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Should I learn Danish or Norwegian? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Amoore Senior Member Denmark Joined 5556 days ago 177 posts - 218 votes  Speaks: Danish* | Message 25 of 49 27 February 2009 at 12:39am | IP Logged | ||
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I GOT IT!
Learn norwegian. Live in Denmark. ;D 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| vicizmax Newbie Denmark Joined 5486 days ago 17 posts - 18 votes Speaks: English | Message 26 of 49 18 April 2009 at 12:36am | IP Logged | ||
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Wow wait.. Someone said that they use danish in Greenland..?
No they dont.. Greenland doesnt want to be a part of denmark, but tough for them, denmark's not letting them go..! They speek greenlandic, and that itself has 3 dialects.. Anyway! I say you learn danish :) If you know danish, you understand norwegian and swedish (like others have said) and then it is waaay easier for you to learn German, you can probably already understand quite alot of German words. Thats if you wanted to continue and learn German.. Otherwise it doesnt really make a difference. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Z.J.J Senior Member China Joined 5394 days ago 243 posts - 305 votes Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 27 of 49 21 July 2009 at 7:18am | IP Logged | ||
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1. Bokmål (Book Language)
2. Nynorsk (New Norwegian) If I intend to learn Norwegian, then which language shall I choose? (don't want to learn both of them) Why? Thanks! Edited by Z.J.J on 21 July 2009 at 7:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5695 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 28 of 49 21 July 2009 at 8:55am | IP Logged | ||
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Bokmål - it might seem like an issue to people who aren't familiar with the language, but it's not. Learn bokmål, this is the standard written language that most people use, nynorsk is only marginally important and you will never be required to use it actively so you'll always be able to get by on passive understanding alone.
The things you need to know about it will be things you'll be able to understand after learning bokmål, the things you can't understand from bokmål and context you don't really need to know and us natives don't even always understand it! I couldn't write nynorsk myself and legally I don't think anyone can force me to, and certainly as a foreigner you will never expected to know more than bokmål and understanding anything that might deviate from that standard. If much later you feel like you want to study nynorsk then by all means, but to start with it rather than bokmål would be foolish. You're better off spending your time on bokmål and tackling dialects. Liz 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Z.J.J Senior Member China Joined 5394 days ago 243 posts - 305 votes Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 29 of 49 21 July 2009 at 10:15am | IP Logged | ||
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Liz,
Could you please tell me what was Nynorsk created for? Just to make a clear distinction between Norwegian and Danish, considering the high level of similarities between Bokmål and Danish? Or anything else? Thanks again! Z.J.J Edited by Z.J.J on 21 July 2009 at 10:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5695 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 30 of 49 21 July 2009 at 10:48am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't really know much about this (mostly because I don't care - lots of people don't) but what they taught us in school was that bokmål is mostly just norwegianised Danish and that nynorsk was created after some guy (Ivar Aasen or something?) travelled around the Norwegian countryside taking notes about Norwegian dialects and then created nynorsk as a common alternative to bokmål that was more in touch with Norwegian as it is spoken. It is true that many dialects have traits in common with nynorsk, but most of us who speak those dialects resent the implication...! I wouldn't say that nynorsk is an accurate representation of non-standard Norwegian, mainly because of its at times ridiculous vocabulary. We have some good laughs about it sometimes.
You'll do fine with just bokmål. Yes you will need to learn about dialects if you want to understand spoken Norwegian, but you don't have to study nynorsk for that, just study bokmål and then practice listening to every bit of audio input you can get your hands on - because there are a LOT of different dialects to master. Nothing to be intimidated by, but such is life, and you'll probably enjoy it more than you'll resent it (hopefully). If they ever invent magic plug-and-play language learning devices for humans you'd probably benefit from knowing nynorsk, but until then... Ignore it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6489 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 31 of 49 21 July 2009 at 12:21pm | IP Logged | ||
Wrong - It's totally up to the Greenlanders when they leave. They have now total control with their own underground, and Greenlandic is now the official language up there, which means that Danish speaking administrative personel leave in droves. The problem is that Denmark pays a large part of their public budget, and they have not wanted to say goodbye to that. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Tupiniquim Senior Member Brazil Joined 5869 days ago 184 posts - 217 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, Russian | Message 32 of 49 21 July 2009 at 2:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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. Edited by Tupiniquim on 01 August 2009 at 12:00am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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