Danish, Norwegian or Swedish?
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Whilst in Oslo, staying with Cristina we talked about a common question I get about which Scandinavian language is best to learn? Also people like to know how similar these languages are. This video answers these questions for you.
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Norwegian seems to be the wisest choice. I'm from Iceland and I simply cannot understand why the fuck they are making us learn Danish ( yes they ruled over us for many years) but if they want us to learn Scandinavian language why not go for something more similar like Norwegian then we might actually be able to speak it.
+Gunnhild Edwards
Nynorsk then, I guess, at it is based on old norwegian dialects. Bokmål is basically Danish.
+Sven Ekeberg The issue is that if you're learning "Danish" in school you also need to pronounce it like a Dane. If they were learning Bokmål at least they could pronounce it like a Norwegian, which is way better xD Let's be real here, Danes mumble a lot and it's hard to tell what they're saying some times. Norwegian would be a more obvious choice now that they aren't ruled by Danmark anymore.
Neueregel
I don't hate bokmål at all, as a swede :)
But the nynorsk dialects are closer to the old Icelandic language, as the settlers on that island were Norwegians, originally.
+Dixxi91 Often when Icelanders speak Danish, they sound more like they are speaking some sort of Norwegian. Their Danish is more easy to understand for Norwegians, than "real" Danish...
Nynorsk er best! ^_^
Dear all, I am happy about all the comments to the video, but I am a bit surprised that no one seems to realize what was my first answer to the question:" Which language should you learn?" The answer was: " It does not really matter". If you have a compelling reason to learn one of the three languages, go for it! Only in the case when you have no clue which one to take, I recommend Norwegian. I do that based on the fact that we understand both Danes and Swedes and they understand us - so four out of four possible. If you learn Danish you will not so easily understand Swedish, the Swedes will not understand you, but you will understand Norwegian and the Norwegians will understand you, so only two out of four - the same goes if you learn Swedish.
+CristinaOslo Yeah, I think most people agree with you, (I do). But people like to pick fights on the internet because they're bored :) Sorry.
do you mean there out of there?
@@Dixxi91 Or because they feel lonely.
WELL well well....
ALL you people from outside Scandinavia..., YOU dont understand.....
When ever I meet a Scandinavian, ALL over the world......
WE ARE ONE....!!!
Two years ago, I meet, in AUS, an Icelandic, an we ARE ONE.....!!!
ALL Scandinavians keeps together.....
Sorry but that's not true.
+jan andersen I absolutely disagree 100% with this. I've never felt that way or felt that anyone else I've met has either.
+jan andersen I agree. Because I'm Norwegian living in Sweden, but I prefer speaking English to them, because my Norwegian dialect is from the south so it's heavily influenced by Danish, and I moved to the north of Sweden so up here the Swedish is heavily influenced by Finish, and therefore they can't understand much of what I am saying. ^^'
SO they view me as a foreigner and ask which country I'm from, and when I say I'm actually just Norwegian they suddenly view me differently xD I've only lived here for 6 months now and they consider me half Swedish already.
+jan andersen Lol. In English, it's spelled Icelander and not Icelandic
+jan andersen It is quite fun really. The amount of Scandinavian travels who have drinking stories etc. involving other Scandinavians they just randomly met somewhere is quite impressive considering our small populations. It's not like there are millions of us everywhere after all.
It's all about context though. I'm may day to day life I don't think about "my brothers" in Norway and Sweden, but I can sort of feel something bubbling up if something big happens or if we're comparing us to other foreigners. I mean, compared to Greeks, Koreans, Tunisians, Americans or whatever there's no doubt that I feel much closer to the other Scandinavians. It's not that I hate all the other nationalities or anything but there's just something relatable about the Swedes and Norwegians.
I'm Danish and people often say that we're sort of the "relaxed" or "laid back" country in Scandinavia and that's possibly true but when it comes to values, culture, humor, what to do vs. what not to do etc. we tend to be extremely similar all over Scandinavia so I always find Swedes and Norwegians very easy to get along with.
I've also noticed something interesting when traveling in non-Scandinavian countries. We tend to trust each other more from my experience which is probably exactly because our cultures are so similar. I don't need to personally know every Swede or Norwegian family to feel safe enough to ask them to watch my bags while I go to the toilet for example. I know that the same "rules" apply in the other Scandinavian countries so they're essentially the same as Danes to me in that situation.
