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Should I learn Danish or Norwegian?

  Tags: Danish | Norwegian
 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center Post Reply
49 messages over 7 pages: 1 24 5 6 7  Next >>


Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6462 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
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 Message 17 of 49
24 February 2009 at 11:35pm | IP Logged 
I just have a few comments about Low German and the Scandinavian languages.

As late as in the 15. century 'Plattdüütsch' was without any doubt a language in its own right, and through the traders from the Hanseatic League (basically all major town in Northern Germany) it had an immense impact on the Danish language - at least as important as the English influence now. Even king Christian IV spoke Low German rather than Danish, and king Frederik I before him only spoke Low German. Long after that we had a lot of contact with German-speaking people because we had some German-speaking regions within the kingdom until 1864 - though the higher classes here eventually migrated to high German, leaving Low German to the fishers and peasants.

In spite of a few scattered trading missions Low German never had the same impact in the rest of Scandinavia, and that is one of the factors that have separated Danish from Norwegian and Swedish. But now it is dying, and most people even in Northern Germany don't even care.


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Juan M.
Senior Member
Colombia
Joined 5658 days ago

460 posts - 597 votes 

 
 Message 18 of 49
25 February 2009 at 12:07am | IP Logged 
insane wrote:
also, norway might be really expensive, but weve also got some of the highest salaries around, so yeah.. just dont come here if you run your own private business ;) really, just STAY AWAY from scandinavia all in all if this is what you do.


I find this very interesting. Could you please expand a little bit upon it?


______________


Regarding Scandinavian languages, which would be the most interesting in terms of literature and scholarship, both past and present? What about the arts and culture? Which is the most active and creative?
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Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6462 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
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 Message 19 of 49
25 February 2009 at 1:53am | IP Logged 
JuanM wrote:
Regarding Scandinavian languages, which would be the most interesting in terms of literature and scholarship, both past and present? What about the arts and culture? Which is the most active and creative?


It doesn't matter - any one of the Scandinavian languages has enough valuable stuff to read and enough culture of any kind to keep you occupied for the rest of your life. The problem is how get it all transported over the Atlantic to your place...
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Juan M.
Senior Member
Colombia
Joined 5658 days ago

460 posts - 597 votes 

 
 Message 20 of 49
25 February 2009 at 2:46am | IP Logged 
Iversen wrote:
It doesn't matter - any one of the Scandinavian languages has enough valuable stuff to read and enough culture of any kind to keep you occupied for the rest of your life. The problem is how get it all transported over the Atlantic to your place...


I know my question doesn't have an answer, but still, the attempt to furnish one would nonetheless be enlightening. I can place the various Scandinavian nations in a historical and social context, but sadly I'm not familiar with them in enough detail to make more nuanced distinctions regarding their letters. Thus I often wonder which would be the most rewarding in that sense.

About shipping, I regularly purchase books from Europe and North America, and soon I'll begin ordering from Russia. I'm sure I could do the same with Scandinavia.
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Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6462 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
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 Message 21 of 49
25 February 2009 at 9:44am | IP Logged 
I didn't want just to ward off a perfectly reasonable question, but the alternative would have been to give long lists over authors, painters, musicians and other persons in the cultural sphere for each of the languages. My point is that if you really want to get into the culture of the Nordic countries then you shouldn't bother too much about where you start, there is more than enough in all of them.

However one basic problem with all these countries is that are lots of translations into English, but few into Spanish, and furthermore much of this material doesn't get into the internet for copyright reasons. And few people outside our countries can read the works in their original form. Copyright reasons also have limited the access to audio sources - they are made and they are distributed (mostly to blind people), but rarely offered for free on the internet. And if you are into music the you will find that much of the Scandinavian production is in English, which makes it irrelevant for language learners.

So the problem is not the amount of culture in the Nordic countries, but how to get hold of it.


Edited by Iversen on 25 February 2009 at 9:45am

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Tyr
Senior Member
Sweden
Joined 5541 days ago

316 posts - 384 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Swedish

 
 Message 22 of 49
25 February 2009 at 11:37am | IP Logged 
I don't know. There seems to be a lot of music in Swedish. Swedish radio scarsly has a English language song to be heard.
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insane
Diglot
Newbie
Norway
Joined 5512 days ago

4 posts - 5 votes
Speaks: Norwegian*, English
Studies: German

 
 Message 23 of 49
26 February 2009 at 6:45pm | IP Logged 
JuanM wrote:
insane wrote:
also, norway might be really expensive, but weve also got some of the highest salaries around, so yeah.. just dont come here if you run your own private business ;) really, just STAY AWAY from scandinavia all in all if this is what you do.


I find this very interesting. Could you please expand a little bit upon it?


______________


Regarding Scandinavian languages, which would be the most interesting in terms of literature and scholarship, both past and present? What about the arts and culture? Which is the most active and creative?


cause, if you have a job in, say, the government youll get paid every month, and seeing as norway has got some of the highest salaries around, living in norway would be a good thing - youd earn more money.

but the thing is.. everything here is sooo expensive. alot of people who live close to the boarder to sweden, often travel across the boarder in the weekends to do shopping. sweden is also a very expensive country on world basis, but its not quite as expensive as in norway.

my father runs his own business, and we've both agreed that him living in norway is just plain silly. he does not have a stable income ( as in, one month he can make alot of money, but the next month he might not make any at all), so there are no benefits for him in living in the most expensive country (im pretty sure it is) in the world. he plans to move to the states in the future.

so basically what im trying to say is.. an employee at a norwegian macdonalds will most likely earn more than an employee at an american macdonalds (or pretty much any other country), but then again someone who lives in norway will have to pay generally more money for all the things they want to buy. so the only thing thats positive about living here when it comes to money and economy, is that we can buy alot more stuff when were abroad ( i remember my dad in an armani shop in new york last summer screaming "oh my god! its FREE!" )

do you get what im talking about now? im pretty sure im right. a big mac in norway costs about 60 NOK ( I THINK - i know for sure its more than 40 NOK ), and i remember when i was in CA in 07 i think it was, they had this offer.. every monday a big mac cost only 1 dollar - thats 5 NOK.

another example is video games... here brand new video games are 600 NOK.. that is (or was, before the economic crisis) 120 USD. in the US they cost no more than 60 USD. (i went crazy on gamestop there)

also, sometimes (atleast in canada)they have these offers "buy 2 video games - get one for free". they never could have had that over here - itd be giving away more than 100 dollars!

so its not a great place to run your private business.. as living expenses are huge.
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Tyr
Senior Member
Sweden
Joined 5541 days ago

316 posts - 384 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Swedish

 
 Message 24 of 49
26 February 2009 at 7:12pm | IP Logged 
Yeah. Sweden is expensive but its within the same league as the rest of the world. About comparable to London in prices; less even for many things.
Norway though is just crazy, it plays by utterly different rules.


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