# All Scandinavian languages: Mutual intelligibility/Difficulty



## COF

Firstly, how hard is Swedish/Danish/Norwegian for an English speaker? Any harder than French/Spanish? Someone told me their infact easier. Also, if you speak one of the 3, how much of the other 2 will you be actually able to understand - will you be able to converse fully?


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## Namakemono

I'm sure you'll find Danish pretty easy. It's more similar to English than German (especially the phonetic). The grammar is very simple too. I don't know about the other two languages, but I heard they're not very different.


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## Outsider

This thread and the links in it may also be of interest to you.


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## Hakro

I've found Swedish the easiest, mostly because I hear Swedish here in Finland every day (although it's pronounced in a little different way).
Norwegian is even easier to pronounce than Swedish, at least for a Finn. Instead, I find Danish very difficult to pronounce and to understand.
On the other hand, for me translating from Danish has been easier than translating from norwegian.
An English speaker may see these thing differently.


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## duckie

Namakemono said:


> I'm sure you'll find Danish pretty easy. It's more similar to English than German (especially the phonetic). The grammar is very simple too. I don't know about the other two languages, but I heard they're not very different.



This is the first time I've heard anyone say English and Danish are close phonetically.. although it's true that it's not too hard for Danes to pronounce English properly, it rarely works that way in the opposite direction.. do you find it easy to pronounce?


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## Hakro

duckie said:


> This is the first time I've heard anyone say English and Danish are close phonetically.. although it's true that it's not too hard for Danes to pronounce English properly, it rarely works that way in the opposite direction.. do you find it easy to pronounce?


I agree 100%


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## Tino_no

Yeah, I've heard Danish is a very difficult language to pronounce, actually I speak spanish but I'm almost fluent in English and I think scandinavian languages are very difficult to me to pronounce correctly.


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## Namakemono

duckie said:


> This is the first time I've heard anyone say English and Danish are close phonetically.. although it's true that it's not too hard for Danes to pronounce English properly, it rarely works that way in the opposite direction.. do you find it easy to pronounce?


 
Absolutely not. But it has some similarities with English phonetically. I've always considered English phonetic to be one of a kind until I started to study Danish. The Danish pronounciation of a, e, and i is similar to that of English. Also, you have a tendency to pronounce double consonants with a soft sound (like the American pronounciation of "better").


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## Aleco

I am a native Norwegian and Danish sounds like Schwa all the way 
I can't understand it even though they look very like:

N: Jeg elsker rød grøt med fløte
D: Jeg elsker rød grød med fløde
E: I love red thick soup with thick milk

(I don't know the English words, if you have any  )

Danish pronounce the R a bit liek German, but not completely.
and the D is really weird, I don't even know how to describe it


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## duckie

There's nothing weird about the soft d. It's the same as the voiced th in English.


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## Aleco

duckie said:


> There's nothing weird about the soft d. It's the same as the voiced th in English.



I think it sounds like you don't even touch anythijng in the mouth when saying  f.ex. "hvad"


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## Outsider

How accurate would native speakers of Danish and Norwegian say this article is?


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## duckie

Outsider said:


> How accurate would native speakers of Danish and Norwegian say this article is?



I only skimmed it, but it looks like an ok breakdown.. I'm not sure about Danish being 'incomprehensible' though.. and in my experience Norwegians are very good at learning to pronounce Danish. They seem to have an advantage in understanding and learning both Swedish and Danish, apparently it's easier to move in both directions from Norwegian.


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## duckie

Aleco said:


> I think it sounds like you don't even touch anythijng in the mouth when saying  f.ex. "hvad"



That probably has more to do with the general tendencies of Danes to mumble than with the language itself. In case of 'hvad' (what) it can really be pronounced in three ways, all three with a distinctly pronounced v-sound. The most correct includes a clearly pronounced voiced th at the end. The two regularly pronounced alternatives have a more explosive beginning, no voiced th at the end, and employ either an open or a closed 'a' depending on dialect.


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## Aleco

I was always mad at you Danes, that you ruined our language (roughly said) ...
But it is kind of cool to listen to, but I find it hard to understand when talking normally... Or maybe not? I don't hear Danish often... only on the series "Anna Pihl" hehe.

And I think that article looked quite accurate I must say  But I don't think that any western dialect do understand Danish more than the rest... the only simolarity is that the R is almost similar and that the dialects there in some areas only have two noun genders.


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## duckie

What do you mean the Danes ruined _your_ language? As far as I know the Norwegians adapted Danish as Norway was under Danish rule. It could just as well be said that Norwegians 'ruined' Danish, which of course is complete nonsense.

From the wiki article:



> In the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway (1536–1814), the official language was Danish. The urban Norwegian upper class spoke Dano-Norwegian, a form of Danish with East Norwegian pronunciation and other minor local peculiarities. After the two countries separated, Dano-Norwegian remained the official language of Norway, and remained largely unchanged until grammar reforms in the early 20th century led to the standardization of forms more similar to the Norwegian urban and rural vernaculars. Since 1929, this written standard has been known as Bokmål. Later attempts to bring it closer to and eventually merge it with the other Norwegian written standard, Nynorsk, constructed on the basis of Norwegian dialects, have failed due to widespread resistance. Instead, the most recent reforms of Bokmål (2005) have included certain Danish-like constructions that had previously been banned [2].


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## Aleco

If you hadn't taken us into your country, we would still have talked a bit "older" and we would have owned the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Shetland and the Orkney islands, which actually should have been ours!


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## duckie

Umm.. riiight.

Anyway, as noted, Danes did not 'ruin' Norwegian. Norwegians spoke something else way back when, and that wasn't 'ruined', only suppressed. If you want to complain about Danish hegemony hundreds of years ago, go ahead, but saying that Danes 'ruined' _current_ Norwegian (bokmål) is inaccurate.


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## Aleco

It didn't ruin the current one  That's the result of the ruining hehe
But forget that


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## duckie

Nymål isn't particularly popular in Norway, is it? It's also my impression that it was chosen rather arbitrarily and isn't particuarly representative for ancient Norwegian (if one can speak of such, given how many version were spoken in the separate communities)..


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## Aleco

Nynorsk*
What do you mean?


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## duckie

Yes, nynorsk, sorry. It's my impression that nynorsk isn't particularly representative for the vast number of variations of 'Norwegian' that was spoken in Norway before Danish became dominant there.


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## Aleco

No, and that's not the purpose either  Nynorsk is a mix between the current dialects


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## nsv

To get back to the original question - danish is difficult to learn, because you have to master a good pronounciation. We are not used to hear our language incorrectly pronounced and despite the best intentions we often don't recognize a word when pronounced with a foreign accent. And there are no clear rules as how to deduct a pronouncation from the spelling. In this case finnish is really much easier - and that is all that is easy about finnish!!!

How we understand each other mutually in Scandinavia is varying. In DK we have some heavy dialects that make things quite complicated for foreigners. I suppose it is the same in S and N.

In my job we have a lot of negotiations and meetings with people from Göteborg, and I hate to say that we have to speak english. That ought not be necessary, but then a lot of my collegues speak the local dialekt from Jutland that can be difficult to understand. I don't know if the dialect from Göteborg is difficult, but i find them hard to understand, even though I have heard and sung a lot of Fredmans Sångar och Epistlar and read "Nils Holgersons underbara Resa..." in swedish.

I've noticed, that S/N's understand each other much better that S/DK's and N/DK's.

Sweedish as spoken by finns from eg. Vaasa is easily understood by danes.

