Easiest language for an English speaker? (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Easiest language for an English speaker?
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

80 messages over 10 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 9 10 Next >>

COF
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5829 days ago
262 posts - 354 votes

Speaks: English*

Message 65 of 80

03 June 2012 at 9:11pm | IP Logged

tractor wrote:

COF, you seem to have strong opinions about what Europeans think of each other. You have no idea what you're
talking about. This, for instance, is utterly nonsense:

COF wrote:

So today, the other Scandinavians make fun of the Danes mainly because there is still a slight
bitterness about how they have behaved in the past, although it is mostly good natured and light hearted.

No, you have no idea what you're talking about. Anti-Danish sentiment is common in Norway.

In fact, the whole reason Nynorsk was invented was to make the Norwegian language seem artificially less similar to Danish, because many Norwegian hate the Danes and hate to be associated with them.

The Norwegians say that Danish sounds like Norwegian with a potato in the mouth, or more extreme a form of throat cancer. Many Norwegians are racist against the Danes.

Edited by COF on 03 June 2012 at 9:16pm
3 persons have voted this message useful

Pisces
Bilingual Pentaglot
Senior Member
Finland
Joined 4620 days ago
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Speaks: English*, Finnish*, French, Swedish^C1, Esperanto
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian

Message 66 of 80

03 June 2012 at 9:15pm | IP Logged

I think many Scandinavians do think Danish is uglier than the other Scandinavian languages, mainly I think because Danish sounds more unclear than the others to them (it does to me too). I don't think there is much more to it than that.
1 person has voted this message useful

COF
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5829 days ago
262 posts - 354 votes

Speaks: English*

Message 67 of 80

03 June 2012 at 9:18pm | IP Logged

Also, many Norwegian comedy shows on TV regularly make fun of the Danish and portray them as being dumb and unsophisticated.

Edited by COF on 03 June 2012 at 9:26pm
2 persons have voted this message useful

tractor
Tetraglot
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Norway
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Message 68 of 80

03 June 2012 at 9:27pm | IP Logged

COF, you don't know what you're talking about. You have written a lot of nonsense about what Europeans think and
feel in this thread and in other threads. It is time to shut up and stop trolling.
5 persons have voted this message useful

vonPeterhof
Tetraglot
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Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name
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Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish

Message 69 of 80

03 June 2012 at 9:47pm | IP Logged

COF wrote:

So today, the other Scandinavians make fun of the Danes mainly because there is still a slight bitterness about how they have behaved in the past, although it is mostly good natured and light hearted.

COF wrote:

In fact, the whole reason Nynorsk was invented was to make the Norwegian language seem artificially less similar to Danish, because many Norwegian hate the Danes and hate to be associated with them.

The Norwegians say that Danish sounds like Norwegian with a potato in the mouth, or more extreme a form of throat cancer. Many Norwegians are racist against the Danes.

Are you even keeping track of your trolling? Lurk moar n00b.
5 persons have voted this message useful

clumsy
Octoglot
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Poland
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Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese
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Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi

Message 70 of 80

03 June 2012 at 10:10pm | IP Logged

tarvos wrote:

lol Afrikaans a Dutch creole, it hasn't got to be any funnier

This posting made me curious about this whole 'Afrikaans', so I borrowed a Teach Yourself Afrikaans and... they say in the introduction, that Afrikaans is 'in a sense' a Creole.

1 person has voted this message useful

vonPeterhof
Tetraglot
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Message 71 of 80

03 June 2012 at 10:27pm | IP Logged

clumsy wrote:

tarvos wrote:

lol Afrikaans a Dutch creole, it hasn't got to be any funnier

This posting made me curious about this whole 'Afrikaans', so I borrowed a Teach Yourself Afrikaans and... they say in the introduction, that Afrikaans is 'in a sense' a Creole.

I remember reading somewhere (I'll let someone who is more familiar with the subject correct me if I'm wrong) that there was a bit of a controversy about this. Linguists seem to agree that Afrikaans was influenced both by the natural evolution and intermixing of the dialects of the Dutch settlers and by the so-called "kitchen Dutch", a pidgin that was used for communication between the Dutch and their Khoisan slaves, as well as other non-native Dutch speakers (Malay, Bantu, German, French, English, etc.). The disagreement is over which of those formed the basis of standard Afrikaans. There is a political dimension to this debate, so it's kind of a touchy subject. Interestingly, the Wikipedia article on Afrikaans is included in both the "Dutch-based pidgins and creoles" and "Low Franconian languages" categories - creole languages are generally not included in the families of their parent languages.
1 person has voted this message useful

Serpent
Octoglot
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serpent-849.livejour
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Message 72 of 80

03 June 2012 at 11:09pm | IP Logged

COF wrote:

In fact, the whole reason Nynorsk was invented was to make the Norwegian language seem artificially less similar to Danish, because many Norwegian hate the Danes and hate to be associated with them.

Pffft, nynorsk was introduced over a century ago. Whatever feelings might have existed at that point is irrelevant by now.

The hot potato joke is also used by Finns, perhaps because they have far more exposure to Swedish than to other Scandinavian languages.

Oh and it can't be racism because the race in question is the same.

Next time you claim that a European country X hates the European country Y, see how many points they gave each other at the latest Eurovision contests :)

Edited by Serpent on 03 June 2012 at 11:12pm

4 persons have voted this message useful

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