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Icelandic or not? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| eoinda Tetraglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 5743 days ago 101 posts - 113 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, Spanish, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 1 of 16 26 May 2009 at 3:25pm | IP Logged |
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Right now I'm in two minds about whether to start studying Icelandic or to wait with it. I love Icelandic it is such a
beautiful language and I speak Swedish so it shouldn't be to hard I can already understand some of it. Right now I'm studying a lot of Spanish. My Spanish skills are intermediate bordering to basic fluency in some areas. I have read quite a lot of books in Spanish and my comprehension is fine but I'm a horrible speaker mostly because I'm to slow. When it comes to Mandarin I have barely started I'm just learning a few basic words and sentences and basically getting used to the language. So I would be learning Icelandic and Mandarin at the same time. Is that a good idea? Sure Icelandic and Mandarin would be hard to confuse but anyway. Are there any good materials for Icelandic? I know that small languages are usually problematic when it comes to materials. [Edit:typo] Edited by eoinda on 28 May 2009 at 4:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6704 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 16 26 May 2009 at 4:48pm | IP Logged |
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First of all, as you have already said, you won't mix them up, so go ahead. The worst thing that can happen is that you get bored and quit either of the two languages.
As for resources, you may have seen http://icelandic.hi.is/ which is a free online course. There are also Teach Yourself Icelandic, Colloquial Icelandic, and of course real material - written sources such as the Edda. Good luck. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| locheachles Bilingual Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5456 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese* Studies: Polish, Russian, Dutch | Message 3 of 16 26 May 2009 at 5:30pm | IP Logged |
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I have forayed into Icelandic before myself, and do keep in mind the material is very limited. But you are in Sweden so there isn't too much preventing you from getting there within in a reasonable price. Move there for a summer and you'd be near operational noting the language similarities. Then you won't have to study too much directly and can focus on getting more ground in Sino languages.
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 magister Pro Member United States Joined 6398 days ago 346 posts - 421 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Turkish, Irish Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 16 26 May 2009 at 11:18pm | IP Logged |
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Here are two more links:
Mímir: A decent grammar reference. Icelandic Online Dictionary and Readings: There are parallel Icelandic-English readings here which are aimed at beginners. Great for practice. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6167 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 5 of 16 27 May 2009 at 1:30am | IP Logged |
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Yes finding materials for it is hard.
The old linguaphone Icelandic is the best I've come across for learning Icelandic. Colloquial Icelandic is also very good. Edited by zerothinking on 27 May 2009 at 1:32am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6111 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 6 of 16 29 May 2009 at 5:10am | IP Logged |
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Uz-translations has an electronic copy of the apparently excellent Linguaphone Icelandic course, so you'd do very well to obtain that as well.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Tupiniquim Senior Member Brazil Joined 5878 days ago 184 posts - 217 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, Russian | Message 7 of 16 31 May 2009 at 10:41pm | IP Logged |
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. Edited by Tupiniquim on 01 August 2009 at 12:03am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5633 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 8 of 16 01 June 2009 at 1:02am | IP Logged |
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eoinda, I don't think you have to actually study it in a conventional way, since you are Swedish.
A friend of mine (Swedish) moved there, and when I went visiting her about 6-7 months afterwards, she seemed to be speaking Icelandic, more or less. She could understand what people were saying while I hardly understood anything. She said it was just like a "switch" and once she understood how it was different from Swedish, and learnt a the words that are unique to Icelandic, it was not very hard... Plus the Icelanders where able to switch to a more "Nordic-friendly" way of speaking if she didn't understand. I was very impressed but I met some Norwegians there, and they said the same thing although they got frustrated because of some of the Icelandic words that are very different from Norwegian and they had not expected that. I think the Icelanders have made up their own words for quite a lot of modern words, instead of using English imports. My friend had no prior knowledge and she said she hadn't made a big effort, just spent a few hours here and there checking books etc. She is not particularly talented with languages and was on Iceland to do biology research. However she's still there because she likes it and met someone.. Anyway, I think you could approach in a different way than you would approach Russian, Italian or some language that is completely different from Swedish. It wouldn't surprise me if there is material specifically for Swedes or other Scandinavians which is "shortcuts" since you don't have to start from scratch like an English or French person would. When I was in school there was a mandatory couple of weeks or so of "Nordic language comprehension" as part of Swedish. Nobody had any trouble with No / Dk but of course, Icelandic was a problem. However the teacher said she was able to understand it, and proved by dissecting some spoken Icelandic (supposedly). I really think it's a matter of practicing and like my friend said; exposure and some basic information will allow you to understand and speak it. Getting something like Pimsleur Icelandic (if there is one) seems OTT for a Scandinavian person. Edited by cordelia0507 on 01 June 2009 at 12:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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