And then we have our numbers!! It always fun to see the face of a norwegian when we start with our syvogtres (=67) or otteoghalvfjerdsindstyvende (78th) and they stare at us eyes wide open before they run off screaming...


NSV


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## Aleco

Haha, you are right, NSV 
We were paying for a little ferry in Denmark and the lady said something like
"fem og halv fjers"
I don't know how to write it, but it sounded like that  I think it was 75kr she said, but dad just gave her 100kr 
Hehe


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## duckie

Is Nynorsk part of the standard curriculum in schools in Norway?


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## Aleco

Yes  But I don't think it will last for very long...


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## duckie

Is the pronounciation the same as Bokmål?


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## Aleco

Yes 
I have a link here, where you can hear the differences (though the bokmål lady talks very old ... ) 
nordisk-sprakrad.no/nsr_ligheter.htm


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## duckie

Cool link - people interested in the differences should take a look there! Too bad they didn't include the Danish soundbite though..


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## Aleco

Yeah, I know :S


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## Agarina

Mod note: This thread has been merged with another one with a similar theme.

I'm learning Danish, and I'm thinking about learning the other Nordic languages after that.  But I was wondering how closely related all of them are.  What I mean is, my cousin speaks Swedish but says he can understand Finnish as well because they're so closely related.  But he says Swedish and Danish aren't enough alike for that to be true.  And a thread here says bokmål is a lot like Danish.  And I've heard Icelandic isn't related closely to any other language, which is what makes it so hard to learn.  But anyway, any thoughts on the matter?  I was wondering both from simple curiosity and to help me make decisions as to which order to learn them in.

Thanks!


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## novenarik

Are you sure you don't have that backwards? That maybe he said Swedish and _Danish_ are so closely related, and _Finnish_ isn't?

Because Finnish is nothing like Swedish. Not saying there aren't a lot of folks who are fluent in the two -- but yeah, not even in the same classification.

From Wikipedia (article: Swedish language):

"Swedish is a North Germanic language (also called Scandinavian languages) spoken predominantly in Sweden and in parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Åland islands, by more than nine million people. It is *mutually intelligible* with two of the other Scandinavian languages, *Danish *and Norwegian. Along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common Scandinavian language of the Viking Era."

"Finnish, a Finno-Ugric language, *is fundamentally different from Swedish in grammar and vocabulary, and they are not mutually understandable.* However, there are a considerable amount of borrowings from Swedish in the Finnish language."
(Emphasis added)

Hope that's helpful!


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## Sepia

There seems to be a general confusion between the terms Nordic and Scandinavian, anyway. There are the Nordic Countries e.g. - this refers to Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. But here we are talking about a political entity (which however is gradually loosing importance) and this has little to do with the ethnic origins of their peoples.

Although the name "Scandinavia" for some people refers the same countries, minus Iceland, and some not counting Finland either - at least culturally and geographically it is still a different thing, because Scandinavia is not a political entity.


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## novenarik

Also, while I'm at it, some more cursory information from someone who is just fairly familiar.

Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish, Faroese, and Swedish are all descended from a common ancestor: Old Norse. Icelandic and Faroese do appear to be very unlike the other at first glance, but are actually very closely related. If you get into one or the other and another Nordic language you'll start to notice trends. One of the reasons Icelandic and Faroese appear to be so different is a matter of geography -- being so isolated from the continent, they weren't as influenced by the lower Germanic languages.

Speaking from experience, I wouldn't say Icelandic is any harder to  learn than another Nordic language, per se. It _is_ a fully declined language, and gender plays a larger role than in say, Swedish. If anything Icelandic is probably a little more difficult to acquire because of a lack of instructors/classes/materials. Not to say there aren't any, but its not like popping into your local Uni and taking a summer course in German. Unless you have a Scandinavian studies program at your college, or have a chance to learn abroad, you'll most likely be teaching yourself.

Finnish is an entirely separate beast. It is not a descendant of Old Norse, but is found in the Uralic family of languages.


For more information on Bokmal, I would check out the article "Dano-Norwegian" on Wikipedia. (Edited, as I just noticed that rule about posting more than four lines of text from another website)


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## jonquiliser

As they've already told you, Finnish and Swedish aren't similar though centuries of close geographical proximity of course have left their marks. It's common enough mistake though as Swedish is spoken also in Finland, and Finland is counted among the "Nordic countries" that have had extensive political ties. 

Swedish, Danish and Norwegian are mutually intelligible, to what extent depends on the individual's knowledge of the history of the languages/language features, exposure, knowledge of other languages etc. There are also many dialects that 'preserve' certain features that resemble the older, common language, which have faded away in the Standard language (at least this is true for Swedish; I believe speakers of certain dialects understand for example Norwegian, esp. nynorsk, better than the other Swedish speakers).

Here are a bunch of threads where the topics've been discussed:

How similar are nynorsk and bokmaal?
Closest relative of Icelandic?
Mutual intelligibility of the Nl
Norse language
Dutch/NL mutually intelligible? (Not really, btw.)


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## polyglot_wannabe

In my experience, you can usually manage using Danish in Sweden and Norway. But using Swedish in Finland with people that don't speak Swedish (but it is an official language there also), that would really surprise me. Finnish and Swedish aren't of the same family (Finnish is in the Finno-Ugric family while Swedish is Germanic). 

It's also far from the truth that Icelandic isn't closely related to any other language. It is very closely related to the other Scandinavian languages and the grammar is, for example, pretty similar to that of German.


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## jonquiliser

Polyglot's completely right, although just hearing Icelandic, it isn't usually comprehensible for a Swedish-speaker (can't speak for Danes and Norwegians, but I've understood nynorsk-speakers may understand Icelandic better). Neither is it reading; I at least understand bits and pieces, but not enough as for being able to make clear sense of things. And it sounds, well, strangely familiar but without really being able understanding it. (Although they occasions I've had for listening to the language have been preciously few, so...)

Again, I think speakers of certain dialects may be in a better spot for understanding.


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## Sepia

Novenarik,

it is true what you say - N, DK and S are very similar and Icelandic is a pretty far shot away - although they all more or less have the same origin. The fact is the structure of N, DK and S is a lot simpler than that of Icelandic. A popular theory (how well researched it is I cannot tell) is that Icelandic has stayed at about the same level for almost a thousand years and the others have not - just like Nederlands and English have. But one thing is sure: The ancient Germanic language which was the origin of all these languages is very complex and similar to Icelandic. I have never heard any good theory about why most of the others grew that much simpler along the way. 

But it is a fact that they did - and Icelandic did not. High German is at a complexity level in between the two extremes.


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## BoTrojan

The linguistic relations between the three languages have already been adequately explained in this thread.

To add my two cents on a related subject ...

If you successfully learn Danish, you'll be able to read Norwegian almost without problem.  Understanding spoken Norwegian is another matter, however.  While Danes seem to be able to understand it easily, I never could (my Danish is fluent and I lived there for a number of years).  Relative to Norwegian, the Swedish is more difficult to read and understand ... for me at least.  

God fornoejelse!


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## Knut

BoTrojan said:


> If you successfully learn Danish, you'll be able to read Norwegian almost without problem.



Weeelllll ... yes and no. You would probably have no problem with "bokmål". But there is also "nynorsk" which may cause some problems. And there are plenty of Norwegian dialects also almost impossible to understand for Norwegians themselves unless you are born in the region of the particular spoken dialect


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## Knut

polyglot_wannabe said:


> In my experience, you can usually manage using Danish in Sweden and Norway.



My experience is different. You may manage with Norwegian in Denmark and Sweden  When it comes to reading I find Danish easier to read than Swedish - although non of these languages are really hard to read and understand for a Norwegian as myself. When it comes to speaking I find Swedish easier to understand than Danish. 

