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Reply 1
Danish- verbs are easy, and also good if you know some German. Not the most attractive language in the world, but its ok. :smile:
Reply 2
Hei, jeg snakker norsk. :wink: As such i'd say Norwegian.
Reply 3
Wander in Technicolour
i am thinking about which scandinavian languages in terms of Norwegian, Sweden, Denish and Finnish


Sweden. Definitely.
Wander in Technicolour
i am thinking about which scandinavian languages in terms of Norwegian, Sweden, Denish and Finnish i am going to learn and i was wondering which may suit me best and can be relatively easier to be acquired as well as being useful according to my particular situation that i can speak english and german. :p: i'm chinese by the way. thank you guys. x rep+ will be given. :wink:


They are all pretty similar to be honest, but seeing as you know German you could pop over the border into Denmark, therefore learn Danish.

As well as this I think they speak Danish in Greenland and possibly in Iceland too, as the Danish government had an influence in these countries. So it's probably the most useful.
Reply 5
I'd advice you not to learn Finnish simply because it's very complicated and many parts of the grammar seem very illogical so it's not really worth the effort for a language 5 mil people speak.

I only speak Swedish and the grammar is very simple, pronunciation makes sense and the vocabulary is fairly easy for a speaker of both German and English. I'd assume this is the case for all the other languages as well, and it shouldn't matter too much which one you pick. Swedish has the biggest population but I'd maybe agree with the poster above me: pick Danish :smile:
Reply 6
I'm kinda biased, but i'd say Swedish.

Although, if you speak german, Danish is pretty easy to understand.

Personally though, i'd love to learn Icelandic and read the Sagas in their original language...

I wouldn't bother with Finnish.....It's really hard, and whilst a knowledge of norwegian/swedish/danish would allow you to understand bits of all three languages as they're so similar, Finnish is just...different.
Reply 7
If you're fluent in Swedish you can also read Danish and Norwegian like 80% (I don't know how it works the other way around), if spoken you could communicate with Norwegians on a basic level but Danes you're unlikely to understand, just because of the vast difference in pronounciation. Danish in terms of pronounciation could be easier for you since you know German, but grammar-wise you'll going to do fine choosing any of the three.

Finnish isn't impossible to learn, but a lot harder since you won't have any kind of linguistical base for it. It's an interesting langauage but as said before, it won't be of the largest use..
Reply 8
It depends what you want from the language.

Finnish isn't technically a Scandinavian language, though it may be useful if you lived in Stockholm. But to be honest, probably not.

Norwegian is the easiest for native english speakers as far as accent is concerned in my opinion, but this applies to just the "Oslo" dialect. The other dialects can be a bit iffy. But again this is only my opinion.

Also Norwegian is the best one to learn with regards to understanding the other two Continental Scandinavian languages and is sometimes described as Danish with a Swedish accent :wink: although that's pretty much bull' but you know..

Swedish has the largest number of speakers but it's pretty heavily influenced by English, especially in Stockhom, which is a shame.

Danish, I don't know too much about, it's pretty ugly sounding.

So yeah... let us know what you decide. :smile:
Reply 9
To be honest, go with Norwegian, purely because out of the three mainland Scandinavian languages (Swedish, Danish and Norwegian), it gives you the most access to the other two. Swedish speakers cannot understand Danish so well, but Norwegian speakers can understand Swedish and Danish.

Finnish is not a Scandinavian language and many would argue it's not even a Nordic language.

Icelandic would be good if you want a challenge, but only opens up Iceland to you. Danish will not open up Iceland to you at all. They are taught it at school, but few keep it up to fluency.

Faroese only opens the Faroe Islands up to you.

I've studied Icelandic at UCL, and Swedish too, so I say go for whatever. Norwegian would give you greater access to the other languages, but it is your own choice.
Finnish is uralic :wink:
Reply 11
dubbelfitta
Finnish is uralic :wink:


Specifically Finno-Ugric, but it is called a Nordic language due to Finland's long standing links to Sweden and the Swedish speaking community in Finland.
Yeah but, I thought I'd just say. I can't believe the amount of people I've met in England who when I say I live in Sweden and stuff they're like "Oh.. so you can understand Finnish too?!":confused:

What made you wanna do Icelandic btw?
Reply 13
dubbelfitta
Yeah but, I thought I'd just say. I can't believe the amount of people I've met in England who when I say I live in Sweden and stuff they're like "Oh.. so you can understand Finnish too?!":confused:

What made you wanna do Icelandic btw?


A Belgian, originally, then personal interest.
Reply 14
Im thinking about learning norsk, but there arent really any teaching centres about where i live for it, can anyone recomend me any good books, websites etc to help me learn. Many thanks :smile: PS sorry for hijacking your thread OP
Reply 15
Wander in Technicolour
i am thinking about which scandinavian languages in terms of Norwegian, Sweden, Denish and Finnish i am going to learn and i was wondering which may suit me best and can be relatively easier to be acquired as well as being useful according to my particular situation that i can speak english and german. :p: i'm chinese by the way. thank you guys. x rep+ will be given. :wink:


definately not swedish then? :rolleyes:
Reply 16
Yeah don't go for Finnish. It's closest language is Hungarian and that is a BITCH. It's because long ago a tribe split and some went to Finland and some went to Hungary. But they aren't that compatible anyway; knowing one you could probably recognise maybe 10% of the other language? And the Hungarian language it links with isn't even Scandinavian and what you're looking for, so yeah, not Finnish. Perhaps Danish?
Reply 17
Wander in Technicolour
i am thinking about which scandinavian languages in terms of Norwegian, Sweden, Denish and Finnish i am going to learn and i was wondering which may suit me best and can be relatively easier to be acquired as well as being useful according to my particular situation that i can speak english and german. :p: i'm chinese by the way. thank you guys. x rep+ will be given. :wink:

Why Scandinavian languages in particular? I mean, Finnish is nothing like Swedish, Norwegian or Danish (which are similar to each other). They're all awesome in their own way anyway. Finnish manages to be heavily agglutinating and have 15 noun cases despite having many fewer phonemes than any other European language; Norwegian and Danish are similar in terms of vocab and grammar, but Danish is much more 'slurred' (there's a good video that takes the mick out of this somewhere); Swedish is similar to Norwegian and Danish but its phonology (pronunciation, intonation etc) is much easier to pick up.

Enjoy :smile:
Hylean
A Belgian, originally, then personal interest.


Was your first language French or Flemmish? If it's French maybe you can shead (or however you spell it..) some light onto what it's like to learn a language that's not in your native language's "group" incase the person who made the thread want's to learn Finnish. But then again I did French at school and it isn't a Germanic language and it was easy as.. but whatever..:p:
Reply 19
dubbelfitta
Was your first language French or Flemmish? If it's French maybe you can shead (or however you spell it..) some light onto what it's like to learn a language that's not in your native language's "group" incase the person who made the thread want's to learn Finnish. But then again I did French at school and it isn't a Germanic language and it was easy as.. but whatever..:p:


I fail to see how my post made you think I was Belgian as well, especially as my flag is Ireland's and one of my hometowns is Belfast. :s-smilie:

Besides that, the Belgians also speak German. :wink: Is why they are considering splitting into three separate countries based on language.

The fact that Icelandic is in the same language group as English means jack-****, really. It was a lot harder than learning Latin, French or Spanish.

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