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The most comfortable languages to learn | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Via Diva Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4031 days ago 1109 posts - 1427 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek | Message 17 of 32 21 August 2014 at 7:59pm | IP Logged |
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Since I consider myself not very experienced, and therefore somewhat limited learner, I have to warn you that these marks probably aren't objective and very useful, this is merely my vision of things.
I have to mention that I don't even look at non-free/ unavailable even in pirate sources content... Amount and quality of learner aimed resources for beginners English: 10/10. This is a fact, but I didn't have the need for that, because I started to learn English in school. I guess there might be a problem of choice - there should be an overwhelming amount of materials, including fake ones. German: 8/10. Lots of materials with different qualities, but i think that English outweighs German in this area without a doubt. There is also a plenty of Russian-based materials, if I hadn't known some English I could easily start from Russian textbooks only. Amount and quality of learner aimed resources for intermediate and advanced levels English: 10/10. Same story as above. German: 8/10. I haven't dealt with intermediate materials, but this goes by the same scheme. I know that there is the analogue of A J Hoge for German, but I also know that it's way worse - only from comments, though. Amount of books, movies etc. originally in the language. English: 10/10. It's strictly personal, because we are attracted by different things. A few days ago I was talking to a person, who claims that English is culturally useless language. He's wrong when it comes to the whole picture, but I (partially) understand and agree with his negative position, since he writes that he likes philosophy. German: 7/10. Those, who want, will found what they need. But I see now, that i don't adapt German materials to my taste, but change my taste to find more material. This way I got into avant-garde music, which has some representation in German, from progressive metal, which I still can't find in any language, but English. Availability of native books, movies etc. from abroad English: 10/10. I can find English books in local bookstores, and I don't live in Moscow (although my hometown is relatively big anyway). I never tried to order a book or a movie from outside Russia, so I can't say anything else. German: 7/10. In terms of pirate sources, local bookstores and free content situation is that worse. In addition to lower popularity of German we have a priori smaller amount or native material. Attitude of natives towards learners and foreigners in general English: 7/10. It is a matter of luck. Some will be irritated (you still don't know these rules), some will just ignore your mistakes, and some will help.The problem is that there are too many of English speakers, and even more learners. German: 9/10. This is a pure guess, because all my efforts to actually make a contact with native German speaker failed, and I am still somewhat not ready to try more. But every time I had help it was great, I never heard a single rude word about my (let's face it) poor German. Spread of the natives in other countries English: 7/10. English is everywhere, and yet this is a bad thing to say. English native speakers doesn't come here (I mean my hometown) for language exchange. I met native speaker just once at a school lesson, even our university is worse that way so far. German: 7/10. Theoretically I should be bumping in German natives quite often, since we have a local German community. But I guess this community wore thin dramatically. I had German-speaking neighbors once, I bumped into a German tourist a month ago, and if I was thinking about language exchange I would surely get some, I think. Popularity among learners and availability of good quality tutors, teachers or even classes English: 10/10. No comment. German: 7/10. In comparison to English, German was second for a long time, and now he's going down in charts, but still is quite popular here. In big cities there are a plenty of classes, but you can find a teacher or a class in smaller ones too. Scores English: 64/70 German: 53/70 Edited by Via Diva on 21 August 2014 at 8:01pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4380 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 18 of 32 21 August 2014 at 10:53pm | IP Logged |
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Esperanto