By the way, here is a Norwegian made you-tube video that makes fun of how difficult spoken Danish may be youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk
(You have to cut and past as I am not yet allowed to post links)

Enjoy.


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## Spectre scolaire

In his list of threads containing similar topics _jonquiliser_ (#5) missed one. No wonder, the thread _Danish/Swedish/Norwegian/Dutch: mutual intelligibility_ curiously ended up in the “Dutch forum” – see http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=209571. In my double posting #27-28 I ask some questions linked to the issue and try to provide some answers. I also propose a “stemma” showing the relationship between Germanic languages, and I discuss the notions of _Scandinavian_ and _Nordic_. 
 ​


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## Agarina

Thanks, this thread has been pretty interesting and informative.

From what everyone has said, I'm sure my cousin actually said that he could understand Norwegian pretty well after learning Swedish, and I just heard Finnish.  That also explains why Finnish isn't listed as one of the Nordic languages on this forum.

As far as Icelandic, I've heard it's the hardest language to learn, but I've heard the same thing about Chinese, Portugese, and Japanese.  Hearing that it's not that impossible is reassuring.

And to Knut, thanks for the video.  I almost died laughing.


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## Sepia

Agarina said:


> Thanks, this thread has been pretty interesting and informative.
> 
> From what everyone has said, I'm sure my cousin actually said that he could understand Norwegian pretty well after learning Swedish, and I just heard Finnish.  That also explains why Finnish isn't listed as one of the Nordic languages on this forum.
> 
> As far as Icelandic, I've heard it's the hardest language to learn, but I've heard the same thing about Chinese, Portugese, and Japanese.  Hearing that it's not that impossible is reassuring.
> 
> And to Knut, thanks for the video.  I almost died laughing.



I have seen it too (found it by coincidence and thought for a while that it were a documentary). But in fact, the actors hit the sound of the language as spoken in certain parts of Greater Copenhagen very well. Especially the very open vocals and the rythm - if you are going to Copenhagen, this is the kind of accent to be prepared for. (Or speak in yourselves, if you can handle it).


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## Lilla My

Hei !

Jeg synes det er en særtrekk av den nordiske forumen at folk som ikke er native av språket svarer til spørsmål i dette språket (for eksempel en Nordmenn som svarer på et "svensk" spørsmål).
Jeg synes det er litt forstyrende siden jeg ikke vet hvor mye jeg kan stole på svaret (selv om de ofte råder å vente på et svar fra en native). Og av og til blir tråden uklart fordi emnen skiftet fra et språk til et annet.
Samtidig liker jeg å lære på denne måten forskjellene mellom de skandinaviske språkene, eller til og med etymologien ). Og det hjelper også for at man ikke venter lenge til at en native ser og svarer på tråden (men der kommer problemet om påliteligheten til svaret ).

Hva synes dere forum-brukere om det ?


I think it's one peculiarity of the Nordic forum that someone who's not a native of a language answers a question in this language (for example a Norwegian answering a "swedish" question).
I think it can be troubling because I don't know if I can trust the answer (even if they often say to wait for a native). And sometimes the thread turns fuzzy because the original language shifted to an other.
But I do like to learn the differences between scandinavian languages in this way. And it also allows not to wait to much until a native see and answer the question (but it brings the question of trusting the answer ).

What do you think of it ?


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## jonquiliser

Lilla My said:


> I think it's one peculiarity of the Nordic forum that someone who's not a native of a language answers a question in this language (for example a Norwegian answering a "swedish" question).
> I think it can be troubling because I don't know if I can trust the answer (even if they often say to wait for a native). And sometimes the thread turns fuzzy because the original language shifted to an other.
> But I do like to learn the differences between scandinavian languages in this way. And it also allows not to wait to much until a native see and answer the question (but it brings the question of trusting the answer ).
> 
> What do you think of it ?



I'll take it in English then .

As I'm one of the people to answer questions about Danish or Norwegian from time to time, I thought I better explain myself..! The thing is, I can understand a great deal, so I feel fairly confident to sometimes give a translation to English from either of the languages (the times I do understand, obviously). The other way around I can't, as I quite literally don't speak either. 

I guess it can be troubling for non-native speakers of N, Dk or S to get answers in one of the languages they _haven't_ learnt/studied. As a native Swedish speaker however, I think discussions in multiple of these languages are fine, and actually enriching. I hope it could be like that for learners as well, I think many people pretty quickly get able to read and understand the others once they get the hang of the first one they're learning.

Have a nice weekend!


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## Lugubert

For Interscandinavian, I'm lucky. My father had his roots in Skåne, so I had from an early age a certain feeling for Danish. I have lived in the Göteborg area for most of my life, so Norway is not much further away than 'just around the corner'. Moreover, I inherited some genes useful for languages from especialy my maternal grandpa and my paternal grandma.

I translate professionally from Danish and Norwegian, among others, into Swedish. Those two normally come quite easily to me, but before the advent of the Internet, when I encountered a problem, there was a HUGE PROBLEM. For most cases, my dictionaries for other languages helped, but it's not easy to find good and current volumes for Danish and Norwegian.

Anyway, most Danish and Norwegian dialects are more comprehensible to me (and vice versa) than for example the supposedly "Swedish dialect" Älvdalsmål. And count me out when it comes to our officially recognized minority languages, like assorted Saami languages, Meänkieli (a very Northern Swedish variety of Finnish), or Finnish itself. I understand more of Yiddish (also included in that group).

Once, in a Copenhagen café, I heard two people speaking at an adjacent table. Totally incomprehensible to me, and the language nut that I am, I concentrated to guess the language. After a while, I picked up a short word or two that sounded almost Scandinavian. Concentrating even more, I finally came to the conclusion that they spoke Icelandic, but I still understood nothing whatsoever from it.


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## jonquiliser

What regards Icelandic, I have the same feeling. Often when I hear it (though I don't hear it often!), I get a feeling it sounds familiar, and every once in a while there's a word or a short phrase I understand, so I get the impression it might be Norwegian. But no matter how much effort I put into it, I understand near to nothing. Just a strange sense of familiarity in the way it sounds...


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## Tjahzi

Interesting anecdote from the café there Lugubert. However, are you sure, as in, did they confirm it, that they were speaking Icelandic? I don't speak it myself, but I've studdied and listened to it a bit and I think it's quite easy to recognize due to the characteristic stress (on the first syllable). Faroese, on the other hand, sounds...well, at least to me, apart from being less comprehensible, less Scandinavian.

I don't mean to question your ability to distinguish Icelandic from Faroese, but since I personally find Icelandic relatively easy to recognize, it surprised me you didn't, so to me it would make more sense if those people had been speaking Faroese, which is also, given the connection between Denmark and the Faroese island, slightly less likely I would say. Anyone else has any experience or oppinions of which is easier/hard to recognize/understand of Icelandic and Faroese for a continental Scandinavian?

Maybe a too useless of a point to raise, but please forgive me in that case.


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## jonquiliser

Hmm, I had actually never heard Faroese spoken before but just watched a video on YouTube, and to me it sounded much more comprehensible than Icelandic! I even understood bits and pieces. It sounds a somewhat similar to Dutch, to my ears. Very curious.


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## missTK

Norwegian here. I haven't read much Faroese, but I remember it as slightly easier than Icelandic. Of course, that might have something to do with the kind of texts I have read in each language. I can pretty much understand both in written form, but it takes some effort. 