I've also noticed that we tend to be very relaxed around each other. Like a Swedish guy hitchhiking through Denmark or whatever. Chances are (from my own limited experience obviously.) that he would be much more comfortable and relaxed getting a ride from other Scandinavians. Not because he hates everyone non-Scandinavian or thinks they'll murder him or anything but we simply know the other Scandinavian countries and cultures so well that we're really not that worried.
I am Greek and I have to say that I loooove swedish.I'm learning swedish at the moment and I literally love it:-)
How it went? I know this comment is very old but just wondering?
@@muhyadindahir3188 me, too
I fell in love with Norwegian when I was in Norway :) I've lived in Asker for one year!
Ciao
A Norwegian once told me that "Norwegian is speaking Danish in Swedish". A bit off-topic: I live in Texas near a town called Oslo. Our local high school calls the P.E. building Valhalla. I was born about 20 miles from a town called Norge. And yet I live in the South, and nobody here speaks Norwegian (at least no one I know).
I recently chose to learn Swedish for totally subjective reasons (it somehow attracted me more than Danish and Norwegian). I like it but the pronunciation is crazy, I did not expect so many silent letters and weird letter combinations like the sj-, stj-, skj-, tj-, kj-, etc.. I thought it would be more like German or Dutch in terms of the correspondence between the written and spoken language but it is actually more like French.
I prefer Swedish because it sounds classy.
Norwegian sounds too rustic.
Danish on the other hand, I'd prefer to not comment on.
Icelandic sounds quaint.
Nope, I'm a girl
Swedish does sound either very "gay" or really "silly" ( not very far from how the chef in the Muppet show speaks actually ) ;o) - and very "sloooow" as well.
Nynorsk is the real Norwegian, Bokmaal is Danish with the Oslo accent
鬱鬱 It's jus a compilation of different Norwegian dialects. The grammar is quite new.
Hammerhook12 Nynorsk that is...
Well, i am swedish myself and i really can't t decide on what anyone else should focus on (concerning learning danish, swedish or norwegian). Imho it pretty much depends on you purpose by learning another language. Are you interested in all of the 3 languages, then i agree with Cristina. You should take Norwegian since it in the mid of all 3 languages. It's a mix of swedish and danish. Except that you might consider that swedens population is about the combined population of Denmark and Norway. Most likely you will meet more swedes than danes and norwegians, no matter where you go.
Swedes and norwegians generally have no problem what so ever to understand eachother in a conversation. Although both swedes and norwegians struggle with understanding danish, and it goes the otherway around as well (although you adapt fairly quickly, but it might take some time to iget into danish). Reading is without a doubt the easiest part since you can pick up any scandinavian newspaper and read it no matter if you are danish, swedish or norwegian.
Oh, and i almost forgot. Just recalled a huge difference in one particular thing = counting. Swedish and Norwegian share (as with almost most other countries) the same 10-based counting system. Denmark on the other hand has a very confusing way to count. It's (correct me if i'm wrong) based on a weird mix of a 20-base combined with a difficult mix of halfs times 20.
Ie. 50. In swedish it's "femtio", in norwegian "femti" while danish say "halvtreds". Halftreds literally means "half third times twenty". I won't go into details, but counting in danish is confusing if you are accustomed to a 10-based counting system.
Yes, we are only doing this - using our very weird number system between 50 and 100 - to annoy our dear Swedish and Norwegian brothers big time ;-)
But we do not think about these strange numbers in our daily lives though -
they are really just names to us now ;-)
I think you are right - Danes tend to speak much faster than Swedes and also cut corners, merge words, drop endings or even whole small words at times.
And then we have all the strange mute d's and"soft d" ( ca. "-th" ) , corresponing to the similar sound in English ( just less pronounced ), which does not exist in Swedish and Norwegian and therefore confuse them - as well as most ending k's now having turned into g's" - which are often even soft ( ca. "-gh" ) or hardly pronounced at all. e.g. baka -> bake -> bage [ ba-ge -> bagh-e -> bay-e ] = baka = bake.