Amount and quality of learner-aimed resources for beginners: 9 I think Esperanto stands a good chance of winning the prize for being easy to learn from the greatest number of native languages. The website lernu.net is fully translated into over 30 languages (with partial translations into several more) and features all the resources you need to get a good grounding in the language. For those who prefer to learn offline there are a variety of book-based courses too, including 'Teach Yourself Esperanto' which is out-of-print but fairly easy to get hold of second-hand. The larger national Esperanto associations provide their own courses for beginners, many of which are correspondence courses where a tutor will mark your lessons for you. Amount and quality of learner-aimed resources for intermediate and advanced levels: 6 Lernu features courses for intermediate and advanced speakers, as well tests to check your progress. Other popular alternatives include Boris Kolker's 'Internacia Perfektiga Koresponda Kurso', which aims to perfect your Esperanto to the level of a novelist, and William Auld's 'Traduku', a collection of (English) translation exercises with model translations. To be honest, most Esperanto-speakers complete a basic course and then find they have already mastered the language well enough to participate fully in events etc without needing to study further courses. There is no shortage of good Esperanto dictionaries; John Well's dictionary is the most modern, comprehensive one for English-speakers. ReVo is an excellent online dictionary. Amount of books, movies etc originally in the language: 5 Contrary to what some people believe, there is no shortage of original Esperanto literature. Geoffrey Sutton's Concise Encyclopedia of the Original Literature of Esperanto has 740 pages. 'Star in a Night Sky' is an anthology of original Esperanto literature translated into English, which may be of interest for beginners wanting to get a feel for the range of material available in Esperanto. Movies, on the other hand, are lacking, so I have only scored it as a 5. There are a couple of movies, but they are so bad we don't talk about them. We have radio though. Availability of native books, movies etc. from abroad: 6 Esperanto books are always expensive, I guess because the print runs are so small. Good Esperanto bookstores are run by UEA (World Esperanto Association), FEL (Flanders Esperanto League), Esperanto-USA and EAB (Esperanto Association of Britain). EAB has an ebay page where second-hand books and library duplicates are sold off cheaply (disclaimer - I am a trustee of EAB; the association makes a small amount of money from each book sale, although it is a not-for-profit so I don't get a penny!). Shipping costs can be a problem with Esperanto books; you can avoid them by purchasing books in person at a congress, although the cost of flying to a congress may be more than the postage ;) Attitudes of natives towards learners and foreigners in general: 9 Native speakers are fairly irrelevant for Esperanto, but existing speakers are usually thrilled to meet new people who are learning. Even if you meet Esperanto-speakers who share your native language, they are unlikely to switch to that language unless you are visibly struggling to understand; Esperanto has a verb 'krokodili' to express the concept of using your native language in a situation where you should be speaking Esperanto. Spread of the natives in other countries: 5 You're unlikely to bump into an Esperanto-speaker by chance anywhere in the world, but if you hunt for them they are all over the place. The World Esperanto Association has members in 121 different countries. Countries with (comparatively) large concentrations of speakers include Brazil, France, Germany and Japan. Most European countries have an organised Esperanto 'movement' and there are little clubs springing up all the time in Africa. I once taught an Esperanto correspondence course to a class of schoolchildren in Ghana. Popularity among learners and availability of good quality tutors, teachers or even classes: 5 If popularity matters to you, Esperanto is not for you ;) You will spend half your life trying to explain to people what it is and why you speak it. There are good quality classes and tutors, though. The annual SES event is a week-long course in Slovakia run by the people behind the Lernu website; it features Esperanto classes in the mornings and less formal activities like excursions in the afternoons. The most prestigious course in North America is NASK, an intensive study program which also takes place each summer. Overall - 45/70 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4051 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 19 of 32 21 August 2014 at 11:58pm | IP Logged |
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I don't have personal experience in all these areas, but I'll try my best.