This post made me curious about spoken Faroese, so I tried listening to today's news in both languages. The result: I don't really understand anything of the Faroese. Icelandic sounds more familiar, but I don't really understand anything of that either. A word here and there, but not enough to really make sense of it. I think I might mistake one for the other if I didn't hear both at the same time. 

Now that I've compared them, I'll probably remember...completely non-scientific impression is that while they both sound a bit like scrambled west Norwegian, Icelandic sounds "swedish" and Faroese "northern norwegian" in intonation.


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## Wilma_Sweden

I've read this whole thread with great interest, apart from that Norwegian-Danish YouTube video, which sent me ROFLMAO!

Since there was so little input from Swedes, I thought I'd just add my own: I've lived in Lund, Skåne for most of my life (43 out of 47), and picked up my Danish vocabulary by watching Danish TV, listening to the English-language TV shows while reading the Danish subtitles.

My Swedish accent sounds decidedly 'Skånsk', and by adapting it a bit to Danish intonation and throwing in some Danish words here and there, I produce a "Scandinavian" language that gets me by in Copenhagen and Elsinore, at least, but definitely not in Jutland, where people could understand me with great effort only while I was dumbstruck at their replies - it might just as well have been Finnish or Mongolian!  

Norwegian as spoken on TV and in Oslo I find even easier to understand. The weirdest Norwegian accent I've come across is that from Bergen, which sounded more like the Skåne accent adapted to the Norwegian language, and even easier to follow than the Oslo one!

If it's any comfort to you, it's taken me 40 years to learn the Danish number system, but now I've finally got it, which also helps keeping my wallet free of all those 20 and 10 kr coins that you otherwise end up with!

As far as English native speakers are concerned, I believe Danish would be the easiest language to learn in terms of accent. In reverse, Danish news reporters always speak better English than their Swedish colleagues, judging from what I've seen on TV over the years. Crown Princess Mary of Denmark must be extremely talented, because after so few years in Denmakr, she now speaks English with a slight Danish accent, which was confirmed in an interview with her Tasmanian relatives who all complained about her language!

I wholeheartedly subscribe to the notion of Icelandic being a language you don't understand a word of, although it sounds familiar and you recognise a word here and there... Unlike Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, there are very few foreign words in the modern Icelandic language due to their policy of linguistic protectionism. I know absolutely nothing about Faeroese, but their text at first glance looks much like Icelandic, perhaps just a wee bit easier to understand, for some indiscernible reason.

/Wilma


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## Sepia

Lilla My said:


> Hei !
> 
> Jeg synes det er en særtrekk av den nordiske forumen at folk som ikke er native av språket svarer til spørsmål i dette språket (for eksempel en Nordmenn som svarer på et "svensk" spørsmål).
> Jeg synes det er litt forstyrende siden jeg ikke vet hvor mye jeg kan stole på svaret (selv om de ofte råder å vente på et svar fra en native). Og av og til blir tråden uklart fordi emnen skiftet fra et språk til et annet.
> Samtidig liker jeg å lære på denne måten forskjellene mellom de skandinaviske språkene, eller til og med etymologien ). Og det hjelper også for at man ikke venter lenge til at en native ser og svarer på tråden (men der kommer problemet om påliteligheten til svaret ).
> 
> Hva synes dere forum-brukere om det ?
> 
> 
> I think it's one peculiarity of the Nordic forum that someone who's not a native of a language answers a question in this language (for example a Norwegian answering a "swedish" question).
> I think it can be troubling because I don't know if I can trust the answer (even if they often say to wait for a native). And sometimes the thread turns fuzzy because the original language shifted to an other.
> But I do like to learn the differences between scandinavian languages in this way. And it also allows not to wait to much until a native see and answer the question (but it brings the question of trusting the answer ).
> 
> What do you think of it ?



Jeg synes det er OK,  naar svarene er kvalificerede.

Hvad mig angaar, er det ogsaa vaerd at laegge maerke til, at jeg under "native of" har skrevet landets navn og ikke sproget - eller rettere sagt sprogene. Man behoever ikke noedvendigvis vaer dansker for at vaere opvokset med dansk sprog, vel? Der er en hel del af os i S-H og Hamborg som taler dansk. Ydermere har jeg boet flere aar i Koebenhavn og har diplom som oversaetter i sprogene DK-D-EN.

Jeg er sikker paa, at der er mange andre her i forumet, som er lige saa kvalificerede af lignende eller andre aarsager.


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## jonquiliser

Wilma_Sweden said:


> I know absolutely nothing about Faeroese, but their text at first glance looks much like Icelandic, perhaps just a wee bit easier to understand, for some indiscernible reason.



I just read some articles in Icelandic and Faroese (Wiki in Faroese isn't that big so difficult to find articles that could serve to compare the two languages). I find Faroese very much easier, I pretty much get the idea even though I don't understand a number of words. The effort that goes into understanding Icelandic is for me decidedly greater.


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## Lugubert

Tjahzi said:


> Interesting anecdote from the café there Lugubert. However, are you sure, as in, did they confirm it, that they were speaking Icelandic? I don't speak it myself, but I've studdied and listened to it a bit and I think it's quite easy to recognize due to the characteristic stress (on the first syllable). Faroese, on the other hand, sounds...well, at least to me, apart from being less comprehensible, less Scandinavian.
> 
> I don't mean to question your ability to distinguish Icelandic from Faroese, but since I personally find Icelandic relatively easy to recognize, it surprised me you didn't, so to me it would make more sense if those people had been speaking Faroese, which is also, given the connection between Denmark and the Faroese island, slightly less likely I would say. Anyone else has any experience or oppinions of which is easier/hard to recognize/understand of Icelandic and Faroese for a continental Scandinavian?


Once I decided what to listen for, there were more clues. Admittedly, I didn't even think of Faroese (of which I know nothing), perhaps for statistical reasons. I just (still) assume that there is a higher posssibility to find Icelanders then Faroese in Copenhagen.


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## María Madrid

Nu vet jag inte på vilket språk man ska skriva här. Jag kör på engelska, då.

I've read and enjoyed all your posts. I share the point of view of some of you and I can't say I've really ever had serious problems with Norwegian or Danish, but it's true I've never had a very advanced conversation with people from those countries further than "är planet försenat?" even if I'm not a Swedish native speaker, despite my years living there as a teen. 

However, after reading all your responses I must ask, how is it possible that many Scandinavian natives who live abroad claim on their CV's they are "trilingual" (S/N/D)? They say they are because "Scandinavian languages are soooo similar we have no problem understanding each other". 

I always thought that was such a blatant lie, understanding a similar language to a certain extent is one thing (just as I understand Italian and Portuguese being a native Spanish speaker), being able to communicate fluently and actually speaking the language is a completely different matter. Have you come across anything like that? I don't think people would ever do that if living in Scandinavia (unless they really speak the language due to different reasons, as some of you do). Hälsningar,


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## Tjahzi

I looked around at the homesites of the national radio broadcasting services of Iceland and the Faroese island to refresh my memory. 

Turns out I hardly understand anything of neither Faroese nor Icelandic, however, my earlier experiences regarding which language is the easiest to understand in its written form was definatly wrong. After looking around and reading some news as well as checking some wikipedia articles, I came to the conclusion that I found Faroese to be more comprehensible. 

Although the languages sound similar (or at least equally foreign to me  ), I'm curious about to which degree they understand each other. Are there any Faroese/Icelandic speakers around here? (Maybe that disscussion deserves a thread of it's own though.)


