Learning Swedish

[Doc]

I've always been interested in Scandinavia and hope to visit when the kids are a bit older. If you like boreal forest they have quite a lot of it!

I also talk to radio hams over there quite often, usually on the radio, but also via Internet/ham radio links.

Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to try learning a bit of Swedish (which is apparently intelligible in Denmark and Norway, but not Finland or Iceland). There is a very good online course available free at:

http://web.hhs.se/isa/swedish/default.htm

 

[Viking]

Svenska är ett ganska svårt språk att lära sig men lättast är att spendera lite tid här och lära sig av svenskarna direkt.

(swedish is a pretty hard language to learn but the easiesy way is just to spend some time over here and learn by the swedes directly)

 

[arctic hobo]

I've always been interested in Scandinavia and hope to visit when the kids are a bit older. If you like boreal forest they have quite a lot of it!

I also talk to radio hams over there quite often, usually on the radio, but also via Internet/ham radio links.

Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to try learning a bit of Swedish (which is apparently intelligible in Denmark and Norway, but not Finland or Iceland). There is a very good online course available free at:

http://web.hhs.se/isa/swedish/default.htm

In Iceland they speak a derivative of Old Norse, which is the language that was spoken in Norway when people arrived there. The two languages have become alienated thanks to danishification and swedishification of Norwegian while Icelandic was left untouched. Danish and Swedish had been a bit europified as well, if you know what I mean. This means all are slightly different, and Icelandic is rather more different, but you can get a rough idea if you read the text nice and slow. It's all linked in with Scandinavian history, which is worth knowing and illustrates the development of the languages very well. Finnish is a wholly different language, related to Sami and Hungarian.
I would recommend you learn Norwegian, which is kind of in the middle of Danish and Swedish, so you will understand each easily. There are plenty of teach yourself courses on Norwegian. It's how I learnt, and I know it very well now, though of course you can't replace going there and speaking it.
It's a comparatively easy language to learn as the grammatical structure is basically old English (which is where old english comes from...), but more complicated. The grammar is perhaps the hardest part, but it's a lovely language and will give you lots of insight into how Nowegian English is, which surprised me. Enjoy!

PS I'm dying to post a massive historical/linguistic lecture but I'd better not before you all fall asleep!

 

[Gary]

Svenska är ett ganska svårt språk att lära sig men lättast är att spendera lite tid här och lära sig av svenskarna direkt.

(swedish is a pretty hard language to learn but the easiesy way is just to spend some time over here and learn by the swedes directly)

Totally agree - without hearing the accents put on sounds and words Swedish would be hard to learn from a book. Another example of the difference between practice and theory too!!

 

[arctic hobo]

I forgot to mention that learning it without an audio CD is suicide, and without practice on people is a very bad idea.

 

[Adi007]

I forgot to mention that learning it without an audio CD is suicide, and without practice on people is a very bad idea.

Pimsleur make some great tapes, and Talk Now! do great CD-ROMs.

Here's a book that I also found useful:
The Quick and Dirty Guide to Learning Languages Fast
by: A.G. Hawke
http://www.bushcraftuk.net/cgi-bin/...up&ItemId=1581600968&templates=main&locale=uk

 

[Gary]

Pimleur make some great tapes, and Talk Now do great CD-ROMs.

Talk now is the one I have - very good, even for an idiot like me who failed school! :biggthump

 

[Rhapsody]

I've always been interested in learning a Scandinavian language (largely because most of my favourite bands are Scandinavian :super: ) but have never actually bothered with it for some reason :?:. I did look at a few, though, and figured that it would be cool to learn Norwegian... but then found out that there are two Norwegian written languages! 'Sod that', says I! I suppose I'd give that or Swedish a go if I had the resources, though, and I've been told my (admittedly quite) basic knowledge of German is useful in learning these languages.

 

[jakunen]

Hearing the dialect is the best way. I tried learning Croatian from books and it didn't work. A week out there I was able to talk to them without emabrrassing myself.

 

[arctic hobo]

I've always been interested in learning a Scandinavian language (largely because most of my favourite bands are Scandinavian :super: ) but have never actually bothered with it for some reason :?:. I did look at a few, though, and figured that it would be cool to learn Norwegian... but then found out that there are two Norwegian written languages! 'Sod that', says I! I suppose I'd give that or Swedish a go if I had the resources, though, and I've been told my (admittedly quite) basic knowledge of German is useful in learning these languages.

