see the differences, - not in the nominative singular. I cut down on the number of traditional noun declensions because some of these (for instance those of the words for family members) only pertain to a small number of words, and these groups aren't productive - such words should be treated as exceptions to the general system. Setting up this system basically taught me the forms, and being able to consult it all the time hammered it into my memory. * In the traditional grammars the 'free' adjective is called 'strong' and the 'bound' adjective is called 'weak', but this is a quatsionable habit as all adjectives have these two sets of endings. On the contrary there are strong and weak nouns and strong and weak verbs, and these groups are different ets of words. The method may not work for you, but it has worked for me. Edited by Iversen on 17 August 2007 at 4:11am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| uliuliuli Triglot Newbie Finland Joined 6255 days ago 22 posts - 22 votes Speaks: German*, English, French Studies: Norwegian, Finnish | Message 5 of 13 17 August 2007 at 8:39am | IP Logged |
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I still don't understand why it would be of so much help to me that my native language has the same cases etc. I mean, it doesn't change that I have to learn all the endings for an endless (well, almost?) amount of declension groups and then there are still lots of exceptions... And it doesn't even make sense to me. Like, why is the same suffix used for the masculine singular of one group and for the feminine plural of another one? "-in" can be the definite article for feminine singular, but also for neuter plural, and so on.
So far I've had a much easier time with the Finnish grammar. It's not like any language I know, but: it's totally logic. I'm just amazed by how much sense those rules make (well, might also be that I don't know enough of them yet..). I can learn stuff so much easier when I find it convincing. As for Icelandic, I'm currently trying to avoid studying any grammar rules at all. I know some basics and I'm getting a feeling for how a word/combination should sound. I'll just try and feed as many whole sentences as possible to my brain so it can figure it out itself. Maybe it'll work :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6852 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 13 17 August 2007 at 9:40am | IP Logged |
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Even if the endings are different (after all, they are two separate languages) I think you have a significant advantage in being aware of cases, their function and possibly how to use them. Somebody coming from a language that doesn't "work" the case way would probably find it more difficult to grasp.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6646 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 13 17 August 2007 at 7:01pm | IP Logged |
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The Anglophones cry whenever they see a language with declensions. At least you are used to them, and the use of each case in German and Icelandic is not very different. Choose your cases as you do in German, and the result will be correct more often than not.
As for avoiding grammar: if you don't like to look at tables then at least try to look out for different combinations of articles (both kinds), adjectives and nouns and memorize type specimens of each combination. You need some kind of system, otherwise the many endings that are used with several meanings different places in the system will just continue to confuse you. Edited by Iversen on 17 August 2007 at 7:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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