Hehe, I really understand your point there María. Scandinavian "trilingualism" is a complicated issue. I would, in some odd way, characterize it as a situation of "mutual one-way understanding". As you might have noticed, as a fluent Swedish speaker , when communicating with a speaker of another continantal North Germanic language, the level of understanding is usually very high, despite the obvious differences. Let's just assume I, a Swedish speaker, would run into a Norwegian. He/she says something to me in Norwegian and I understand it. Let's just say my reply would consist of 7 words. 3 of those are probably identical to Swedish, 2 are spelled differently and 2 are just different words. (For the record, that's just my own rough, estimation). So, if I don't know which words change, and to what, I am probably more likely to be understood if I speak Swedish (and in addtion to that, I don't have to look dumb ). This is even more present in spoken language when stress and pronounciation comes into play.


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## María Madrid

Hej Tjahzi!

Yes I get your point, it's basically the same with Spanish Italian and Portuguese (not with French, even though I once heard a Swedish guy saying he could understand a conversation in French because he was completely fluent in Spanish... smart guy, I'm completely unable to do so, even though I am a native speaker). 

Have you heard of people stating on their CVs they're trilingual when they just understand the other languages? Am I wrong guessing they'd never do it if they were in Scandinavia? I can't think of any Spanish speaker including something similar in their CVs, anyway.


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## Tjahzi

No María, I have not. However, I've live all my life here in Sweden and since everyone understands Norwegian/Danish equally well, more or less.....you don't really brag about it. 

However, had I been abroad and in a situation similar to the people you mention, I would have been tempted to, but definatly wouldn't label myself as a "Danish/Norwegian" speaker (although I supose a note about my high level of understanding of said languages wouldn't hurt...) But still, if some had asked me to translate a text from English or German or something into Danish/Norwegian, I would have failed. Despite being able to do it the other way around.


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## jonquiliser

I've never heard of anyone calling themselves trilingual D/N/S (unless they actually were so), though I can think of cases where it would make sense to say you can understand the languages.

And as Tjahzi says, it's not really something you brag about, it's just a fact to a greater or lesser extent.

I remember in Swedish class back in high school, we had some "classes in Dk/N". It was just basic stuff, like false friends, typical differences between the languages, some oral comprehension etc. And we were supposed to read a book in either N or Dk and write an essay about it. So we got some "introduction" to the languages at least. 

But obviously, this isn't trilingualism. It's just some degree of comprehension. It wouldn't serve for translation work, for example .


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## Christhiane

Wilma_Sweden said:


> I wholeheartedly subscribe to the notion of Icelandic being a language you don't understand a word of, although it sounds familiar and you recognise a word here and there... Unlike Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, there are very few foreign words in the modern Icelandic language due to their policy of linguistic protectionism. I know absolutely nothing about Faeroese, but their text at first glance looks much like Icelandic, perhaps just a wee bit easier to understand, for some indiscernible reason.



I am half Faroese, but I never learnt the language as a child. I just recently met my Farose family and they were chatting away in Faroese. I spent a lot of time reading, but by the end of the week, I could very well catch the gist of e.g. a joke - but totally missed the punch line. Both my mum and my stepmother understood Faroese very well after two weeks, and I find I can read Faroese for youths without too much difficulty.

Faroese is somewhere between Danish/Norwegian/Swedish and Icelandic. I don't think they understand that much Icelandic, though. They learn Danish in school, and speak Norwegian by speaking Danish with their own accent. I think they have a bit more difficulty understanding Swedish. 

Icelandic is very difficult to understand - my old neighbour here was Icelandic, but the few words I heard her speak to her children were impossible for me to understand.


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## duckie

On the Faeroese-Icelandic, have you checked out the link Aleco posted earlier?  nordisk-sprakrad.no/nsr_ligheter.htm

To me they're both tricky to read, but both possible with some effort and a few keywords. The Faeroese sounds much like a mix between Swedish and Norwegian (mostly Norwegian), while the Icelandic sounds much more like a language of its own.. a damn cool one at that!


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## Pteppic

To me, Faroese is the funniest language in the world (in a good way). With Swedish and Danish there are very few words that go beyond mere similarity (there are almost always at least some small phonological differences), but in Faroese, you can come across words that are not just similar, but _exactly_ the same as in Norwegian, mixed up with loads of apparent gibberish. It always lifts my spirits when I hear it  

According to Icelanders I've spoken to, Icelandic and Faroese are mutually comprehensible. I don't really understand much of either, but I find them both easier to understand in writing.

As for trilingualism on CVs, I have heard about it, but only once, and it was a story from several decades ago. I'd probably do what the others have said, and put in a note about a high comprehension level in the other two languages (I might be able to back up a claim to competance in Swedish, though my English is better - sometimes it's hard to remember what we have in common, and what we don't).


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## jonquiliser

Yesterday I saw a note, in a Faroese dictionary (Føroyskt/English), stating the language is not inherently intelligible with Icelandic. Could part of the explanation that Icelanders and Faroese understand each other be their knowledge of Danish?


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## Pteppic

All I know is, the Icelanders I spoke to claimed to understand Faroese without having any training. I do see now that the languages are not supposed to be inherently intelligible, so maybe they meant that they understand to a certain degree, but less so than the Scandinavians do each other?


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## Tjahzi

From what I've read here, I'm starting to believe that the reason of why Icelanders understand Faroese better than the other way around (although we still need a native Icelandic speaker, and a true Faroese native, to confirm this) can be exaplined by the relation proposed by Christhiane; "Faroese is somewhere between Danish/Norwegian/Swedish and Icelandic." 

To me, it sounds reasonable that this realationship is similar to that of Swedish and Norwegian/Danish (Swedes tend to understand less than they are understood). In theory, one could then explain the situation to be somewhat like this;

Icelandic > Faroese > Norwegian/Danish > Swedish.

With Icelandic speakers being the ones with the highest level of comprehension ability, and Swedes having the lowest. However, I suppose we would have to conduct a more thorough investigation to be able to confirm this (_if_ it's true!).


On a side note, I found out that there are, according to wikipedia, 21.687 Faroese living in Denmark, compared to 15,000 Icelanders. Although these figures are quite recent, I don't think you are less likely to find Faroese people than Icelanders in Denmark.


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## Lugubert

María Madrid said:


> Hej Tjahzi!
> 
> Yes I get your point, it's basically the same with Spanish Italian and Portuguese (not with French, even though I once heard a Swedish guy saying he could understand a conversation in French because he was completely fluent in Spanish... smart guy, I'm completely unable to do so, even though I am a native speaker).


My (100% Swedish, like myself) ex-wife is fluent in Italian and is quite good at French. (She used to be a teacher of Swedish, English and German for grades 5-9). In Spain, she understood almost everything from natives, but I was the one who had to do the us to them communication in Spanish.



> Have you heard of people stating on their CVs they're trilingual when they just understand the other languages? Am I wrong guessing they'd never do it if they were in Scandinavia? I can't think of any Spanish speaker including something similar in their CVs, anyway.


 
I have been spared from any trilingual claims. I translate professionally, but quote/advertise Danish and Norwegian only after English, German, French and Dutch. I think true Scandinavian trilingualism is extremely difficult to attain, for example because of the numerous "false friends". The Danish queen is supposed to be perfectly bilingual in Danish and Swedish, but even if true, just that would be awesome. I have a pretty good understanding of my west and southwest neighbour languages, and make myself sufficiently understood in the neighbour countries using some hybrid "Scandinavian", but writing in those other languages? NEVER!


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## María Madrid

Lugubert said:


> My (100% Swedish, like myself) ex-wife is fluent in Italian and is quite good at French. (She used to be a teacher of Swedish, English and German for grades 5-9). In Spain, she understood almost everything from natives, but I was the one who had to do the us to them communication in Spanish.


