Norwegian or Swedish...

Hi

Which is the easiest to learn out of the two? I understand that like French and Spanish for instance Norwegian and Swedish share a common groundwork so if I learnt one to a decent level, could I in theory learn the other easier?

Also what programs do you recommend to use as there is Rosetta Stone but it only has Swedish so I have no idea what to use for Norwegian :frown:

Cheers

Reply 1

FluxD

Norwegian is easiest, and learning Norwegian allows for the most carryover in comprehending Swedish and Danish (You can pretty much understand most Swedish, written Danish too but less than Swedish and spoken Danish is the hardest to understand with just Norwegian due to the pronunciation).

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 2

bestofyou

try livemocha

edit: yeah, livemocha does Norwegian

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 3

FluxD

Mutual intelligibility

Norwegian, swedish and danish
90% of the words in swedish is also in the norwegian. we don`t always understand each other, and norwegians understand the two other languages better.

Fig. A. an understanding of spoken language

Norwegians understand 88% of the spoken swedish language
understand 73% of the spoken danish language

Swedes understand 48% of the spoken norwegian language
understand 23% of the spoken danish language

Danes understand 69% of the spoken norwegian language
understand 43% of the spoken swedish language

Fig. B. An understanding of the written language

Norwegians understand 89% of the written swedish language
understand 93% of the written danish language

Swedes understand 86% of the written norwegian language
understand 69% of the written danish language

Danes understand 89% of the written norwegian language
undestand 69? of the written swedish language.

Reply 4

Larry_David

Original post by FluxD

Thank you

Norwegian is the way it is looking then if I can understand spoken Swedish as well as Norwegian :colone:

Original post by FluxD

Mutual intelligibility

Is that true? looks like Norwegian it is then :h:

Reply 5

FluxD

Yeah I taught myself a little bit and it is really easy to learn the basics, the grammar is a lot like English and a lot of the words are familiar. I am from Newcastle so the pronunciation is pretty much how I speak English anyway haha! Sounds stupid, but if you don't know how to pronounce a word just read it in a Geordie accent (Even some of the words are used in Geordie, e.g. Barn - Bairn - Child, Hyem - Hjem - Home)

Reply 6

Larry_David

Original post by FluxD

Really?

Do you have any suggestions on the course I should look into? Teach Yourself Series any good or EuroTalk's package + uTalk HD Norwegian? anything else to look into?

Reply 7

FluxD

Original post by Larry_David

Really?

Do you have any suggestions on the course I should look into? Teach Yourself Series any good or EuroTalk's package + uTalk HD Norwegian? anything else to look into?

Not sure the little I did learn was from Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone, but if you are serious about learning it then a more complex course would be better than those, one that fully explains grammar. Pimsleur is amazing for learning the basics of speech and being able to hold a conversation, and it makes you remember speech extremely well, but writing etc. isn't covered at all.