For instance:
D: "Der er en mand" [ Da'r'n man* ]
S: "Där är en mann" [ Däärrr ärrr enn mannn ]
E: "There is a man"
We seriously need to shape up here in Denmark ;-)
Bjowolf2 Younger people tend to speak very clearly today (especially when talking to foreigners...), but not all of them do, and certainly not a 50 year old guy from Svealand (Stockholm). I would certainly still pronounce _där är en man_ as _"där'n man"_ in everyday speech.
The general trend here has been to follow the spelling more and more closely (although with many exceptions), almost to the point where the written word is regarded as some kind of phonetic writing... However, the spelling has varied heavily over the centuries, much more so than (the educated) pronunciation... so this prescriptive status of the written word over the spoken is a recent idea, partly based on historical ignorance.
Learned Swedish so you could learn Icelandic?? That doesn't make any sense at all. Icelandic is basically old Norwegian/Danish.
I agree that it makes little sense. But Icelandic is not old Danish.
The old norse language split into east and west nordic languages.
Danish and Swedish are east nordic. Icelandic and old Norwegian (before Danish influence) is West nordic.
He learned Swedish because his University program worked in such a way that Icelandic was an elective you could chose once you had taken Swedish.
Den kalles "old norse" den er IKKE dansk!!!!!
It actually makes a lot of sense. Swedish has thousands of words similar to Icelandic, and the Icelandic pronuciation is much closer to Swedish than to modern Danish. Furthermore, that west/east-divide of Old Norse (fornnordiska) does not go very deep, especially not when compared to how Norwegian has changed drastically under Danish (and Swedish) influence.
I am going for Danish.
I know she makes it clear that for people who are new to Scandinavian language are recommended to start Norwegian. However, I just love Dane's accent. Plus, when you speak Danish really fast to other Scandinavian, the surprised face on them is just priceless!
I’m hear for it, I’m an American and I’m choosing Danish as my first language to learn. And even though people say it’s very difficult or it sounds weird. I still like it and I’m going to stick with it. Hope u do too. Good luck
I just think it's amazing, that people from Norway, Sweden and Denmark can talk in their own language to eachother, and still understand almost everything :)
swedish because it's beatiful and it's the most widely spoken scandinavian language
norwegian because you will be able to understande more danish and swedish, and because of skam
danish i don't even know if you should try it lol but ... danish becuase of copenhagen?
icelandic because it's the closest to old norse so it's very interesting.
For a Swede, Norwegian is more beautiful than Swedish. They sound so cute and happy all the time when they speak :D
So just go for any of them except Danish :D
This lady is stunning for an older lady, well she is Scandinavian :)
When a Dane or a Norwegian travels to Sweden, do you have to bring along your own supply of those little lines through the 'o' -- or do they make you change them into dots at the border?
+Bill Kelly They are easily exchangeable at a local Tøddelverket - they have them all over in border regions and in the largest cities.
jag underviser mig svenska spraket.. det är mycket lätt
I understand Norwegian, Danish and swedish beqause i am norwegian. It isn't that hard to speak swedish and danish.
Molo CnR Hvernig er það að skilja íslensku? (Google translator)
Det är kul att besöka Norge, det är så likt svenska att det nästan känns mer som en dialekt än som ett annat språk. =P
I've Swedish tried learning off & on for 20 yrs. In the last few months i got an iPhone app which I've worked on. It helps but I'm far from being fluent. I'm an American in Germany and I am fluent in German.
We are going to Denmark in the summer. Now I didn't feel like switching to Danish midstream. How much will Swedish help me in Denmark? I know a few word in Icelandic like counting to 20 or asking where my luggage is.
Molo CnR Det gjør du vist du prøver å forstå det. Dansk e faen ikkje vanskelig...
jteeselink I am from Sweden and my experience is that Danish and Swedish are fairly similar - kind of like Spanish and Portuguese - although a lot of Swedes find it hard to understand spoken Danish.
You can probably make yourself understood if you are somewhat comfortable with Swedish though, and you can probably read a few Danish signs and texts.
However, personally I think Norwegian is much more similar to Swedish;
those languages are mutually intelligible to the point that they sometimes feel more like dialects of one single language rather than two separate languages, and Swedes and Norwegians can usually understand each other incredibly well.