Yes, if you speak Italian you understand Spanish and the other way around, as the pronunciation is very similar. If you speak Spanish, you don't understand spoken French just like that if you haven't studied it, or if you don't speak Catalonian. It's basically one word here and one word there. When it comes to reading it's always easier, of course. I can't tell how easy it is for French speakers to understand Spanish, to us it sounds too gutural to understand what they say. Like the Danish video


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## Roberto1976

duckie said:


> There's nothing weird about the soft d. It's the same as the voiced th in English.


 
I know absolutely nothing about Danish, but it often sounds as if Danes articulated this sound by touching their *lower* front teeth with the tip of their tongue, instead of placing their tongue _between_ their upper and lower teeth, like in English.

At least, this is my personal way of imitating that sound!


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## duckie

Danes have a strong tendency to not articulate very clearly, which could explain it. Also, the various dialects differ quite a bit in pronounciation (some don't seem to have the soft d at all, they always prounounce it hard).. I can only say that in a well pronounced mainstream Danish there shouldn't be any funny business going on with the d as far as I'm concerned 

Are you hearing it in general or only with certain words? Perhaps the tongue is near the lower front teeth and so it's dragged along and through?


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## Roberto1976

duckie said:


> Are you hearing it in general or only with certain words? Perhaps the tongue is near the lower front teeth and so it's dragged along and through?


 
I hear it especially at the end of a word, after a vowel sound, i.e. "hvad", "med", "ved" (hopefully this is the correct spelling). I noticed this phenomenon when the "d" is actually pronounced and the word in question is pronounced somewhat slowly and accurately, or is followed by a period or a silent pause.

But you might actually be right about the tip of the tongue being slightly closer to the lower teeth and subsequently being dragged down almost into a post-vocalic Engilsh "l"... (velarized alveolar lateral approximant, I think).

I mean that, probably, while the tongue comes to a rest in view of the silent pause, the tip descendes somewhat before the phonation has ended. But this is just an impression.

EDIT:

Clarification: A friend of mine was learning Danish, and I heard the Danish "d" sound from her CD, where a female voice read a list of words aloud. Normally (during normal conversations) I am not able to hear such nuances.


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## Sepia

Roberto1976 said:


> I know absolutely nothing about Danish, but it often sounds as if Danes articulated this sound by touching their *lower* front teeth with the tip of their tongue, instead of placing their tongue _between_ their upper and lower teeth, like in English.
> 
> At least, this is my personal way of imitating that sound!



Not true. 

Soft "d" and English "th" like in "with" are the same. 

Of course the tongue may for a short moment touch the lower teeth (this is a different "th" that does not exist in Danish) on the way up, but that may occur in English too. Depends also on the vowels.


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## duckie

I remember when I was taught English in school, our teacher made a point of us pronouncing the voiced th-sound (soft d) very clearly and exaggerating it a bit. This was probably because the Danish version is less articulated and the tongue can slide up along the lower teeth, and does not pass through them as far as in English. I can't say for sure how much of it is a difference in the two sounds and how much is just the typical sloppy Danish. I am leaning towards the Danish version being less articulated, but it essentially being the same basic sound.

When I pronounce Danish as clearly as I can the soft d automatically becomes the same as the English voiced th. When I'm being more sloppy the tongue in some cases slides up along the lower front teeth (or close to them) before reaching between them.

It's funny that other Scandinavians often seem to consider Danish a soft mush, while I think the language has a somewhat harsh sound (with all the hard stops), similar to German. Perhaps the mumbliness is softening up the hardness of the stops? Is that the general impression?


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## Joannes

jonquiliser said:


> Hmm, I had actually never heard Faroese spoken before but just watched a video on YouTube, and to me it sounded much more comprehensible than Icelandic! I even understood bits and pieces. It sounds a somewhat similar to Dutch, to my ears. Very curious.


 
Well, I just had to check it out after reading this.  I found some on-line clips and I had to conclude that Dutch and Faroese are actually the same language! Really? No, I didn't understand a word except for a couple of 'yes's.  But I think I see your point. Faroese sounds less 'singy' than other Nordic languages I've heard before, it has more of a Dutch intonation. Well, at least that's my impression, I don't know what exactly made you decide on a similarity. 



Tjahzi said:


> On a side note, I found out that there are, according to wikipedia, 21.687 Faroese living in Denmark, compared to 15,000 Icelanders. Although these figures are quite recent, I don't think you are less likely to find Faroese people than Icelanders in Denmark.


 
Waw, who would have thought there were actually more than 20,000 Faroese _at all_. 

Very interesting thread, this, by the way!


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## Sepia

duckie said:


> I remember when I was taught English in school, our teacher made a point of us pronouncing the voiced th-sound (soft d) very clearly and exaggerating it a bit. This was probably because the Danish version is less articulated and the tongue can slide up along the lower teeth, and does not pass through them as far as in English. I can't say for sure how much of it is a difference in the two sounds and how much is just the typical sloppy Danish. I am leaning towards the Danish version being less articulated, but it essentially being the same basic sound.
> 
> When I pronounce Danish as clearly as I can the soft d automatically becomes the same as the English voiced th. When I'm being more sloppy the tongue in some cases slides up along the lower front teeth (or close to them) before reaching between them.
> 
> It's funny that other Scandinavians often seem to consider Danish a soft mush, while I think the language has a somewhat harsh sound (with all the hard stops), similar to German. Perhaps the mumbliness is softening up the hardness of the stops? Is that the general impression?



Did you grow up in Jutland? (Because what you describe seems to be the basic phonetic characteristics of Jutland-Dialects as compared with the Islands and especially Copenhagen.)


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## Pteppic

Well, to me, the Danish soft 'd' (as in *rød*) and the voiced English 'th' (as in *there*) sound similar, but definitely not the same, at least in the Danish I hear on television. The IPA lists the English sound as a fricative, and the Danish sound as an approximant *shrug*


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## Sepia

Pteppic said:


> Well, to me, the Danish soft 'd' (as in *rød*) and the voiced English 'th' (as in *there*) sound similar, but definitely not the same, at least in the Danish I hear on television. The IPA lists the English sound as a fricative, and the Danish sound as an approximant *shrug*




No they are definitely not the same. Danish does not have any soft "d" at the beginning of a word. Probably had centuries ago because they still exist in Icelandic - at least more or less. The soft "d" can be found at the end and in the middle of words. A well known geographic name is "Hedeby" - that is interesting because in Germany we still write it "Haithabu" (Syllables: Hai-tha-bu). The middle syllable "de" in Hedeby is identical with the English article "the" except maybe for a slightly different intonation. 

But I'd say, what makes the voiced "th" and the non-voiced different (just as the Danish "soft d" at the beginning and at the end of the syllable) is really the vowel it is "hooked up to" and not so much the phonem "th" itself. The fact that the tongue is moving straight on to the vowel in stead of just staying on the teeth while the body tension is let off makes the sound different.


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## BoTrojan

COF said:


> Firstly, how hard is Swedish/Danish/Norwegian for an English speaker? Any harder than French/Spanish? Someone told me their infact easier. Also, if you speak one of the 3, how much of the other 2 will you be actually able to understand - will you be able to converse fully?


 
Many interesting perspectives here.  I can speak only to the Danish perspective.  I went from scratch to fluency in Danish, myself, while having also studied Italian and German.  My experience is that Danish grammar is relatively similar to English grammar in the areas that prove to be the most difficult for English speakers, such as word order and verb conjugation.  The positioning of definite articles (after the noun itself) takes some getting used to.  Also, you do have to learn to deal with two genders (versus 0 in English), but the agreement demands are fairly manageable, as compared to Italian, for example.  

