posted
Advice please! I am thinking of beginning to learn another language this year. I already speak reasonable French, but I would like to attempt one of the Scandinavian languages, because I would like to travel there. Although if I should win the lottery, there are all those wonderful islands for sale. Maybe it would be a good idea to buy a lottery ticket?
Internet research has narrowed my choice down to (probably) Swedish or Norwegian. Which does anyone think I should attempt?
I have to confess that I have a leaning towards Norwegian for two totally irrational reasons:
1. I loved the novel Wolf Winter by Clare Francis which is mostly set in Norway, and
2. Slarti Bartfast. Who can resist a guy who won awards for "the twiddly bits around Norway"? Which I would very much like to visit.
But then there's that wonderful Swedish archipelago...
posted
It should depend on which of those sounds better to your ear. Both are difficult, but when you've learned one Scandinavian language, the others will be easier (except for, of course, Sami and Finnish, due to the fact that they're not even Indo-European).
From: anywhere | Registered: Nov 2008
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posted
I think Norwegian is a better path to understanding the other Scandinavian languages (we're "in the middle", language-wise - at least, that's what we think ).
Beware of strange dialects though.
From: Forochel | Registered: Feb 2007
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I wanted to learn Japanese after watching Death Note; I got to learn the Hiragana before I lost interest!
From: Forochel | Registered: Feb 2007
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There is no such thing as "losing interest" when it comes to Japanese *speaks some*
If you choose Finnish (which is ) be careful not to refer to Finns as being part of Scandinavia. They wouldn't like that.
Oh, and I think that "irrational reasons" are very important in that kind of choice. I also think that you shouldn't consider trying to learn any language if you are not willing to spend at least some money on it.
quote:2. Slarti Bartfast. Who can resist a guy who won awards for "the twiddly bits around Norway"?
quote:I think Norwegian is a better path to understanding the other Scandinavian languages (we're "in the middle", language-wise - at least, that's what we think ).
Apparently, both Danish and Swedish people find Norwegian easier to understand than each other's languages respectively.
So if you learn Norwegian, you might be easily understood by the other Scandinavian people.
From: Narnia, also connected with Norway | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote: I wanted to learn Japanese after watching Death Note; I got to learn the Hiragana before I lost interest!
Is Death Note good, Arty? I know the Katakana but I'm finding the Hiragana more of a challenge.
quote: There is no such thing as "losing interest" when it comes to Japanese *speaks some*
But Inc', it's haaard! Rather like your game! Well, to read and write anyway, what with having to learn new characters. (It's also tricky to get past picking up your vocabulary from games/anime - knowing things like "moon demon" and "death god" aren't very useful really!)
Finnish confuses me, some of my friends were trying to learn is a while back - it's all angelic vowels!
From: Mordor | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I've seen (many, many years ago) a theory that Finnish and Hungarian (and Estonian) belong to the same language family as Japanese (and possibly Korean). They well might - they at least don't belong to the Indo-European languages.
And Japanese doesn't belong to the same family as Chinese, for all that it sometimes uses its characters.
From: Narnia, also connected with Norway | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote: But Inc', it's haaard! Rather like your game!
It is hard indeed, especially on your memory. Parts of the grammar are quite simple, but you have to think the language in a totally different way. It's hard, but interesting. I also think that katakan are harder to remember than hiragana. Plus, they are seldom used, so I don't read them as fast.
quote: And Japanese doesn't belong to the same family as Chinese, for all that it sometimes uses its characters.
All characters used in Japanese come from Chinese, but over time some of them have been simplified differently (although in most cases in Japanese they haven't been simplified at all). So a Chinese person car read most characters in Japanese, and vice-versa. At first, Japanese was exclusively written phonetically, with no characters at all !
From: Yoshi's Island | Registered: Apr 2007
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quote:I've seen (many, many years ago) a theory that Finnish and Hungarian (and Estonian) belong to the same language family as Japanese (and possibly Korean).
Sounds (ha ha) pretty outlandish IMO. Finno-Ugric languages are usually handled as "Uralic" languages, while Japanese and Korean are either part of the Altaiic family or language isolates.
Hungarian has some 300+ Turkic words, due to interaction of the early Hungarians with Turkic tribes. By the same way, they've acquired Iranian, Slavic, and Germanic words as well though, and it's pretty well established that Hungarian is related to neither of these groups. Same goes for Finnish and Estonian (granted, the mutual intelligiblity between Finnish and Hungarian amounts to almost zero, and they sound very different, but the experts seem to agree that they are related somehow).
posted
I know, I know, everyone says the katakana are harder, but I picked them up from my DVD cases and find them easier than all those little "twiddly bits" (not like the ones around Norway) that make up hiragana.
quote: It's hard, but interesting.