There is a constucted language based on Danish, Bokmal and Swedish called SamSkandinavisk(Samska)
+Vagabund92 We should teach this in schools xD and unite the countries to "Scandinavia", we already go by that name most of the time (when talking about big world stuff) so why not ^^(we'll adopt Færøyene and Island too just for fun :) )
yeah! :-), it would make a good language for some scandinavian federation, also pretty cool for foreigners to learn.
It could also be used like the arabs use standard arabic, as a written language and for text and news
Glad to finally see Cristina in a TH-cam video! This is a great topic to address and I'm glad you did.
Haha, like she says in the video it's all about being exposed to a language. Reading Danish should be easy for anyone with some Norwegian or Swedish skills, but the pronunciation isn't as "singing" as the two other languages. It's sort of like American English compared to English English. Danish is more "flat" and "slurry" and not so singy-songy and up and down in tones.
Danish had much more influence from its southern neighbors over time whereas Norwegian and Swedish were more "isolated" up north. Denmark always had way more interactions with Germany (also before it united into Germany), with The Netherlands etc. so we have been influenced by them, and we also have "German" words that the others don't.
One example could be "Potato":
Swe: Potatis
No: Potet
Da: Kartoffel
De: Kartoffel
My problem (as a Dane) with understanding Swedish and to a lesser extent Norwegian is the "rhythm" messing with my brain. We're all used to listening for the spaces between words in our native languages (and potentially any other languages we're fluent in) but if someone speaks a language in a different "rhythm" it quickly ends up sounding like a long stream of sounds without any spaces at all.
When I listen to someone Swedish saying a single word or a simple sentence I can usually understand it, but when they talk normally at full speed the "singing" rhythm results in me being unable to hear where one word ends and the next word begins since I'm not used to that rhythm and can't tell where the spaces between words are. So it just ends up sounding like an endless stream of singy-songy sounds to me.
What a gorgeous garden!
If Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes standardized their languages into one language, more people would try to learn their language.
김상윤
except that I would never care to learn some Norwegian and Danish, I'm fine with swedish
Stop with this globalized thought already. Why do so many people want to kill cultures?
You get Danish and Norwegian for free when you learn Swedish. It's easy to understand them both if you know Swedish.
Marcus Larsson För all del norska är lätt. Bokmål eller nynorsk. Jag tycker att verben på nynorsk är lätt.
***** Yes, it is! They are nearly the same languages with almost the same grammars and 80 - 90 % the same vocabularies ( and many of the differing words can be guessed ) - and with Danish and Norwgian being particular similar in writing - and with Swedish being somewhat different, in a rather systematic way, so that Swedish texts are usually easy to read as well - and vice versa.
D & N simply look like slightly misspelled versions of each others ( for historic reasons ), whereas the pronounciation differs considerably between these three languages, but once you tune in , it fairly easy to understand the "standard" speakers of the neighbour languages. They are really just variations - or "dialects" - of the same base language - a bit like British English vs. American English, just a couple of centuries further apart ;-)
***** Maybe because you haven't been exposed to it that much and are not used to listening to it?
If you watched Danish TV - with subtitles that look very much like Swedish and Norwegian and with loads of familiar or guessable words ( just spelled somewhat differently ) - you would be able to understand most of it
by far and to tune into the way(s) we speak in matter of weeks (!) - especially since the grammars are nearly
identical apart from minor details.
I think is is the same for Portuguese and Spanish, am I right?
+Metal4ever \33/ Portuguese to Spanish, but not the other way around
I am Norwegian myself, but if I were English or American I would go for Swedish, because it has only one written language unlike Norwegian which has two. And because Danish is a bitch to pronounciate. This is only my opinion, I am trying to look at it as objective as I can. I can understand 99% of Swedish both verbally and written, but Danish I can understand 99% written and only about 33% spoken.
Richard, the youtube algorithm has been recommending me for a log time a number of videos about learning..... My native language!!!! Does this mean that I'm making a nice immersion in my target language???
Hahahaha - absolutely! The TH-cam algorithm never lies!
excellent video, you guys give me wanderlust to learn one of those Scandinavian languages !