Cantonese Amount and quality of learner aimed resources for beginners: 7 There's tons of beginner Cantonese courses, all the popular choices are represented, Assimil, FSI, DLI, TY, Colloquial as well as several courses unique to Cantonese like Sydney Lau. Unfortunately a lot of Cantonese courses tend to be the lesser quality courses of these popular programs, but there's certainly enough material if you're alright with modifying, mixing, and matching resources to get there. Amount and quality of learner aimed resources for intermediate and advanced levels: 6 They exist. Amount of books, movies etc. originally in the language: 7 This is a bit tricky to answer. In the 70s-90s Hong Kong had a very strong film industry and produced thousands of great Cantonese language films. Unfortunately, Cantonese is very rarely written down the same way as spoken, so book resources containing actual spoken Cantonese are thin, but books written in Chinese can be used to practice characters and expand vocabulary. Availability of native books, movies etc. from abroad: 7 Similar answer as before, thanks to actors like Jackie Chan, Cantonese cinema is world famous and tons DVDs are easily available in many countries. Books suffer the same problem as above of not really existing. Attitude of natives towards learners and foreigners in general: 8 I don't have personal experience with this, but my impression is that its quite positive. Spread of the natives in other countries: 8 With a bit of searching, Cantonese speakers are everywhere Popularity among learners and availability of good quality tutors, teachers or even classes: 5 I'm not too sure, the people who study Cantonese tend to be really passionate about it, but outside that select group its not very popular because Mandarin is seen as the more "useful" language. Final Score: 48/70 Seems a bit high to me, but Cantonese is really a lot better off than a lot of other less popular languages thanks to the fanatical commitment of its learners in finding and preparing resources. All of you who aren't giving stuff like German and French 68-70 are bonkers. Edited by YnEoS on 21 August 2014 at 11:59pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| MRoss Newbie Australia Joined 5975 days ago 15 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, German, Spanish | Message 20 of 32 23 August 2014 at 4:46am | IP Logged |
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Dutch
Generally, people mainly learn Dutch if they are going to the Netherlands for work/study (31%) or have a boyfriend/girlfriend/partner who speaks Dutch (23%). There are other reasons (curiosity, dutch parents in an English speaking country, son/daughter significant other is Dutch/Belgium, etc.) but these are the main two. Amount and quality of learner aimed resources for beginners: 7 There are the standard resources - Pimsleur, Michel Thomas, etc. But they only cover basic level. And there are the ususal Assimil and Hugo courses. Strangely, there is no Dutch available from fsi. While there are some podcasts, they aren't up to date. The more well known ones haven't done one in a while, for example. In essence, you'll probably need to develop your own system based on proven DIY methods. And work that in with the Dutchgrammar website for refined information. If you know where to look my maties aarrrrr you can get your Pim, MT, Assimil and Hugo for free. It's kickass to get free stuff like that. You'll also find well known text and audio books in Dutch (and English of course) - eg Harry Potter, Hunger Games. So you can translate them into English, or compare them to the English versions, as part of your learning. As language learning is a multi faceted approach, use what you can get. If that's fiction books with course work as supplementation, or course first, then use it. Once you begin, the online community of Dutch learners becomes more visible to you and you find more and more things to help. This isn't a line up all your ducks first, language. It's a begin and go from there, language. I've scored it a seven as I think English is a ten, Spanish a 9, French and German an 8, and Dutch lower than that. But there is enough out there to get someone going. Amount and quality of learner aimed resources for intermediate and advanced levels: 1 Neither Pimsleur nor Michel Thomas offer intermediate or advanced CD packs. And after you have finished with Assimil or Hugo you are on your own. This should not really be a problem for people on this site, as DIY methods should get you to those levels without relying on store bought material. I have rated this low because I feel once you are beyond beginner, after having done those beginner type things, your further study is not reliant on, for example, a higher Hugo or Assimil course. But rather, you will have created your own system. So any Assimil or Hugo type course isn't needed per se. Amount of books, movies etc. originally in the language: 5 This is hard to rate because, yes there are original works, but who says X amount is good, bad or other. It's certainly enough to start with and keep you going (afterall, Dutch people require books and movies in Dutch), but nowhere near the volume of say Spanish work. Just a matter of population numbers that speak it. 20 odd million Dutch vs 300+ million