2014-09-27 12:24:02

Hello,
So recently for some strange reason I have decided that I want to learn swedish. does someone have any idea for accessible/workable courses?

skype name: techluver
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2014-09-29 09:09:39

Hi.
I don't know about any accessible courses.
At the moment, I'm doing my best to study Norwegian and Swedish, because I have reasonly got a lot of nice friends there. But those two languages are very much simular to the danish language which is my first language, so for me, it's just a matter of practise.
I hear some iPhone apps for learning new languages are accessible, but I have never tried those, so I don't know for sure. I think the best way to learn a new language is to study some articles and get friends in the country who can explain the basics in the language so you can slowly start to learn it.
Myself, I would find it very challenging to learn people the danish language, mainly because this is a damn strange language, but it's quite difficult to explain how a language is build up when it's your first language, because you really never think about it but just speak it. smile
The english language is quite easy to learn because it's written as you pronounce the words. But that's only the case in danish, swedish and norwegian and all other languages if you know how the letters are said in the language. I mean, if I write a word in danish, you as a english speaker would think it's pronounced very differently because you might not know how the letters are pronounced in danish. Quite difficult to explain but I think you know what I mean. smile
I'm very slow to learn a new language and I wish I was much faster to learn. So if you have any tips for that, I would love to hear about it.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
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2014-09-29 10:40:22

hi. i am learning norvegian and it's a strange language in deed. it's very different from my native language which is romanian but luckily my english knowledge helps me a lot. i would suggest searching on google for some courses. you can find some audio courses on torrent sites. i hope this was helpfull.

“Get busy living or get busy dying.”
Stephen King

2014-09-29 13:46:58

Hi Nin.
Cool. Then, you'll also be able to understand the danish language. smile

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2014-09-29 13:57:36

I have studied Danish and Norwegian a little bit and I found it quite amazing that the  vocabulary and writing systems are quite similar, but the pronunciations sound quite different. Although I have to say that Norwegian sounds easier to understand than Danish. The latter one sounds much more slurred, but somehow cooler as well. I once read the comparison of those languages from Wikipedia and there was written that it is sometimes jokingly said that Danes have easier time understanding drunk Norwegians and Norwegian sounds kind of childish because of the sing-song manner of speaking. But I've also heard that some Norwegian dialects sound quite a lot like Danish.

2014-09-30 01:35:23

Yeah. I think i might learn danish instead only because I already have a course for it. maybe then i can learn swedish by practice. I'm already learning from a friend but it's still very difficult.

skype name: techluver
Feel free to add me.

2014-09-30 08:38:39

Lol! Yeah, drunk norwegians sounds damn funny, trust me. haha.
The two languages are very much simular when writing, but pronounced quite differently, but not with so much difference so we can't understand each other. But for people who don't know the languages, they might sound like two different languages. smile
Harrylst: where have you found an accessible danish course? I'm interested to see what it's like. smile
If you guys are interested, I can post links to some great videos so you can hear the different dialekts in danish and norwegian. I might also be able to find something great in swedish.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2014-09-30 11:02:27

Yeah, would be quite interesting!
Reminds me a story a Norwegian guy told me: His schoolmate was from Trondheim and there was some kind of sport event going on and a part of it was long distance running. After this guy had finished, he stood for a while gasping and finally said: "Jeg er klar!"
In standard Norwegian and Danish klar should mean ready, but in Trondheim dialect it means tired.
The same guy told me, that "du er rar" means "you are good looking" in Swedish and if I remember correctly, in Danish as well. Although in Swedish I guess it is spelled differently. But in norwegian it means "you are weird". So if a norwegian says it to a Swede or Dane, both of them are happy. LOL

There should be  a list of this kind of  words comparing Danish and Norwegian somewhere in the wikipedia. As an Estonian, who's native language is similar to Finnish, I really like these  kind of words, which sound similar in similar languages, but have completely different meaning. Linguists call them "false friends".

2014-09-30 12:16:29

i would be interested to se these videos too. false friends are a common thing amongst languages that have a common root. i remember that my lexicology teacher told us about them, he used as example the case of rubber which means a completely different thing in british english than in american english. big_smile

“Get busy living or get busy dying.”
Stephen King