Hi Richard, thanks a lot for the video. But to you (or anyone else who reads it) as a foreigner, wich one you think it's easier to understand, norwegian or swedish? I started and paused to learn both, started back to norwegian, and I think it's harder than swedish.
i tried clicking on your channel just then and it says its not available :/
I have been learning Swedish for the past couple of months, and I love it.
Very nice video Richard. Großes Kino! :)
I couldn't get to danish course although I learned it alone at home, but when I got the chance to learn norwegian all I can say: norwegian really IS the first choice, because of the pronounciation which is tottally straightforward.
Danish, which is really a tongue-brake language, will be much more easier after the norwegian, I just love norwegian !!!
mykimikimiky Jag är överens med dig, danska är svårt att tala, läsa går mycket bättre.
tack för att reagera.
Robin Holthinrichs
jeg så kommentar din bare i går :)
....oooooog det er jeg igjen. :)
Svenska & dansk meistert. :D
I'm from Hungary... and at the end of the video, I was quite surprised, that you mentioned the hungarian language :D
The Swedes sound humorous and happy :3
Norwegians sounds happy to Swedes :D
Dutch when written is so much similiar to danish :)
"Jeg fanger fugle med mine lange negle"
Thanks for this video. I am fond of languages and, concerning the Scandinavian languages, I focus my attention on Danish because I love the accent and I am interested in the Danish history. Generally, Scandinavia is full of cultural treasures so unknown. Med venlige hilsen fra Frankrig !
Do you actually get German taught in schools in Scandinavia? And Dutch (probably not, but just wondering)?
Hi, I'm norsk, and if you have no connection to Scandinavia, learn Swedish. More people talk the language, and it's pronounciation is way easier than Danish. Most Scandinavians understand it too, including the Finns. The woman's obviously biased, and what the other dude said about Icelandic is only relevant to his particular university.
Finland used to be Swedish, just like Norway. ^^ Finland stayed Swedish a lot longer, though. Check out "The Kalmar Union".
Because Finland got a lot of Swedish immigrants (it's got a prominent minority), and because Finland still has a very close relationship with Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia.
Pure language learning wisdom in action, thanks both of you for this interesting video.
Which of the 3 languages would be closest to the old language that was spoken by the Danes when they took England? I am asking because I am curious about old writings of the time of the Danelaw/Danelagen and also Old English at that time. Are the present languages still similar to old Norse, or are they now very different?
i'm torn between swedish or norwegian, i know finnish is not scandinavian language, but consider it cause the accent and the pronunciation are the same as my native language, so which should i choose then?
Just learn Swedsih, because if you speak and understand Swedish you also understand Norwegian and Danish, because Swedish and Norwegian are very similar to each other. And Swedish is with around 12 Million+ speakers the biggest of the Nordic languages! And come on PewDiePie is from Sweden ;)
+Benjaminnet Hmm you make a good case with the Pewdiepie and most speakers, except that if you speak Swedish you DO NOT necessarily understand Danish xD You might understand East Norwegian (Oslo region), but you'll struggle with the other dialects. Speaking from experience since I'm from south of Norway living in north of Sweden. If I fake an Oslo-accent they understand me pretty well, until I switch back to my own dialect.
Being Norwegian myself I understand all the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish dialects I've encountered so far (which is many). So I can assume I understand "all" of them, ofc excluding Älvdalen, because not even Swedes understand them. (Eventho their language sounds beautiful ;) )
Swedes and Danes don't usually communicate well together until they switch to English. Whilst most Norwegians I know can switch to Svorsk* and Dorsk* real easily when on vacations ;)
My conclusion: I'd say Norwegian is the best bet. It's the one in the middle of the three.
Note: Svorsk = Svensk+Norsk (Swedish-Norwegian), Dorsk = Dansk+Norsk (Danish-Norwegian)
+Dixxi91 I agree. Most, at least somewhat educated Norwegians, know which word are difficult for Swedes and Danes, and know how to speak more easily when apporaching our beighbours. In my experience Swedes and Danes are not always so good with his, and Danes very often speak "Swedish" to Norwegians, thinking somehow that Norwegians will understand him more easily if he says "fönster" instead of "vindu" etc. This is really annoying, since 90% the word the Dane changes into Swedish, is the same in Danish and Norwegian. Which just tells me that most Danes don't really have any knowledge of Norwegian, just thinking it must be like Swedish, because in their ears, it "sounds" the same.