Indeed. I'm determined to succeed! *has been determined before, to little effect*
On the mad supposedly connected languages front, someone told me that if I wanted to learn Japanese I should start with Spanish because it's meant to be easier that way... Needless to say I didn't take any notice of this.
From: Mordor | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Sounds (ha ha) pretty outlandish IMO. Finno-Ugric languages are usually handled as "Uralic" languages, while Japanese and Korean are either part of the Altaiic family or language isolates.
I wonder if a "Ural-Altaic" family was a part of the theory, if I remember correctly. It's possible that they were grouped together more for the sake of convenience than for actual similarity.
quote:(granted, the mutual intelligiblity between Finnish and Hungarian amounts to almost zero, and they sound very different, but the experts seem to agree that they are related somehow)
Whereas the mutual intelligibility between Norwegian, Swedish and Danish must be somewhere between 80 and 90 % (by my own estimate ) - which according to some models would make them dialects of the same Scandinavian language and not separate languages at all
From: Narnia, also connected with Norway | Registered: Dec 2003
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Yeah there have been all kinds of crazy theories. The problem with languages is that (apart from obnoxious nationalist or regionalist movements that try to mess with research) it's an extremely ambiguous business, all the more as any language can be influenced by the whims of an individual some time in the past.
And what differentiates a dialect from an independent language is extremely subjective IMO. There are many dialects whose intonation and even grammar differ quite a lot from the "mother language", yet they're only seen as dialects - I guess it's because they're spoken in the same country.
posted
Indeed. And when you have groups A, B, C, D, and E living along a stretch of an area - say, along a river in an inaccessible jungle - you may find that A and B understand each other, so do B and C, C and D, and D and E - but A and C hardly understand each other, and A and E don't understand each other at all. So are there two, three or five languages? Or even just one? It's not at all an exact science.
From: Narnia, also connected with Norway | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote:And what differentiates a dialect from an independent language is extremely subjective IMO.
I've read the thought that more than one language is called a language rather than a dialect only because of a flag, an army, and a boundary on a map.
From: Wilsonville, OR | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Languages to know: English, German, Spanish, Chinese Mandarin. If you know these four languages, You'll do well in 4/5ths of the world. Russian would be good to know as a 5th language. The rest you're just filling in holes.
[ 04-19-2012, 11:27 AM: Message edited by: Snöwdog ]
From: The Twilight of Arnor | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
Depends on what 4/5ths you're talking about...
quote: German
I don't know where knowing German would help apart from Germany and like Namibia. I don't mean to be chauvinistic, but knowing French will help you much more, at least in terms of number of countries.
And in terms of population, Arabic and Hindi could be very helpful as well.
From: Yoshi's Island | Registered: Apr 2007
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quote: I don't know where knowing German would help apart from Germany and like Namibia.
In France, once we've re-taken it
No seriously, German has about a hundred million speakers. Probably less than french but it is very useful for cultural purposes, and many groundbreaking scientific works were published in German. Though French, Arabic, and Hindi/Urdu are definitely among the most widespread.
It all comes down to a compromise between what you need and what you like. For instance, I chose Persian over Arabic because it sounds better (and because we all know Arabs are filthy lizard eaters from the desert...), even though it has "only" about as many speakers as German.
quote: Languages to know: English, German, Spanish, Chinese Mandarin. If you know these four languages, You'll do well in 4/5ths of the world.
IMO you should learn a language (from choice) because it interests you, not because it applies to more of the world.
From: Mordor | Registered: Apr 2002
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Hey ! We'll fight if we have to. Yeah, not that convincing.
quote: No seriously, German has about a hundred million speakers. Probably less than french but it is very useful for cultural purposes, and many groundbreaking scientific works were published in German.
Oh yeah I'm not denying that German is important and widespread. I was just clarifying things
But I have to say that I agree with DQ, all that matters is that it interests you (and that also makes you learn it faster )
From: Yoshi's Island | Registered: Apr 2007
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posted
Just said those would be good to know, not that you needed to learn them. In traveling the world, it helps to know some languages that would help you communicate, and with those 5, it would give one vast coverage of the world. Just sayin'. If a language interests you, then learn it by all means. I just thought all contributions were gratefully received.
From: The Twilight of Arnor | Registered: Aug 2000
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