By far the harder part for an average native English speaker will be pronunciation.  Most will never approach anything remotely close to a native or natural sounding pronunciation.  So if you end up falling in this category, don't despair.

Many others have commented on the mutual intelligibility of the various Nordic language here and in other threads.  If you learn one, you can read the others pretty easily (especially Danish - Norwegian), but understanding the other languages on a spoken level will be MUCH harder.  This doesn't appear to be so for natives, but it will be for the average non-native.

My two cents.


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## duckie

Sepia said:


> Did you grow up in Jutland? (Because what you describe seems to be the basic phonetic characteristics of Jutland-Dialects as compared with the Islands and especially Copenhagen.)



Nope, I'm from Copenhagen  Indeed the general (not all of them actually) dialect of Jutland is much less hard and abrupt than that of Copenhagen. It's more melodious. But across all the various dialects Danes just tend to mumble a bit, which I think might explain why Swedes and Norwegians here have described it as having a certain 'soft' character. In comparison to German which has similar hard stops, but is generally much more clearly pronounced, Danish may seem a 'rounder' language. I'm just guessing, because I personally don't think Danish _sounds_ as beautiful as many other languages.

As an aside, I think that it seems to be easier for foreigners to learn the main Jutland dialect of Danish because it's more melodic. When I listen to immigrants who have learnt Danish in Jutland vs Copenhagen I think those living in Jutland tend to sound considerably more fluent and easy to understand. And this is despite the fact that I otherwise find it easier to understand someone from Copenhagen (since that's what I'm most used to)!


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## duckie

BoTrojan said:


> By far the harder part for an average native English speaker will be pronunciation.  Most will never approach anything remotely close to a native or natural sounding pronunciation.  So if you end up falling in this category, don't despair.
> 
> Many others have commented on the mutual intelligibility of the various Nordic language here and in other threads.  If you learn one, you can read the others pretty easily (especially Danish - Norwegian), but understanding the other languages on a spoken level will be MUCH harder.  This doesn't appear to be so for natives, but it will be for the average non-native.



Yes, pronounciation is always the problem.. I'd be interested in hearing if you can qualify what you find specifically difficult about it..

In terms of grammar, in my experience from simplest to hardest: English - Danish/Scandinavian - German - Italian. The temporals in Italian are probably there just to make things more interesting for the learners


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## duckie

Sepia said:


> No they are definitely not the same. Danish does not have any soft "d" at the beginning of a word. Probably had centuries ago because they still exist in Icelandic - at least more or less. The soft "d" can be found at the end and in the middle of words. A well known geographic name is "Hedeby" - that is interesting because in Germany we still write it "Haithabu" (Syllables: Hai-tha-bu). The middle syllable "de" in Hedeby is identical with the English article "the" except maybe for a slightly different intonation.
> 
> But I'd say, what makes the voiced "th" and the non-voiced different (just as the Danish "soft d" at the beginning and at the end of the syllable) is really the vowel it is "hooked up to" and not so much the phonem "th" itself. The fact that the tongue is moving straight on to the vowel in stead of just staying on the teeth while the body tension is let off makes the sound different.



But is the voiced th and soft d not the same in 'hedder' and 'whether'? I find it very hard to isolate it enough to be able to tell for sure since the words have different melodic flows to them, but as far as I can tell it's identical.


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## BoTrojan

duckie said:


> Yes, pronounciation is always the problem.. I'd be interested in hearing if you can qualify what you find specifically difficult about it...


 
Good question.  First, I have to admit that I'm a bit of a freak in that I don't find personally the pronunciation to be difficult.  I'm not boasting, but I simply have some sort of knack for language and for reproducing pretty accurately, that which hear.  I don't know why ... I just do.  

The fact is though, that the vast majority of people, when learning another language, find it extremely difficult to step outside of their own language's rules of pronunciation.  What produces an accent, per se, is the act of projecting the pronunciation rules for one language onto another language.  Americans have a bad reputation throughout the world for being bad at foreign languages -- either for not learning them at all, or for having terrible accents when they do learn them.  But they are just engaging in the same exact pronunciation projection that everyone else is.  The accent of a Dane speaking English (Think Eddie Skoller in "What did you learn in School Today ...") is precisely as predictable and deplorable as the last American you heard trying to say "roed groed med floede" and failing miserably at it.  

Having said all of that ... there are some unique things about the Danish language that will give English speakers difficulty (and vice-versa, by the way).  Just to name an obvious few:

-There are some sounds in Danish that don't exist in English (ae, oe, aa)
-There is no glottal stop in English that I'm aware of
-Danish intonation is very different from English, so even if you say each individual word more or less correctly, your sentences may easily sound unnatural

At the end of the day, every language has unique aspects.  These will produce accents for the natives of that tongue trying to speak other languages and will create obstacles for others trying to learn to speak that tongue.  Such is life.


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## duckie

Yeah.. I was just wondering what it is about Danish that seems so hard to pronounce, compared to, say Swedish or Norwegian.. German has glottal stops too (or something similar, I'm not really aware of the phonetic descriptors), but people don't have as hard a time with that I think. The æøå are classic, but that's only a small part of it.. 

The odd/funny thing is that I find that foreigners often end up mumbling as bad or worse than the Danes, and with a strong accent to boot! This seems a lot more prevalent with some nationalities than other. It's one thing to have an obvious accent, but mumbling your way through it really makes it hard to decipher what's being said. Italians are great that way, they will articulate until they turn blue to make sure people can understand them, regardless of the language they're speaking!


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## BoTrojan

duckie said:


> The odd/funny thing is that I find that foreigners often end up mumbling as bad or worse than the Danes, and with a strong accent to boot! This seems a lot more prevalent with some nationalities than other. It's one thing to have an obvious accent, but mumbling your way through it really makes it hard to decipher what's being said. Italians are great that way, they will articulate until they turn blue to make sure people can understand them, regardless of the language they're speaking!


 
Precision and use of a lot of vocal force are hallmarks of Italian (and other) pronunciation in particular.  A huge problem that a lot of English speakers have when confronting those languages is the fact that English - from a pure phonetics perspective - is a lazy language, especially compared to most other Western languages.  Dipthongs -- which by and large don't exist in Italian -- are commonplace in English and also present a problem.  The combination of these things will make an average English speaker appear very lazy and mumbling when attempting to speak a language like Danish or Italian.   That's the source of it, I think.  

To try and bring it to life:  try saying the following simple sentence, except ... cut the amount of vocal force in half:

"Han har et hus i Koebenhavn"

Now, do also the following:

-Let yourself linger longer on the word "han" than normal and also let the "a" sound drop farther back in your throat
-Say the "r" in "har" as you would in English, that is, farther back in your throat" (this one is more to produce a classic American accent)
-Eat the "t" in "et" so that it's not more fully "expressed" as it should be
-Skip the very slight glottal stop in "hus"
-Let the sound come from farther back in your throat than normal when you say "i"
-For "Koebenhavn," put the emphasis on the first syllable not that last and also skip the very slight glottal stop in that last syllable"

Voila ... ugly, but predictable accent.  The average Italian would be prone to different -- but likely just as predictable mistakes.  The fact that 99.5% of Italian words end in a vowel must produce some nice effects in a consonant dominant language like Danish, eh?


