Hi Miia,

I've found that one big problem with learning other Nordic languages (I speak Swedish) is that they are so close together, in many cases, close but no cigar so to speak. Swedish speakers traveling to Norway, for example, know that the word roligt means fun in Swedish but is closer to tranquil in Norwegian (correct my Norwegian if I'm mistaken). But as the word slips out of our mouths... Norwegians, of course, realize this too since the words are common false friends but there are others which are more...embarrassing.

When I studied Swedish here, a classmate of mine from Iceland had a great deal of trouble learning to speak actual Swedish as opposed to Icelandic with Swedish intonation etc. She said that the "wrong words" kept hopping out. Learning Swedish seemed easier for those of us who had first languages that were more different. Of course, there are always exceptions.

In the end, I think that learning a Nordic language should be done for the love of language and not for getting by. We can discuss which language is easiest to learn or which is easiest to understand but if you want to "get by" in Scandinavia, use English. On the other hand, if you want to learn culture and get to know people really well, pick a language for your own reasons and go where your own curiosity takes you.

Det är härligt att träffa andra skandinaver, men ofta byter man till engelska när tålamodet tryter.

/G

I think the similarities and differences between the Scandinavian languages show one thing very clearly - the language that is easy to learn, is:

1. Close to your own native language (ie. same language group/family), but
2. Not too close to your own native language

Example: German, Dutch and English are all very easy to learn for Danes, both pronunciation-wise and vocabulary/grammar/structure-wise, because they are all Germanic languages, like Danish, and there are many similarities and points where knowing Danish natively is a great advantage to you.

Swedish, Norwegian, and, to a certain degree, Faroese and Icelandic, on the other hand, are nearly impossible to learn properly for Danes. They are simply too close to Danish. They are so close that we can't distinguish them properly, especially grammar-wise. Learning the 'false friends' and all the words that are different between the languages is not all that hard; it's certainly no harder than learning all the words that are different (but still somehow similar) in German or English. Learning the grammar and orthography, however (both so close, but still so different), is close to impossible.

I can read it and learn it a million times; I can tell myself that feminine nouns that end in -a in the singular, end in -or in the plural in Swedish, time and time again - but I'll never be able to 'get it', because in my head, those exact words are supposed to end in -e and -er, respectively, and nothing can change that. I'll just have to come to terms with the fact that I'll never be able to do more than guess whether a word (be it a noun, a verb, whatever) ends in -or, -ar, or -er in Swedish, or in Nynorsk, for that matter.

My native langauge is Swedish and I voted for Finnish and Norvegian.

Finnish because  I love  Finnish myself. I don´t like to study a langauge that is too close to a language I already know.

For absolute foreigners I would recommend Norvegian because it´s seen as a cute langauge by it´s neighbours. There are not much negative attitudes against it.  And I understand Norvegian better than Danish.

Still I think that Estonian and Saami should be part of the pool, even if I would still have voted for Finnish within that group.

Terveisin Emma

Hei, hei!

Emma, velkommen til TC!

Becky

Hi!

I just want to share an old poem of mine, which gives advice about language issues for Nordic citizens. What´s most important here is the attitude.

An International Image

An international image covers the surface,

while the inside is trembling with fear

You see them draw closer,

Yet they will never come near

One should recognize and admire their desperation

They pay a high prize, but in vain is their dedication

They go out to fight; they are being put on fire

All for the peace and stability of the empire

Repeating the mantra “All is fine”

One after one they fall at the frontline

And the center of the empire is far away

The rulers don’t even care

“ Why should we bother anyway,

that was just a few soldiers we could spare”

If you recognize them in spite of their mask,

Then do them a favour, they would never expect or ask

Tell them to drop their borrowed powerwords

Tell them to drop their much too heavy swords.

Disconnect them from their false allies

Give them truth to counteract the lies

It is a thing for you to do

for as you see they come to you

And you remember all the times they came,

in order to make everybody be the same

Do you remember the words that go through the wall?

The words of love that will make them feel small?

To remind them that our individual uniqueness

Is more worth than all dreams of greatness

19^th of January 2001