Scandinavian/Nordic

[cunningham]

I'm setting a goal for myself. I don't know where it will take me, but it seems like a great challenge.
I want to learn all the Nordic languages each up to a semi-fluent level.
Danish
Swedish
Norwegian
Finnish
Icelandic
Faroese maybe...

I know I know inb4 can't become fluent blahblahblah . I mean I just want to be able to talk in each of them comfortably.

Anyway, I read somewhere that people of Scandinavia can understand each other in different languages.
Like a Norwegian person can understand a Danish person and a Swedish person and vice versa.
I also heard that Norwegian was one of the easiest languages to learn for a native English speaker, besides Dutch.

So I was thinking that maybe I learn Norwegian first. They say that "Norwegian is Danish spoken in Swedish". Kinda confusing to wrap your head around, but Norwegian speakers are able to comprehend like 90% of Danish and 75% of Swedish or something.

Then I learn Swedish, because it's a bit more consistent than Danish in pronunciation. I believe..And if I can understand Norwegian then maybe I could understand Swedish and Danish.

Then I learn Danish.

Then I learn Finnish, which would be hard because it's Uralic, and I would have to start over. But I love the sound of Finnish, so I wanna learn it.

Then I can attempt Icelandic. Icelandic intimidates me because of the cases and just....the weird pronunciations.
I've actually been to Iceland before though, and stayed there for 2 months. It was 5 years ago. I even smuggled some kind of John Bunyan book, but it's like a Christian commentary of it. I stole it from a pastor's house. (I was 12, who knows?) I don't even think it's worth stealing, but it's all written in Icelandic. Such a beautiful language.

I heard that in Iceland they teach a form of Danish in school so it would be understandable for Norwegians and Swedes. It's called Scandinavian. I tried to search for it, but I can't find it. Is there another name for this? I thought that maybe that would help even more if I could learn that.

So this is my goal right now. I'm excited for it.
I need some good FREE websites (preferably for each language seperately). So I can learn the basics.
I found a news website in Norwegian: http://www.klartale.no/ They even put it in really basic Norwegian, I guess, for foreigners to understand it.
Is there any other sites kinda like this? In any language?
I would like some good music. I already have Kjærlighet by Sissel. It's Norwegian, and I'm already singin it in the shower :] I love it. It's really simple too.
But any music is great! My tastes are eclectic. I especially love punk rock, emo, and industrial though :]
Music is good because I would remember the words more easily. I know all the words for Kjærlighet and the translation too :] Most people learned English from the media so that's what I'm going to do :]

Then movies and shows. I know there's a show on my TV called Borgen which is in Danish and has English subs. It's on Link TV which is like a international type of channel. It's the only scandinavian thing I could find though on my TV.

Does anyone know anything I could download off the internet? With English subs. It's difficult looking through all the videos on Youtube. I think shows directed towards children would make it easier to learn. Like cartoons and stuff. I watch Pokemon in Japanese and I'm sure I've already learned 100 new words :]

So can you please help me :]

Any tips?

If there's anything I'm doing wrong (as usual lol) just let me know...but don't get carried away please -.-

Thank you !

[Drydic]

Dhokarena, why did you make a new account?

[cunningham]

what?

[Melteor]

Well, actually...
Do Norwegians understand Ingmar Bergman's movies easily or is it a matter of acculturation? Like Portugese and Spanish?

[Magb]

Well, actually...
Do Norwegians understand Ingmar Bergman's movies easily or is it a matter of acculturation? Like Portugese and Spanish?

The biggest challenge as far as understanding Swedish for Norwegians is the vocabulary, while for Danish it's the pronunciation. Eastern Norwegian can be very roughly described as having the vocabulary of Danish and the phonology of Swedish, and the grammar is also for the most part more reminiscent of Danish (i.e. simpler). Non-eastern Norwegian is a different story, since there are many features in Norwegian dialects that are neither "Swedish" nor "Danish", but simply Norwegian. All Norwegians -- including the most conservative speakers in the Oslo area -- have varying degrees of "Norwegian" features in their idiolects.

To answer your question: I have little trouble understanding Bergman movies, or most spoken Swedish in general. Danish used to be more challenging for me because of the weird pronunciation, but now that I've been exposed to more of it it's less of a problem.

[tubragg]

But any music is great! My tastes are eclectic. I especially love punk rock, emo, and industrial though :]

Maybe try some Thåström, then?

[Herr Dunkel]

Tips?
Oil yourself up and rub yourself to in between Wattman and Sko. A Scandinavian threesome is always popular.

[Thry]

Tips?
Oil yourself up and rub yourself to in between Wattman and Sko. A Scandinavian threesome is always popular.

Not that the idea sounds bad, but wasn't Wattman Dutch?

[Herr Dunkel]

Tips?
Oil yourself up and rub yourself to in between Wattman and Sko. A Scandinavian threesome is always popular.

Not that the idea sounds bad, but wasn't Wattman Dutch?

