Learn Northern Germanic the exciting way

[Jipí]

"The exciting way." I suppose that would mean to be dropped from a helicopter, in a cold, dark, rainy winter night (wait, there's plenty redundancy in that!) in a remote Norwegian valley full of monolingual speakers.

[Skomakar'n]

"The exciting way." I suppose that would mean to be dropped from a helicopter, in a cold, dark, rainy winter night (wait, there's plenty redundancy in that!) in a remote Norwegian valley full of monolingual speakers.

Hahaha. Not that I wouldn't take you up on that offer, but I'm afraid it's not possible with the resources available.

Still, my hope is for the reader to find this kind of text, with all of the comparison going on, with a bit of etymology notes and lots and lots of cognates, more exciting than the regular language guide.

Also, a bit of proof regarding the Swedish possession, from today, written by a forum member at a Swedish one:

[Miekko]

Skomakarn, your list of which countries scandinavian languages are spoken in is wrong, and you should fucking know better than doing that omission.

[Skomakar'n]

Skomakarn, your list of which countries scandinavian languages are spoken in is wrong, and you should fucking know better than doing that omission.

I'll add a 'mainly'.

[Drydic]

Skomakarn, your list of which countries scandinavian languages are spoken in is wrong, and you should fucking know better than doing that omission.

I'll add a 'mainly'.

How about an 'and parts of Finland'?

[Skomakar'n]

Skomakarn, your list of which countries scandinavian languages are spoken in is wrong, and you should fucking know better than doing that omission.

I'll add a 'mainly'.

How about an 'and parts of Finland'?

True that.

[*Ceresz]

What do you plan on bringing up in the next installment?

[dhok]

I just realised that this is likely the only place on the internet where a thread entitled "Learn Northern Germanic the exciting way" will be interpreted as such.

[Skomakar'n]

What do you plan on bringing up in the next installment?

Not sure yet. I need to get the rest of the personal pronouns, as well as inflecting them, in there, so I think I will start working with some simple sentences taking objects, such us "I love you".

I just realised that this is likely the only place on the internet where a thread entitled "Learn Northern Germanic the exciting way" will be interpreted as such.

Hahaha. Yep. People would probably just fill my thread with spam at the forum from which the above screenshot was captured.

[Aurora Rossa]

"The exciting way." I suppose that would mean to be dropped from a helicopter, in a cold, dark, rainy winter night (wait, there's plenty redundancy in that!) in a remote Norwegian valley full of monolingual speakers.

I was hoping the OP meant a sexually exciting way to learn Northern Germanic languages.

[Skomakar'n]

"The exciting way." I suppose that would mean to be dropped from a helicopter, in a cold, dark, rainy winter night (wait, there's plenty redundancy in that!) in a remote Norwegian valley full of monolingual speakers.

I was hoping the OP meant a sexually exciting way to learn Northern Germanic languages.

This could be, to some.

[dhok]

You could always read Swedish/Danish/Norwegian/Icelandic erotic novels.

[Miekko]

Skomakarn, your list of which countries scandinavian languages are spoken in is wrong, and you should fucking know better than doing that omission.

I'll add a 'mainly'.

How about an 'and parts of Finland'?

True that.

You must have known what I wanted you to fucking add. "and parts of Finland". This is fucking obvious. You try to pontificate as some kind of expert on Northern Germanic and don't even grasp that?

Considering there's about as many native speakers of a northern Germanic language in Finland as in Iceland, it's not that much of a fucking stretch to include it? (Also, a surprisingly large segment of all currently living speakers of dialects of Swedish!)

Sorry to be an asshole about this, but fucking hell, give me a break. We exist too. We don't need your kind to keep pushing us down, we already have the true finns and the centre party doing that fine, thank you. (admittedly, your keeping us down is more subtle than what they attempt, but still. Some fucking solidarity, plz?)

Fuck you for changing it by adding "mainly", when "and Finland" would have been more true, equally functional, not broken the flow of the text, reflected the fact that it's a fucking official fucking language in fucking Finland, and not kept trying to deny the existence of a whole fucking Swedish-speaking community.

Asshole.

[Chuma]

a bit of proof regarding the Swedish possession

A quick googling gives approximately 1% "håret mitt" vs. "mitt hår" ("my hair"). But it's hard to tell among various expressions like "håret mitt på huvudet" ("the hair on the middle of the head").

By contrast, I find 2-3 times fewer hits for "min hår" (that is, the wrong gender usage). So you'll have to decide where to draw the line...

[Skomakar'n]

You must have known what I wanted you to fucking add. "and parts of Finland". This is fucking obvious.

Yes, but I wrote my answer from my cellphone, and I haven't had the time to do so yet. What's with this hostility? No need to get angry. This goes for the rest of your post as well, so I'm not going to give any specific answers to the rest of it, but I am by no means trying to push you down. I'm trying to get a lot of information down, and it's easy to forget something. I know at least one speaker of Finnish Swedish, and I love the sound of it, so don't go thinking I don't like it.