What has "PewDiePie" to with anything?
I don't know his name, but this man is my hero. I love languages so much, but have so much trouble learning them, but this guy is so smart, and knows a countless amount of languages. I'm envious, but it is good to know that it's possible.
You're saying that something that happened at viking times dictates which language will be the easiest now, right?
What I meant with "let's stay in the present" was that it's not as important as to what happened thousand years ago, but rather how the languages are today.
I honestly can't see how your comment's point was to stay in the present.
I'm American but I live in Denmark (with my Danish husband) so I am learning Danish. I also have some Norwegian friends and though I can't understand them when they speak, I can pick up what they are talking about when they have something written on Facebook.
I left a similar message on your Facebook posting, but I've been learning Danish for 7 years. Despite it arguably being the most difficult of the 3 languages to understand/speak (reading/writing it isn't too bad), I am still motivated to improve. I also feel that, if you understand 1 of the 3 languages reasonably well, you should be able to get by in the other 2 - e.g. I was in Stockholm last month, and understood pretty much all the (simple) Swedish written text I encountered.
Do Danes and Swedes speak their own languages when having a conversation or just switch over to English?
Older people (like me) usually use our respective native languages, or a mix of Danish and Swedish. Perhaps a little bit slower tha usual, of course. Younger people are more prone to using English.
I've been learning Norwegian for around 8 months and have been working here for 1 month. Before I came here I was in Stockholm for a week and found the language still extremely to understand spoken, but everything written was fine as the differences are small etc. As for Norwegian the language itself is great and the people here are friendly and will happily speak with you providing you make them aware of what you want to do- cheers for an awesome video Richard, speak norsk next time :P
Also, there are a lot of materials, online dictionaries, etc aimed at foreigners wanting to learn Swedish but I suspect Norwegian is rather limited. The accent variety in Norwegian is also high.
As you are from Jutland, I have a question for you: Is the name Birkebæk very common around there? I suspect that this is the area where we originally came from? Not withstanding a higher sex drive, I should have thought that a predominance of a name in one area is likely to indicate that that was where it originally came from? If that is the case then I guess it confirms my suspicions. I do know that there seem to be many more versions of that name in Denmark than Norway/Sweden.
Hi every one i am and american who family line is scandinavian 100% was wondering what would be the best language to start with with because all my family speak english and the only person that spoke scandinvain was my great great grandpa and grandma that i think was danish any help would be great
Any of the four main Scandinavian written languages as well as English can be used in Norwegian colleges.
Not quite sure what you meant? Did you mean that Danish is written more phonetically than English and French? I know that when I came across 'hendes navn' I read it out to my wife and she thought I was saying, 'her name'. Another interesting word used in both Scandinavian and German is 'langsomt/langsam', which to me sounds like 'long time', which of course relates to 'slow/slowly'.
If I would speak Dutch, would you understand it?
Welcome to Sweden, enjoy your stay and please do not only get stuck by Stockholm. There is so much more to see out there.
Hope you enjoy living here!
Датский, норвежский и шведский языки сильно отличаются? Можно ли, изучив один из этих языков, общаться со всеми скандинавами? Какой из них самый общий и распространённый?
isn't it on the scandinavian peninsula ?
I know you already speak Welsh, but have you ever considered learning any of the other Celtic languages like Breton, Manx, Scottish Gaelic or Irish?
I would venture that icelandic, german, norwegian, and dutch are closer than cantonese, and mandarin, taiwanese, shanghainese , hakka, despite the former being called languages and the latter are supposedly dialects of chinese
Exactly, i think the written language tends to be far more similar. Spoken language sounds much more similar to each other even though even a norwegian would have less trouble even understanding dutch or german , called languages than cantonese, taiwanese, shanghainese, mandarin normally considered dialects can understand less than ten percent of what the other is saying if they have not learned the other persons language. Similar for french, italian, spaniah, portuguese, romanian. Russian, polish, czech, bulgarian, Croatian languages, similarly have far more ease understanding each other than chinese supposed dialects
Let me know if you need some help : )
I would have thought that as we started with a common language, any modern Scandinavian language would be easier to learn for a British person than for someone of another nationality? However, perhaps the same statement is true for someone from the Netherlands or Germany? Any idea if this is true?
great video!