There are two, but they are very similar (you maybe might not notice the difference except a slight accent when spoken), and the one everyone uses, bokmål, is 70% of the people, and everyone understands. TV and newspapers etc will almost all be in bokmål. In fact if you avoid Vestlandet and that area you will not run into nynorsk at all Although as I say there is little difference.

 

[Doc]

All very interesting - clearly I'm not the only one interested in these things.

If you look at the map of Scotland, many place names are of Nordic origin; islands ending in -ey, coastal towns ending in -wick or -vik, and of course, Dingwall, which has the same meaning as Tynwald, the parliament on the Isle of Man.

The link I mentioned above has audio files- not as good as a CD but gets you started. My main problem is I have little natural aptitude for languages and really struggled to get 'O'Level French. Grade C.

 

[arctic hobo]

And the scottish "bairn" is from "barne", and to have a dram means the same in both, to name but a few. :wave:
The Isle of Man was one of the last Norwegian settlements in the UK. The Shetlands (or Hjaltland) are another.
I really must stop! before all four of the donkeys legs fall off

 

[Viking]

Sedish lesson no 1:

Hello - Hej
Thank you - Tack
Bye - Hejdå
Take me to the wilderness - Ta mig till vildmarken

Norweigan lesson:

Luremus -

If you are going to learn a language it should be swedish, we owned Norway 100 years ago and also owned finland and a piece of germany once

 

[arctic hobo]

Yeh, well Norway used to own the Faeroes, Iceland and Greenland, before the Danish nicked it all...
It doesn't really matter I guess, I just see Norwegian as a kind of compromise between Danish and Swedish. :?:

 

[Dave Barker]

What can i say ....
As an expat living in the land of Nog i have to disagree with some of the things said.

Norwegian is a hard languarge to learn.

if you translate things directly from english to norwegian you can actually be very rude. I remember once asking my mother in law to have sex with me... instead of laying down beside me ( in the summer on the beach no less)

the languages are very germanic, sometimes they will say " i can not" others I not can it all depends on the situation.

Bokmål is spoken most places, Nynorsk is actually very hard to understand if it comes from someone with a broad accent and saying if you avoid vestlandet is like saing you won't meet a scot in London.

think.... HVORDAN ( pronounced vor dan) means how.. In " nynorsj they say KORLEIS pronounced KORLACE means the same does not sound remotely similar.

Areas in the south such as kristiansand speak pretty much a danish type of accent, the letter T becomes D, and the letter k is pronounced as a G.

further north in Trondheim they change many K`s with T ie the word for not is IKKE( Ikka) further north they say IT!

work it out yourself.

believe me it gets kind of hard. So many accents within the same area. The difference is so much that they are taught Nynorsk ( New norwegian by direct translation) as a part of the school system.

if one writes a formal letter in Ny norsk then it is now accepted that the reply will be in nynorsk.

I live in Nordvestlandet ( the north west) well mid north west and things get very confusing here too.

If you have to learn a language then I would say norwegian, i would also say take the time to find a linguaphone course. This is bokmål at its purest form and although slightly old fashioned in the language is easy pick up.

if you speak bokmål everyone will understand you and will be abke to change their natural accebnt to make themselves understandable to you. if you speak Nynorsk... you could have trouble with some of the younger people.

Best way is to practice.. but Be warned. As soon as people twig you are an englisg speaker..... forget trying to seak scandinavian to them... they want to practice their english.

Viking you may have owned them 100 years ago, but not anymore!

I live here, work here, pax the extortionate taxes here, believe me!

 

[Viking]

Dave - mange tack, for that good explanation

 

[Dave Barker]

ingen årsak

err sorry ...... your welcome!

 

[Doc]

Very interesting indeed. I can see it is a formidable language to learn. On the other hand, the similarities of many words to English (and particularly older Scots words) is enticing.

I love the online useful phrases - how about this one?

Sola har ikke vist seg siden midt i november.

"The sun has not appeared since the middle of November."

 

[brucemacdonald]

If I had the time I would try to learn some Norwegian and Swedish - I have a couple of albums of Norwegian jazz which have titles like "Natt" and "Til Radka" and it would be nice to know what they meant.

As my parents came from Aberdeen I could probably see the similarities between the dialect there and the Scandinavian languages.

I've never been to Scandinavia but it looks nice from a distance!

Best wishes

Bruce

 

[arctic hobo]

Well Dave I'm just basing it on my own experience :?: I've not had problems like you said