You try to pontificate as some kind of expert on Northern Germanic and don't even grasp that?

I most certainly don't try to pontificate as anything. I even wrote this in the main post:

I am by no means a full-blown expert in the field

[Miekko]

Anyway, in general, possessor after the noun is very rare, and I don't think it deserves mention in an ordinary Swedish textbook. But this might not be ordinary - if you're trying to teach the Nordic dialect continuum as a whole, maybe it does deserve mentioning.

This is actually an example of an interesting phenomenon. I think that whether some things are regarded as grammatical or not depends on who the speaker is. The only cases I would expect to hear a construction like the above is if the speaker has either lived deep in the Swedish forests for a hundred years, or just arrived and not yet learned to speak proper Swedish. So if the person saying it can't pull off looking like he's spent a hundred years in the Swedish forest, I would spontaneously think of it as erroneous.

I think postposed possessors are common enough - especially if you go even slightly north of Stockholm - to warrant being mentioned in textbooks. IIRC in earlier interactions with you, you aren't very familiar with dialectal variation within Swedish, though? Am I right about this?

[Salmoneus]

Skomakarn, your list of which countries scandinavian languages are spoken in is wrong, and you should fucking know better than doing that omission.

I'll add a 'mainly'.

How about an 'and parts of Finland'?

True that.

You must have known what I wanted you to fucking add. "and parts of Finland". This is fucking obvious. You try to pontificate as some kind of expert on Northern Germanic and don't even grasp that?

Considering there's about as many native speakers of a northern Germanic language in Finland as in Iceland, it's not that much of a fucking stretch to include it? (Also, a surprisingly large segment of all currently living speakers of dialects of Swedish!)

Sorry to be an asshole about this, but fucking hell, give me a break. We exist too. We don't need your kind to keep pushing us down, we already have the true finns and the centre party doing that fine, thank you. (admittedly, your keeping us down is more subtle than what they attempt, but still. Some fucking solidarity, plz?)

Fuck you for changing it by adding "mainly", when "and Finland" would have been more true, equally functional, not broken the flow of the text, reflected the fact that it's a fucking official fucking language in fucking Finland, and not kept trying to deny the existence of a whole fucking Swedish-speaking community.

Asshole.

If it helps force you confront your unpleasant anger issues sooner rather than later, it's good that he made that mistake.
Not good for the board, obviously, but good for your long-term health.

[Dewrad]

I wish Aszev were writing this thread. Otherwise it's like trying to learn English from Viktor

[Skomakar'n]

I wish Aszev were writing this thread. Otherwise it's like trying to learn English from Viktor

I'm doing my best. Mainly because I enjoy it, so it's okay if you don't, even though I wish you would. Is there anything in particular that you don't like?

[Chuma]

Aszev does know a lot about Swedish, altho as I recall he also has some particular ideas of how things should be done. Come to think of it, I suppose I do too. It's true he would be an asset, but I think we can manage without him.

So far there seems to be more teachers than students, which I guess can be a good way to get the whole picture. But maybe Skomakarn feels like everyone is ruining his class. I think you're doing a good job, anyway.

[Skomakar'n]

Aszev does know a lot about Swedish, altho as I recall he also has some particular ideas of how things should be done. Come to think of it, I suppose I do too. It's true he would be an asset, but I think we can manage without him.

I guess we all do, but I'm dropping that for this thread.

So far there seems to be more teachers than students, which I guess can be a good way to get the whole picture. But maybe Skomakarn feels like everyone is ruining his class. I think you're doing a good job, anyway.

Nah. Constructive criticism (and even corrections in a few cases) is always welcome. Thanks!

[Drydic]

As a potential student, I'd rather have 3-5 teachers arguing over what's right than one monolithic THIS IS CORRECT which later I find out isn't so.

[Skomakar'n]

As a potential student, I'd rather have 3-5 teachers arguing over what's right than one monolithic THIS IS CORRECT which later I find out isn't so.

That's why I tend to use terms like 'in general' and 'most people' a lot. Nothing is absolute.

[adder]

It's certainly a great idea and it definitely makes you save a lot of time. I've always wanted to learn Bokmål but there are virtually no free resources with full grammar, orthography, phonology, and syntax. Not to mention Icelandic which I fell in love with some time ago but it's the same with resources... I used to learn Swedish but I had no opportunity to practice it so I totally forgot just about everything beside things like 1-10, conjugations of a few verbs and a few words. Anyway, I remember quite a lot about the grammar.

I haven't read everything yet but It's definitely a good idea.

[Agricola Avicula]

I think it's quite fun reading this. I hope it won't be long till the next lecture.

Two small questions:
- to my ears, <er> in Norwegian sounds like [{r] or even [ar], as do other occurrences of <e> before <r>, not [E:r]. Does that make sense?
- doesn't <v> represent a labiodental approximant, rather than a fricative?

Gratulerer med dagen!