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Tackling Germanic languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Ygangerg Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5108 days ago 100 posts - 140 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, French Studies: German | Message 1 of 15 22 January 2011 at 3:46am | IP Logged | ||
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I am seeking advice about learning Germanic languages. I've been studying Icelandic for a couple months, and while I'm making progress, it's certainly a task. While technically my native language, English, is Germanic, I've found I can pick up Spanish, French and Italian much quicker than a new Germanic language. Here's my question: from the standpoint that my long-term goal is to learn a handful of Germanic languages, would it be more effective to first gain control of a closer cousin to English (like German or Dutch) and then proceed? That is, by starting with a challenge like Icelandic, am I dooming myself to slower progress down the line than if I started with Dutch?
What would seasoned polyglots recommend as an intro to the Germanic languages, not in terms of real-world practicality, but from a purely linguistic standpoint? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6739 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 2 of 15 22 January 2011 at 4:05am | IP Logged | ||
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German, because it has a great wealth of study materials for learning the other Germanic
languages, and because if you end your endeavor there you'll still be left with a useful and widely-spoken language. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6946 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 3 of 15 22 January 2011 at 4:41am | IP Logged | ||
I would give a serious look at Afrikaans. I've been quite surprised by how similar it is to English. It's not so much in the grammar (here it is more similar to what I see in English than in German) but the vocabulary has obviously high overlap with Dutch and to a lesser extent German. Afrikaans can serve as a useful bridge between English and ultimately learning other Germanic languages. For me personally, it's surprisingly easy to figure out using a background English and German, to say nothing about how much of a breeze it would be if I were to know Dutch. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Mithridates Newbie Korea, South pagef30.com Joined 5466 days ago 21 posts - 36 votes | Message 4 of 15 23 January 2011 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm also a fan of Afrikaans and would recommend it to anyone that is interested in
Germanic languages but isn't planning on going abroad within the next while. The best site to learn it is this: http://www.openlanguages.net/afrikaans but the other day I found the entire New Testament recorded at faithcomesbyhearing.com (the 1983 translation) in Afrikaans and listened to the whole thing. A rare treat since finding audio and matching text in Afrikaans is almost impossible. It's not a religious thing either - I would read and listen to a book of any subject if it's Afrikaans. The best way to do it is to use Google Translate in a new tab but with the original text showing, then use mouseover to view the translation when you need it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Didgeridoo Newbie United States Joined 4943 days ago 28 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish | Message 5 of 15 23 January 2011 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Afrikaans and Dutch would both be good stepping stones towards German and other Germanic languages. But since you're already into Icelandic, perhaps it would help you more to pick up Norwegian or Swedish...
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mithridates Newbie Korea, South pagef30.com Joined 5466 days ago 21 posts - 36 votes | Message 6 of 15 23 January 2011 at 7:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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By the way, re-reading the op I noticed this:
>a closer cousin to English (like German or Dutch) and then proceed? That is, by starting with a challenge like Icelandic, am I dooming myself to slower progress down the line than if I started with Dutch? I'm not sure if German or Dutch are actual closer cousins to English. Technically they are West Germanic along with English but Icelandic word order is much more natural to an English speaker and has a lot of interesting hidden cognates. Having both English th sounds is also nice. Apparently Old English and Icelandic were more or less mutually intelligible too. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| w.shipley Groupie United States Joined 5466 days ago 42 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English* | Message 7 of 15 23 January 2011 at 9:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Personally, I find Icelandic to be one of the more exotic and interesting choices - both
linguistically and culturally. I think if you really enjoy it you should stick with that one and then move on to a language that "makes more sense," like German or Dutch. Either that or start with German and then move around in the family as you please. But, that's just what I would do. Good luck! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5932 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 8 of 15 23 January 2011 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you're looking for a good starting point for the Germanic languages, I'd also say that German is a good starting point. Although it's more complicated than others like Dutch or Swedish, there are many more resources for it than those other languages, as Lucky Charms pointed out. After German, Dutch and Swedish will be a breeze and some of the difficulty of Icelandic will probably be reduced (just a guess though, since I've never studied Icelandic myself).
If the amount of resources isn't a problem, then Dutch or Afrikaans could also be good choices for a native English speaker. The Scandinavian languages (Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish) are also easy choices, but they're a little more distant from English than Dutch/Afrikaans/German. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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