Dutch, Norwegian or Polish?

I am a language nerd (I speak French and German, and also some Russian), and would love to pick up a lesser-spoken one.

Dutch and Norwegian are quite Germanic and I'm interested in their cultures, so this is why I originally thought of them. "Leisure languages", if you like.

But with the huge Polish community in the UK, I began to consider learning that language. However, I heard that the pronunciation is a b*tch to an English speaker, and so is the grammar (although having done Russian...). In that sense, it would be more of a "practical/business" language.

So what do you think?

Reply 1

strangej

Norwegian can be a b*tch too if you start muddling up the dialects. It's not uncommon for southern Norwegians to be incapable of understanding north Norwegians. Then you have the whole Nynorsk/bokmål thing...

... but otherwise I didn't find it too bad at all :wink:

Reply 2

renaissancemensch

I dabble in Dutch for recreational reasons and, as you, like me, are a German-speaker, I would thoroughly recommend it. It's a piece of cake and you can start understanding newspapers pretty well after about a month or two's dabbling. In fact, try reading a newspaper like the NRC Handelblad now without even having studied Dutch, and I think you'll find that you can make out quite a lot of it. It's just a question of knowing how to "convert" Dutch into German and English (like Dutch "t" being a German "z", etc, which makes understanding it really simple). I mainly focus on acquiring a passive, reading knowledge, so I can't comment on the grammar as I don't bother with it, but it seems fairly similar to German. SImilarly I don't bother with pronunciation, but having spent some time with a fair few Dutch friends, it does seem pretty difficult, especially their bizarre dipthongs. But anyway, I would recommend Dutch!

Reply 3

Snufkin

Universities Forum Helper

Norwegian!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :viking:

Its a fascinating language in itself but a good command of Norwegian means you'll understand Danish and Swedish too. I dont think the regional accents and dialects are a major issue, but learn the Bokmål orthography if you decide on Norwegian.

You speak German and English so Dutch really wouldn't be much of a challenge or benefit.

There isnt much of a permanent polish community in the UK, lots of Poles are heading home now that their economy is stronger. So that might not be such a great reason to learn IMO

Reply 4

afua12

Dutch, for the simple reason that it just sounds so nice!

Reply 5

Piggsil

Norsk

I am biased tbf though :p:

Reply 6

frogout

Dutch. It's really easy, especially if you speak German. Pronounciation can take a while to get used to but it's not incredibly difficult.

Reply 7

Sephirona

kimoso

Dutch. It's really easy, especially if you speak German. Pronounciation can take a while to get used to but it's not incredibly difficult.

Yes it is quite easy if you speak German although the language itself is one of the hardest lto master. Too many vowels I assume.

Reply 8

frogout

I certainly wouldn't say it's one of the hardest to master by any stretch of the imagination :lolwut:

I taught myself to A level standard in a year btw, I'm not just some random who's read some wikipedia article....

Reply 9

renaissancemensch

kimoso

I certainly wouldn't say it's one of the hardest to master by any stretch of the imagination :lolwut:

I taught myself to A level standard in a year btw, I'm not just some random who's read some wikipedia article....

Just out of interest, how did you teach it to yourself? Which books did you use?

Reply 10

frogout

The 'teach yourself' series I think though they're not all that great. I also used www.dutchgrammar.com for grammar. I also used AS standard textbooks from a series called "taal totaal"

Reply 11

Si_G

Polish would definetly be the most useful, although it's an extremley hard language, but you would pick it up quickly if you know russian i guess. Dutch would be the easiest...i can't see much point in learning norweagian.