Spanish. I've given this a 5 because I placed English at 10, Spanish 9, French and German at 8, Russian at 7, Italian at 6 and Dutch at 5. Fewer people speaking, produce fewer native works. Doesn't mean there aren't enough to obtain and use, just the the Amount is less than created in other languages that have more people speaking them. Availability of native books, movies etc. from abroad: 3 While you can find online stores to buy stuff, delivery and other costs make it cost prohibitive. Your best bet is to download stuff. TV shows can be found online either from the show's website or on youtube. I've scored this low based on local availability of tangible books and DVDs. If you are willing to pay the hefty shipping prices and Euro conversion rates, then heaps is available. If you download online, then heaps is available. Local availability though, is pathetic. Attitude of natives towards learners and foreigners in general: 3 One of the common frustrations of learners in the Netherlands is how quickly the Dutch switch to English. At the first hint of an accent, even if your Dutch is perfect, they will speak to you in English. One lady born there even told how she finished a phone call to her English speaking boyfriend then turned to conduct her business and even though she spoke Dutch with a Dutch accent, because the other person had heard her English they spoke to her in English. The reason for this is, it generally leads to faster and more accurate communication - because they know English better than you know Dutch. And from experience, most people struggle with word order and verb differences depending on where in the sentence the verb appears and a few other factors. So instead of struggling painfully through a conversation they just make it easier for you. It's their desire to make it easier on you, not arrogance or despising learners. The Netherlands is a quite liberal country. They are happy to let you be who you are and do what you do. Segregate yourself into a cultural enclave or join them. Whatever makes you happy. Locally, you will be asked Why you want to learn Dutch. I think, because it is such a minor language in the overall scheme of second language learning, they are somewhat surprised people want to learn it. They just want to make sure they aren't wasting their time as well as find out what kind of tutoring you will need. Do you want survival Dutch for a holiday or is it a more total fluency you are after. Spread of the natives in other countries: 7 The Dutch have spread everywhere. Though you might find it difficult to locate a local Dutch club, community or gathering. And they all speak good English. So it's unlikely you'll find a local person interested in a language exchange. If you cannot find a local club, try searching for a "borrel". A "your city borrel." As with many Dutch things, you will have more success searching using Dutch words and not English words. And while there is no direct translation for borrel, think of it as a social gathering or get together - eg a coffee shop meetup, a few drinks at a bar, a day in the park, a private bbq, etc. Popularity among learners and availability of good quality tutors, teachers or even classes: 1 Occasionally, one of the local universities will run a night school, but otherwise nothing. So miss that and you'll have to wait until the next one. The local Dutch club could not even help me with finding a tutor! I searched far and wide and my first tutor was a native Dutch backpacker who ran an ad - she could speak 4 languages, did a thesis on parts of the Dutch language and her Masters in another language. She didn't force me into her method but worked with my own system. Since her departure I have found two other people who offer to help, but finding them took a Lot of legwork - many hours of online searching, repeated evey few days as people do not advertise all the time; and many dead end phone calls. There is generally no call for Dutch language learning in my city or the nearby city. And those I have found have no language teaching experience, but are willing to work with me as best they can. Essentially, what has happened is, after WWII, the clubs and associations came into existence with the influx of migrants. Those people are diminishing in number. Fewer attend the club and association events as the younger generation born here have other interests. That means, that only new migrants keep the clubs alive, run the clubs. They have other jobs outside of the club, so figuring out how to run a language teaching course is bottom of the list. Total score 27 out of 70. While the low score paints a dismal picture for learners, a lot, most, of the low score elements don't hinder learning too much. Yes, it will deter the casual, this would be cool, learner. But not those who want to learn it for the reasons I mentioned at the start. Once you progress beyond beginner, the available native texts, tv, etc., will be sufficient for further studying. Things get dragged down, in terms of score, only when you start looking for local help and resources and want vast numbers. It doesn't mean you cannot find resources to help you, or local tutors, just that they aren't anywhere near as abundant as they are for Spanish. As has been mentioned for Slovak and Croation, just because there aren't a plethora of courses to choose from and just because there aren't classes and tutors everywhere in your town, doesn't mean the language cannot be learned. Nor does it mean the language is hard to learn. Edited by MRoss on 27 August 2014 at 11:15am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4963 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 21 of 32 26 August 2014 at 11:06pm | IP Logged |