This is indeed a beautiful garden, Cristina! You both raised a very interesting and important topic and I am very glad that you, Cristina doe not generally discourage people from learning Danish! I find Danish worthwhile learning and it's possible to manage the Danish pronounciation. Cristina, you have answered the questions, I had around the usage of Bokmâl and Nynorsk. So Bokmâl is more widey used and it makes more sense to learn that. Kind regards, Fasulye
What´s Cristina´s channel? and blog?
Could you post a link to this study? I'd be really interested in reading it!
They let you do with without having studied Norwegian?
Well, although I speak now Swedish, my favorite skandinavian language is Danish....I like the sound of the language...maybe bcause I cannot understand quite well spoken Danish..( you always love and crave after what you haven't got!!! )...
Between Danish spelling and pronunciation there is a gap...it reminds me what they say in Dutch about English spelling...
( In't Engels schrijf je "street", ze zeggen "striet"...en bedoelen " straat " )
what about finnish?
So Norwegian, learn Norwegian as a first scandinavian language. Period.
Bf is danish and understands swedish pretty well. Danes watch a lot of swedish movies. Also many danish movies are made in collaboration with sweden, so characters use danish or swedish. To me, a foreigner, this is amazing. One man will speak danish to his gf who answers back in swedish and the audience understands.
Bf lives in Norway now and understands people fairly well and texts even more, about 90%. Having stayed in both Norway and denmark, I can tell that they are almost the same written language. The pronunciation is completely different though. Swedish sounds more like norwegian but is much different in the written form.
I am learning norwegian now and it is super easy from an English perspective. I'm sure norwegian is the best language to learn for people interested in Scandinavia. It opens all the doors. So I concur with what the lady says.
As a Dane, i would say Norwegian too. It would be the easiest and the best of those to learn and you would understand written Danish and spoken Swedish
Where is the sound?
I really love how alike our languages are! :D
I'm swedish, me and my family were visiting a norwegian family. We could understand each other very well!
But once when my dad was talking to a danish person on the phone, he talked swedish but the other person had to speak english xD haha!
I think the best choice is Swedish, because it has more native-speakers and you get almost 2 countries, because in Finland is taught as a second/third language. I love Swedish but its pronunciation is so difficult.
In general I would agree in what the woman says. Norwegian is danish in swedish. Both bokmål and nynorsk are written languages, however nynorsk sounds more like different dialects from the west cost. The problem with learning norwegian however is that norwegian is very diversified in different dialects (not accents). The dialects use somewhat different expressions and words, different grammar and sometimes different phonemes. Eg. all these words are norwegian ways for saying "I" ("jeg" in bokmål, "Eg" in nynorsk): Jei, Je, I, æg(aeg), eg, e, æ(ae) + + .. What norwegians usally learn forreigners is "pent", a mixture of eastern norwegian/written norwegian,
So you would likely understand Dutch?
The thing I found about spoken Danish is that there are many glottalstops within the speech of the language, similar to British and Australian english when we omit the 't' from the end of words like "roed" in danish, you basically omit the 'd' at the end of the word.
Aside from these three languages, Dutch is much easier to approach as an english speaker. What you see written is always pronounced the same way whereas German and the others are mostly all over the place.
In Denmark we get Swedish channels in many places of the country, haha :).
How is the danish number system fucked? :
The Scandinavian peninsula is Norway and Sweden. Scandinavia is usually meant to include Norway, Sweden and Denmark because of their shared history between 1300 - 1700 (around that period). Finland is usually not included because they don't speak a scandinavian language and Iceland is more part of our shared Viking heritage. When you want to include Iceland and Finland to Scandinavia we often just call it "The North"... atleast that's how a swede would put it.
