I wouldn't want to pick a fight with a polar bear. I'm not sure even bullets would stop several tonnes of meat charging towards you. They are amazing to watch though (from a distance!).
I don't really know much Icelandic. Just words and phrases I picked up when I visited. I love listening to Sigur Ros, and I've learned one or two words from listening to them, and one or two from listening to songs by the Icelandic band Dikta (who unfortunately now sing in English
). But really, I hardly know any Icelandic -Eg skil ekki/eg tala ekki Islenska.
I would have learned more Norwegian when I visited, but I spent my time mostly around other Brits on the expedition -a few Germans and a French Canadian too, but only little contact with Norwegians. I only really know some obscure words like öya, takk, haderbra (no idea how to spell these, this is just how I remember they were pronounced), bolig, dag and trygghamna (apparently safe harbour?).
I'm not really a languages man. I was quite good at German, but dropped it last year after blitzing my AS level so I could focus more on getting my other grades -I'm a maths/physics kind of a guy. I love languages, especially Scandinavian/Germanic languages, because a lot of the words have the same root as German/English, so it's not too challenging
. I just don't have the dedication to self-teach though, and I'm fearful that each new piece of vocabulary will push out vital pin numbers