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Georgian
Amount and quality of learner aimed resources for beginners: 4 It's been improving in the past few years, but don't expect hours of beginner's audio. My impression is that writers don't even know how to explain the Georgian grammar yet, let alone teach it in a non-linguist context. Some resources confuse you because they apparently contradict others, and if you pick the wrong order you will waste a few months. Oh, and books are expensive. Amount and quality of learner aimed resources for intermediate and advanced levels: 4 Again, you can collect a few but I only know of one that has audio, the Georgian Newspaper Reader. Still, the lack of didactics and teaching methodology throughout almost all Georgian resources makes the Georgian learning an inglorious path. Amount of books, movies etc. originally in the language: 7 Nothing compared to French etc. but surprisingly good. You have classical movies from the soviet times and modern ones, too. Stuff is usually found on Youtube. Unfortunately everything foreign is dubbed with voice-over, which is impracticable for learning. So, no subtitles nor dubbing. When it comes to books, I'm quite satisfied. You can find all the classics and the many translations of the foreign classics all over the internet and contemporary novels are also accessible. Availability of native books, movies etc. from abroad: 8 I've never tried buying physical books, but it is so accessible to either download or purchase ebooks in Georgian that it may be worth learning Georgian from an economic view to avoid paying too much on worldwide bestsellers. Every week I get emails that say that the most trendy novels have been translated into Georgian: Stieg Larsson, Amélie Nothomb, Paulo Coelho (!), José Saramago. Each ebook costs 1 to 5 lari on average, that is, with 20 dollars you can buy 10 novels that will keep you busy for a long time. Attitude of natives towards learners and foreigners in general: 9 Georgians are friendly and only a few of them have a good English, even among the young, so you have plenty of opportunities to talk. Spread of the natives in other countries: 1 Russians may find a lot of Georgians and maybe even Americans, but I've never met a Georgian in real life. I may contact the embassy in my country when I reach B2. Popularity among learners and availability of good quality tutors, teachers or even classes: 2 A few people claim to be learning Georgian. i've met less than a handful of people that actually pursued it (myself included). There's only a class in my country, in São Paulo, and the teacher isn't that much further than my current level - even though he has met the most trendy author for textbooks for foreigners in person. Final Score: 35/70 That shouldn't discourage learners. I believe the situation for Georgian learning materials will improve considerably in the upcoming years. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4963 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 22 of 32 26 August 2014 at 11:20pm | IP Logged |
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Norwegian
Amount and quality of learner aimed resources for beginners: 8 There are average TYs and Colloquials, good isolated textbooks, a few websites with notes, a challenging Assimil. Amount and quality of learner aimed resources for intermediate and advanced levels: 7 Actually the gap lies between the beginner and the intermediate level. There are good monolingual textbooks for immigrants up to the C levels but when you've finished the basic textbooks and are around B1 you will find trouble making the transition to these. Amount of books, movies etc. originally in the language: 7 Norwegian series are a great source of fun. You need some tricks to access them, though. I haven't tried buying them from above but I'm afraid they are too expensive. As for books, the classics have a dated orthography that may confuse learners up to the intermediate level and the contemporary literature is not so diverse in term of genres (crime novels, philosophy). Ebooks are quite expensive, too. Availability of native books, movies etc. from abroad: 5 Most of NRK's fiction is unavailable from above. Ebooks can be bought but are too expensive. Attitude of natives towards learners and foreigners in general: 6 I have mixed feelings. They may avoid switching to English if they notice you're learning, but when the topics become more complex it may even be embarassing to keep using Norwegian. if I ever went to Norway, I'd make a shirt 'Jeg snakker ikke engelsk' and use it often. When I was a highschool student, back in the 2000's, we had an exchange student from Norway. I'd talk some sentences to her and she would answer patiently. I wasn't fluent in English back then and I also helped her with Portuguese. Nowadays I noticed Norwegians are hard