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Swedish Norwegian Danish - intelligible | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6507 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 9 of 49 27 November 2008 at 4:01am | IP Logged | ||
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The kind of reception you get from people from a certain cultural/linguistical area is one thing, interintelligibility is quite another. I have only commented on the latter, and my main criterium for saying that the Iberoromance languages are as close to each other as the Nordic languages is the number of shared words and the obvious parallelisms in grammar. When I at long last decided to learn Portuguese properly in 2006 it only took me one month from buying a trip to Cabo Verde and to get there. I spoke Portuguese to all the locals (except one lady who preferred French) without any noticeable problems, and this would of course have been totally impossible if I hadn't been able to draw on my knowledge of Castilian and other Romance languages. I guess that the amount of work it would take for a Spaniard or Portuguese who already knew Danish to add Swedish would be roughly the same, but of course that can only be my guess.
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| SlickAs Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5681 days ago 185 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Swedish Studies: Thai, Vietnamese | Message 10 of 49 28 November 2008 at 6:05am | IP Logged | ||
I can't argue with you on that (in that I have never tried to learn Norwegian or Portugese). Just for the record: Swedish was much easier for me than Spanish. Swedish was the first language I learned to basic fluency. I found coming to French from Spanish (and English and Swedish) much more difficult than coming to Swedish from English as a first ever language. I really do not find Scandinavian languages difficult at all. But that said, given I am an English speaker, to speak to a Swede in Swedish is to say to him or her that I speak Swedish better than he/she speaks English. Given that Swedes outside Sweden will have left their borders because they are proud of (or confident in) their English, it is almost an insult to insist upon Swedish. This is not the case with Spanish. So being able to speak Swedish is not really about communication. You can communicate anyway. It really works much better when socialising with a group of Swedes in that they want to speak Swedish to each other and you can join in without competing about whose English/Swedish is better. In some ways it is easier with Norwegians because you can understand them (and I have trouble understanding Danes), and still interact with them like Swedes but with just the "he gets us, and speaks Swedish" without having to make mistakes, etc. Ultimately, you learn a Scandinavian language not to "get by" but to get a passport, or key to their language, society, values, friendships. This is wildy different to Spanish or Portugese where you need to speak the language just to order a meal. So zerothinking, in his original question about whether Swedish helps you with Norwegian and Danish, the answer is "yes". You can understand the other languages when they are written, and your ability to speak one of them allows you to socialise and meet the people of all of them. To me, from Spainish, Italian seems trivial (I have watched on TV Italian films subtitled in Spanish, and they are translating "to prefer" as "to like"), but similarly Norwegian or Danish from Swedish seems trivial also (in how many films does a Swede enter a Danish villiage? Thinking "Babettes Feast", or "Elvira Maddigan" or Bergman films or how many times do you see Max von Sydow in a Danish film understanding rapid fire Danish spoken at him and replying in Swedish?). I know that Christopher Columbus went from Italy to Spain and was sponsored there, so I am with you on it. Pele speaks beautiful Spanish and I have heard him commentate football in Argentina. It does not seem to me to be quite as trivial. But if you could learn Portugese in a month, you would know best since I have never tried to learn Danish or Norwegian. I think it is fair to say though, that learning one Scandinavian language gives you a key to the people of Scandinavia. [EDIT] I would be surprised if it took me a whole month of study to be able to "get by" in Danish or Norwegian if I did an FSI or something. Edited by SlickAs on 28 November 2008 at 6:18am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| lase Diglot Newbie United States pluble.netRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5890 days ago 31 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Danish, Italian, French | Message 11 of 49 29 November 2008 at 4:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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From what I've heard from Danish friends, they can speak to a swede and the swede can understand what they're saying but when the swede talks in Swedish, they have a bit of trouble figuring out what is being said. Danish and Norwegian are, from my experience, are much more similar then Danish and Swedish.
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| tricoteuse Pentaglot Senior Member Norway littlang.blogspot.co Joined 6482 days ago 745 posts - 845 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Norwegian, EnglishC1, Russian, French Studies: Ukrainian, Bulgarian | Message 12 of 49 29 November 2008 at 6:18pm | IP Logged | ||
I have read this too in a book published by some Scandinavian language association. I really can't remember the name of that book though. Well, I will, as always, insist on that Swedes don't understand Danish. I have met perhaps 2-3 Swedes who have said they could understand it, while everyone else just says that it is impossible. Most Norwegians I talk to say they can't understand it either. And the Norwegians almost understand Swedish as well as they want to believe (but some actually say they can't understand WRITTEN Swedish, and that I really can't understand) and Swedes are quite poor at understanding Norwegian, but manage anyway. When I brought my boyfriend to Sweden I had to translate to my dad though, and help him out in shops... He, in his turn, has to translate me to his friends, and I have to speak really slow. However, the knowledge among the Swedes may increase somewhat now that every other Swede goes to Norway in order to work. It should be noted that I speak from experience about the north of Sweden, and as everyone knows, that part of the country doesn't actually exist and has no real importance :) --> As a comparison, I could perhaps add that I personally, with a fluent understanding of Norwegian, probably understand more of spoken Russian than I do of spoken Danish! And one final note: don't forget that Norway has a lot of very weird dialects. Swedes may understand the Oslo dialect ok, but give them someone from Bergen or Stavanger? That's another thing altogether... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6713 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 13 of 49 29 November 2008 at 7:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Perhaps it's just me, but when SVT showed the Norwegian series "Sju systrar" in 1999/2000, I could understand most of it without looking at the Swedish subs as well as any random show/series/movie in English. And I like the Bergen accent A LOT.
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| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6507 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 14 of 49 29 November 2008 at 8:58pm | IP Logged | ||
You definitely have a point there. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| SlickAs Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5681 days ago 185 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Swedish Studies: Thai, Vietnamese | Message 15 of 49 30 November 2008 at 7:37am | IP Logged | ||
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I have a question for you guys (that is better answered here than in other places): I had always understood that to learn Norwegian would be to turn my Swedish into Norwegian, and you can not ligitimately speak both. That is to say, to learn Norwegian would be to change my Swedish into Norwegian and loose my Swedish in the process.
In other words, I have heard (from many people) that it is not possible to speak more than 1 Scandinavian language fluently (without speaking in a false accent ... like an Australian speaking in a Scotts accent, word choice and vocab to pass himself off as Scottish). Is this true? Are there any actors/footballers/politicians that speak both? Do any of you speak another of the Scandinavian languages? And feel natural with it? Would it feel like "putting on a false accent"? Because I would love to speak Norwegian if I could keep my Swedish. Edited by SlickAs on 30 November 2008 at 8:02am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5946 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 16 of 49 30 November 2008 at 9:18am | IP Logged | ||
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I often feel similarly with Portuguese and Spanish--when trying to speak Portuguese, I find myself starting to throw in Spanish words (when I don't know what the word is in Portuguese) and pronouncing them with a Portuguese accent. However, I believe that my learning of Portuguese has actually strengthened my knowledge of Spanish...
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