He's learning icelandic though - he's frequently seen in the fluency thread, and his every post is in shitty icelandic.
Sko's swedish or something.

[Mr. Z]

Oh my god, I really have been away for too long... I gotta get back to the ZBB.

[Whimemsz]

THIS is the thread that makes you nostalgic for the ZBB? Shit, man...

[Qwynegold]

Hmm, can you view this?

[brandrinn]

You have inspired me! I am going to go learn Mandarin, Wu, Hakka, Cantonese, and Navajo.

[richard1631978]

According to a Swedish exchange student she can understand Danish with some effort but Norwegian is very hard for to understand.

She claimed the accent makes things harder.

[Mr. Z]

THIS is the thread that makes you nostalgic for the ZBB? Shit, man...

Well, I happened to read it... Unlike other threads. And it is kinda... ZBBish.

[Echobeats]

According to a Swedish exchange student she can understand Danish with some effort but Norwegian is very hard for to understand.

She claimed the accent makes things harder.

Let me guess, she's from Skåne, which used to belong to Denmark and where they basically still speak Danish?

[tubragg]

At least in my part of Sweden (Stockholm area) the general consensus is that Norwegian is easier to understand than Danish. It very much depends on the specific dialects of Norwegian and Danish, though.

[richard1631978]

According to a Swedish exchange student she can understand Danish with some effort but Norwegian is very hard for to understand.

She claimed the accent makes things harder.

Let me guess, she's from Skåne, which used to belong to Denmark and where they basically still speak Danish?

She was from Växjö, I'm not sure if that's in Skåne.

[Savi]

I'm not sure if this topic is past its sell by date, but here we go...

Since there is a fair amount of mutual intellegibility between the Scandinavian languages, it's probably not the best approach to try to learn each of them separately. You'll just end up wasting a lot of time and effort memorising words and constructions separately, even if they are basically the same in all three languages. Instead, maybe you should only study one of them (whichever you like best) and meanwhile practise understanding the others by occasionally reading/listening to stuff in those languages. That way, you'll be able to understand speakers of all the Scandinavian languages, and you will also be widely understood yourself. At least that's what I would do if I had to learn the Scandinavian languages from scratch.

She was from Växjö, I'm not sure if that's in Skåne.

It's not, but it is close enough to Denmark that it would make sense that she understood Danish more easily than Norwegian.

[Wattmann]

Relating to the OP, FYI I'm learning icelandic

[Noriega]

I posted some links to online Scandinavian media here, including Icelandic and Faroese: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15855

The Swedish equivalent of Klartale: http://8sidor.se/
A good Swedish <-> English online dictionary: http://www.ord.se/
Basic Swe <-> Den <-> Nor Scandinavian online dictionary: http://www.tradusa.se/lexicon/capere.jsp
Norwegian Bokmål and Nynorsk dictionary: http://nob-ordbok.uio.no/perl/ordbok.cgi
Norwegian Nynorsk dictionary: http://no2014.uio.no/perl/ordbok/no2014 ... tliste.cgi
Comprehensive Danish dictionary: http://ordnet.dk/ddo/

Swedish state radio. P1 has mostly spoken content: http://sverigesradio.se/p1/
Swedish state television. Not sure if this page works abroad though ... http://www.svtplay.se/ Search for "textat" to find subtitled news.
Swedish commercial tv channel. Same here, not sure if it works abroad: http://www.tv4play.se/

Norwegian state radio and television: http://nrk.no/
Danish state radio and television: http://www.dr.dk/

Swedish punk bands usually sing in Swedish: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk_in_Sweden
Like tubragg I would also suggest Thåström for Swedish punk/industrial/emo. You might also like some stuff by Kent.

I think Savi has a point about learning one of the languages more thoroughly, and Norwegian is a good choice. Like you wrote, Norwegians understand Swedish through the pronunciation, and Danish from the orthographical similarities with Bokmål Norwegian. I'm from the very south of Sweden, so I grew up with Danish TV, I've worked in Copenhagen etc. so I both understand and speak Danish pretty well. But even though I've never even been to Norway nor had any relations with Norwegians, I often find spoken Norwegian easier to understand.

[johanpeturdam]

Well, I'm a native Faroese speaker, so... if you need any help, let me know.

[Chuma]

From what I've heard, foreign universities often teach the Nordic languages as one. So it should be possible to find some sort of textbook or something that does that. It would probably make it easier, if it explicitly points out the differences, so you don't have to get confused about that. Such a course would also probably tell you a few things about the dialects, if that interests you. It might be a little more difficult to find, but I think if you just want to make yourself understood in all of them, you may be better off learning them as one. When you get to the level of TV, there are also a few shows that combine the languages; the recent talk show Skavlan and the old children's show Myggan come to mind. The former I think is on the SVT web page.

[Qwynegold]

I don't think he's actually learning any now. :/

[Bryan]

And there was little old me just being content to try and learn Swedish to a reasonable level. How lowly are my goals.