to find at exchange sites and they usually aren't interested in exchanging my language for theirs anyway. So, my main contact with the language is following some nonsense talk at an IRC channel or talking to other learners. Spread of the natives in other countries: 3 Apart from that exchange student I haven't met other Norwegians here. I don't know about other countries, but since Norwegians usually know English well they may integrate quickly. Popularity among learners and availability of good quality tutors, teachers or even classes: 5 Norwegian is a 'trendy' language and fewer people bring it forward, but since it is easy for an English speaker people can progress slowly and still considerably. As for formal classes, only in São Paulo, no idea how the classes are like. Final Score: 41/70 Norwegian has a considerable amount of resources compared to its size and the high level of the English learned in Norway. Edited by Expugnator on 27 August 2014 at 12:16am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6953 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 23 of 32 27 August 2014 at 12:50am | IP Logged |
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Hungarian
Amount and quality of learner-aimed resources for beginners: 6/10 Prospective learners in the Anglosphere can usually avail themselves to "Teach Yourself Hungarian", "Colloquial Hungarian" or even "Assimil Hungarian with Ease". Of course there're also free resources in FSI Hungarian Basic Course and DLI Hungarian Basic Course. Reference material and bilingual dictionaries also aren't that difficult to obtain ranging from the free SZTAKI szótár to Carol Round's reference manual on grammar and older commercial dictionaries edited by Tamás Magay and/or László Országh. See the Hungarian Profile for more information about resources (scroll down to "BOOKS" and "LINKS"). At no time though can someone say that Hungarian is brimming with learning material in the same way as French, Mandarin or even Russian. Amount and quality of learner-aimed resources for intermediate and advanced levels: 5/10 At this point things get a bit trickier and anyone at this level will probably start to move more into authentic material or graded readers such as FSI Hungarian Graded Reader or the commercial Jó szórakozást magyarul! which is meant for learners at B1. It is also possible to buy the series "Hungarolingua" which is used in the Hungarian language classes at the University of Debrecen, although I'm not sure how useful these could be for people learning on their own. See here for information about ordering from the university. See also the Hungarian Profile for more information about resources (scroll down to "BOOKS" and "LINKS") Amount of books, movies etc originally in the language: 5/10 There is a substantial body of authentic material, although much of it is unknown outside Hungary since much of it has remained untranslated. Again, see the Hungarian Profile for more information about finding authentic material (scroll down to "LINKS"). Availability of native books, movies etc. from abroad: 4/10 Outside what one can find on the internet, getting hard copies of media in Hungarian usually means going through specialty stores or importing companies. Examples include Otto's Import Store and Deli and Pannonia Books. This also means that one could pay a fair bit in shipping and customs fees. Attitudes of natives towards learners and foreigners in general: 9/10 Because of Hungarian's unintelligibility to languages of neighbouring speech communities as well as the oft-repeated factoid of Hungarian's intractability for foreign learners, Hungarians are loathe to discourage outsiders from learning their language. A foreigner who knows even a little Hungarian (let alone being able to hold an informal conversation) can elicit quite a positive reception. Spread of the natives in other countries: 3/10 By historical accident, native speakers live in certain parts of Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovakia. Economic and political refugees from Austria-Hungary and communist Hungary respectively made their way mainly to North America and Australia, although the abilities in Hungarian of the descendants of these immigrants vary. Lastly Hungarians do travel as time and finances allow, although in my experience they usually keep to themselves and/or get by with knowledge of other languages (often English but sometimes German). Popularity among learners and availability of good quality tutors, teachers or even classes: 3/10 Hungarian's relative unpopularity as a choice for a foreign language is related to the relative lack of institutionalized opportunities to learn the language. The teaching infrastructure to learn Hungarian is strongest in Hungary but at a few universities outside the country, it is possible for non-Hungarians to learn the language as part of an undergraduate degree. A couple of examples are University of Toronto and Indiana University. Overall: 35/70 Similar to my comments about Finnish, this mediocre score should not discourage anyone from learning Hungarian since gaining even a beginner's grasp of it will widen one's intellectual and linguistic horizon especially for someone who's revolved only in the Romance and/or Germanic circles. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4465 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 24 of 32 27 August 2014 at 2:41am | IP Logged |