I noticed she said, that her husband speaks english with danish colleagues. I`m not sure but in Denmark, there are many people that find it difficult to understand and speak swedish or norwegian. I think it has something to do with where in Denmark your from. I`m from north Jutland. Here we understand the two languages with no problem. Perhaps it has something to do with our dialects? I have family at Zealand/sjælland, i know that they find it difficult to understand the two languages.
hey! New Norwegian is based on norwegian dialects. Bokmål is based from the danish written language, because we were under the rule of denmark for 400 years, and all the universities were there. When that is said, most people write bokmål, because it had a tradition of being the educated language and most people on the eastside of Norway speak in terms of this written language. Nynorsk (New Norwegian) is mainly based on the westcoast of Norway and in the middle of Norway.
Who would teach me either of them? just for fun. I can english, french, italian, german, spanish and some corean, and mandarin.
A friend learned norwegian alone by herself. she says it is easy. Danish sounds so strange, swedish sounds good to the ears...
Cesar Antonio Sry you simply can't can a language. You can learn a language, speak a language and/ or know a language though.
A fairly German mistake that one.
It's like a French person telling his age. I have 30 years :)
Just kind advice and nevermind what I've said in case of a modern typing mistake or autocorrect related issue.
Dennis Müller oh my, you must've been popular in the high school hahaha. Just kidding. I understand the struggle, because I speak Portuguese and with it we also say 'I have 30 years' as in French. I'm learning German now, and it's nice to see the resemblance with English that it has, for example 'ich bin 30 Jahre alt', it's identical to the English counterpart
Haha love your personality!
What on earth happens to the audio!
I would say Swedish because it is more widely spoken in Scandivania as most Finns speak it and most Norwegians know the vocabulary and verb morphologies. But most Scandinavians learn English, Spanish, or French in school to speak to the outer world.
I agree with her although I'm Swedish. Most comments here are full of hate, we are neighbours and we all get along in real life so why all the bad comments?
isn't it something like the uralic-indo europian/..something like that?
Eh...exactly...thats my point...good to know you can understand the most simple things.
i have just started learning danish by myself (with bands and movies) and i undertand a lot of words already. i can tell when i'm reading swedish too and use google translator to check if i'm right. most of the times i am. and i know danish is one of the most difficult languages in the world but i fell in love with this band from denmark (Volbeat) and now there's no going back. i read about DK all the time, i love their way of life, well scandinavia as a whole is amazing. thanks for the video
Likewise. You can't sound angry when you calm down in the end of every sentence.
What about finnish and Icelandic?
I agree with you. A united Scandinavia would be wonderful since we have so many interests in common.
Did you pronounce the consonants to hard maybe? In Swedish we have very hard consonants, just like Finns but they have another language.
You too of course!
lol i think the exact opposite! The swedish language is really fast and also full of words like "glas" wich is absoloutely not similar to the danish and norwegian words: is and iskrem wich means icecream. but since i am danish and i have the hardest time understanding swedish, i would totally go for that! :)
As a Norwegian I can understand Swedish and Danish and read in both languages.
I can understand parts of Finnish and Icelandic.(Spoken and written)
But in all honesty, if you speak Swedish,Norwegian or Danish you will be fine.(English is also good, but you will have problems dealing whit older people and the government)
I did not include the Faeroe Islands or the Sami people, because they are Norwegian.(Just shut up and do as you are told children!!!(......meant as humor fyi))
Færøerne er Danske!
Minnesota Noice Nope, Norwegians setteld there.
was that when Norway was Danish? Because its Danish land now..
Minnesota Noice nope, it was during the viking era, even before Denmark existed.(If I remember my history correct)
Well, if you want to get technical, Denmark has the oldest still standing kingdom in the world, dating back to the 10th century. though, to be fair thats already 150-200 years into the viking age. thats not saying that most of the people were not FROM Norway, but that if they were from Norway, they were probably technically Danish. But i believe they are also influenced by alot of the gaelic- nordic people, from skotland and ireland. anyhoo, its been Danish for pretty much the last 600 years so yea, Færøerne er danske :)
@Letheryed2 it's easy to understand since me and a norweigan friend guessed about 70% correct on icelandic centences..
Written Dutch yes, would say about 70% of the dutch I read, I can understand completely.
Translation:
So you would be able to understand me now? And Dutch is easy for many people, as it is in between English and German, so many people who can speak one of the two can also speak quite some Dutch. For me Danish is more difficult, as I don't learn any languages that are like it, however, I can still understand a lot. Go ahead and speak a little Danish, I'll see if I can translate it without Google Translate. :)