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Norwegian Nynorsk
Amount and quality of learner aimed resources for beginners: 3 There are not many available courses, you have to look hard to find them, for example, there's NorskPluss course, which is really good. Amount and quality of learner aimed resources for intermediate and advanced levels: 7 There are free textbooks of Nynorsk available at issue.com for download, these are for children starting their schooling in Nynorsk, but they can be used by foreigners as well. Junior high and other highschool textbooks are freely available for both L1 and L2 Nynorsk users, at issue.com free of charge as well. I have a great Norwegian-English and Norwegian-Swedish dictionaries which include Nynorsk as well. Nynorsk Wikipedia has more then 116, 315 articles as of now (more than Hindi or Greek!), and is of good quality. Amount of books, movies etc. originally in the language: 8 Both original Norwegian literature and translated literature is available in Nynorsk, and for both adults and children. I enjoy reading Nynorsk translations of Anna Gavalda and Lene Kaaberbøl. Ebooks are are not expensive at 100-200 NOK (from digitalbok.no), which is similar to what you'd pay for a regular English-language book @Amazon's Kindle store. Audiobooks in Nynorsk (usually read by people from Western Norway) are readily available from Lydbokforlaget. Nynorsk is extensively used in NRK programming, especially in documentaries (for example BBC Earth productions), but in series as well (Chicago Fire for example). Nynorsk-newspapers are available from buyandread, and there are 20 newspapers for you to choose from (My personal favorites are Sogn Avis and Strilen). Bergens Tidende, Sunnmørsposten and Klassekampen are mainly Bokmaal-newspapers but with a significant percentage of Nynorsk material (depending on the issue, from 1/10-1/3 of material can be in Nynorsk). Availability of native books, movies etc. from abroad: 10 Everything is readily available in digital form: newspapers, ebooks, audiobooks in Nynorsk, and NRK-broadcast programs in Nynorsk (either subtitled in Nynorsk, or read in Nynorsk, BBC nature documentaries are normally ''read'' in Nynorsk, but subtitling can be turned on, and transcripts are available from NRK-site). Attitude of natives towards learners and foreigners in general: 10 While some Norwegians (from Oslo) don't like (having) to study Nynorsk, they like it for its poetic charm, and are wowed when they hear foreigners using/writing Nynorsk, in Norwegian chat rooms and discussion forums. Mind you, many East Norwegians cannot tell the difference between a random West Norwegian dialect, and Nynorsk, and will complement your writing in Nynorsk by saying: you write Norwegian really good, you can even write in dialect. :) [This happened to me on NRK's Eurovision song contest forum and on ''Verdas Gong''s forum]. You can differentiate yourself as a traditional Norway-liking foreigner and get away from that stereotypical Bokmaal-learning money- driven immigrant by choosing Nynorsk over Bokmaal. (Bokmaal is easy after you've mastered Nynorsk, while the opposite is not true: writing in Nynorsk is almost impossible if you learn only Bokmaal). Surveys show that those with Nynorsk as they preferred form of writing beat Bokmaal-schooled Norwegians in their own field: production of Bokmaal written texts. Spread of the natives in other countries: 8 Norwegians are not difficult to find in the summertime, they like vacationing in Croatia (just like the Swedes)... Popularity among learners and availability of good quality tutors, teachers or even classes:4 Nynorsk is not really popular, except for those specializing in Nordistics / Scandinavistics. The best Nynorsk grammar written by a non-Norwegian was written by a Spaniard, in Spanish language. (Mariano Gonzalez Campo). Norwegian language test (Bergenstesten) can be taken in Nynorsk, and there are Nynorsk classes for immigrants available in Western Norway. Final Score: 50/70 Norwegian Nynorsk is a perfect language form for those into something exotic and poetic, and it opens the door to the dialects of Western, Southern and Upper Southeastern parts of Norway. Some of the best Scandinavian music is sung in Nynorsk (Herborg Kråkevik and Odd Nordstoga come to mind), and Are Kalvø's writings is something you shouldn't miss... Due to language policy and political balance*, Nynorsk is here to stay. Very few people ignore it, most people either love it or hate it. (*The only-Nynorsk hating politicians are conservatives from eastern Norway, but they cannot even touch ''the Nynorsk issue'' on the national level because in Western Norway most of municipalities are governed by politicians from their own party!) Compared to Swedish or Bokmaal, material in Nynorsk is somewhat difficult to find, but Nynorsk is not Malayalam (a language I studied with no textbook, just with a help of a grammar and of a dictionary), textbooks and graded readers CAN be found if you WANT them bad. Edited by Medulin on 27 August 2014 at 3:12am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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