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## María Madrid

Sorry if I go off topic again, but are you certain there are no dipthongs in Italian? Certain sounds from Latin evolved into dipthongs in several languages: Sp fuego, It fuoco. Even triphthong (puoi, suoi). So I find it hard to understand they may have problems with vocal sounds which are similar to those in Italian.


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## BoTrojan

María Madrid said:


> Sorry if I go off topic again, but are you certain there are no dipthongs in Italian? Certain sounds from Latin evolved into dipthongs in several languages: Sp fuego, It fuoco.


 
These are not dipthongs strictly speaking, in my view.  In English, the classic example is the vowel "I." It's a single vowel that is made up of the combination of two sounds "ah" and "ee."  In contrast, the "uo" combination in Italian is really two uncombined, separate sounds that are pronounced separately:  "fu-oco"

I'm not a phonetics expert, so there might well be dipthongs in Italian, or I might be mischaracterizing what a dipthong is, purely technically.  But this is my two cents, anyway.


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## María Madrid

Well, they ARE diphthongs strictly speaking. The fact that English I is pronounced as a diphtong doesn't mean a diphtong has to be spelled as one vowel but pronounced as a two. In general, the languages that evolved from Latin have one sound per vowel, then you can use two (diphthong) or even three (triphtong) vocal sounds in the same syllable. It's not about spelling, it's about pronounciation.

There's a difference between pronouncing Lui-gi (diphthong), and Lu-i-gi (hiatus), and in fact English speakers tend to have problems in telling these two sounds apart. At least when they speak Spanish.

*diphthong*
_a vowel sound that starts near the articulatory position for one vowel and moves toward the position for another _


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## BoTrojan

María Madrid said:


> Well, they ARE diphthongs strictly speaking. The fact that English I is pronounced as a diphtong doesn't mean a diphtong has to be spelled as one vowel but pronounced as a two. In general, the languages that evolved from Latin have one sound per vowel, then you can use two (diphthong) or even three (triphtong) vocal sounds in the same syllable. It's not about spelling, it's about pronounciation.


 
Maria, I think we're talking past one another.  In English, ALL of the basic vowels are dipthongs.  In Danish, Italian, German and probably Spanish (for all I know), ZERO of the basic vowels are dipthongs.  They are pronounced in single, pure sounds.  This fact creates huge obstacles for English speakers when they're trying to learn any of these languages.  That brings this slight tangent full circle back to why I brought up the issue to begin with.  That is all I was trying to say.  So saying that there are "no dipthongs in Italian" is almost certainly wrong.  But my original point remains.

Take care,

Bo


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## María Madrid

Ok, I get your point. Wrong forum to discuss this, anyway (but hope you'll agree English e is not pronounced as a diphtong!),


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## Roberto1976

Pteppic said:


> Well, to me, the Danish soft 'd' (as in *rød*) and the voiced English 'th' (as in *there*) sound similar, but definitely not the same, at least in the Danish I hear on television. The IPA lists the English sound as a fricative, and the Danish sound as an approximant *shrug*


 
Yes, that's exactly what I hear: an approximant!


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## BoTrojan

María Madrid said:


> Ok, I get your point. Wrong forum to discuss this, anyway (but hope you'll agree English e is not pronounced as a diphtong!),


 
You are right on both counts!


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## Wilma_Sweden

BoTrojan said:


> -There is no glottal stop in English that I'm aware of


True, not in standard American English or RP, but the sound is used often enough in Estuary English (_later_ --> [_la'er_]), so it shouldn't be a big problem for a UK speaker...

/Wilma


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## Wilma_Sweden

duckie said:


> But is the voiced th and soft d not the same in 'hedder' and 'whether'? I find it very hard to isolate it enough to be able to tell for sure since the words have different melodic flows to them, but as far as I can tell it's identical.


To me, the Danish soft d sounds more like the Spanish soft d, and both sound like a very sloppy English 'th' between vowels, i.e. non-fricative.



BoTrojan said:


> In Danish, Italian, German and probably Spanish (for all I know), ZERO of the basic vowels are dipthongs. They are pronounced in single, pure sounds.


The same goes for Swedish, but the classic exception is Skåne, where  dipthongs are commonplace and the broadest versions of the dialect even insert tripthongs, turning the simple 'mor' (=mother) into 'meoouur'... 

The often sloppy pronunciation of both consonants and vowels is what makes Danish so fiendisly difficult to understand when spoken.



María Madrid said:


> I must ask, how is it possible that many Scandinavian natives who live abroad claim on their CV's they are "trilingual" (S/N/D)?


I agree, it's a blatant lie if all you do is understand two of the three languages. In my CV I specify my proficiency of each language, making it clear that N/D is one-way only. I have in fact translated a couple of short stories from Danish to Swedish, and even that proved difficult as idiomatic expressions had to be checked and double-checked...

/Wilma


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## Sepia

duckie said:


> But is the voiced th and soft d not the same in 'hedder' and 'whether'? I find it very hard to isolate it enough to be able to tell for sure since the words have different melodic flows to them, but as far as I can tell it's identical.



I aggree - they are identical. And the flow of the words you mention can be totally different or extremely similar, depending on regional differences.

What about "vædder" and "weather"? Similar d/th, even similar or same vowels but different flow or impulse - now before you say one is spelled with a v - along the North Sea coast you'd pretty often hear an English w.



Wilma_Sweden said:


> ...
> The often sloppy pronunciation of both consonants and vowels is what makes Danish so fiendisly difficult to understand when spoken.
> ....
> /Wilma



That pretty much covers it all, doesn't it? If we had a third cathegory of phonems than vowels and consonants, I am sure we would find a sloppy way of pronouncing them too.


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## duckie

Yeah, at least the way I pronounce it the voiced th sound is the same in those words.. maybe my Danish is unusual in that way (I don't think so though), but I know I make the correct English sound. I have trouble with r and z in English though.

And yep, those dialects mean we have 'w' sounds as well in some places!

BoTrojan, yes that's a good example with your sentence. I'd think that some of those issues are easy to correct (pronounce the t fully..), but others like where to place a vowel sound in the mouth can be tricky since it's so ingrained.

I haven't heard Italians speak much Danish so I don't know how it sounds, but I think they would make a great effort in trying to speak it clearly. Conversely, I often find that people from a lot of other countries are just mumbling it to a point where I simply cannot understand them even though they speak it fairly fluently, just in their own version of it. The few Americans I've heard had fairly strong accents, but they weren't mumbling. Norwegians seem to have no trouble at all, they can lose their accent completely so I cannot tell they're Norwegian - I don't think that works the other way!


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## Lingvisten

Hi
to learn norwegian would defenitly be my choice. It seems to me, that when i talk to my norwegian friends they understand everything I say, even if I use slang and twist my language in strange ways, that i think only danes would understand (I do that to test them ) they seem to follow. Danish pronounciation is maybe the most difficult. According to "Ud med sproget" a program on danish radio, danish standard language has over 30 vowel sounds, wich make it difficult for foreigners to master. Altough the glottal stop exists in many languages, it is only in danish where it can change the meaning of a word, like in "mor" / "mord", and "hun" / "hund". danish also have three genders in the dialect of the islands, northern Jutland and Djursland. Some dialects have similarities with the other scandinavian languages. My old grandfather, who where born and raised in north-western Zealand, says "kjørsbær" instead of "kirsebær", and you may also hear "København" as "Kjøvenhavn" in some dialects. The "j" has fallen out of "kj" in standard danish.


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## eujin

I remember once, my brother and I, both Danish speakers, went in to a shop in Oslo to order something (I can't remember what). Thinking we were being clever, we ordered in Danish. The shopkeeper obviously understood what we said, gave us a knowing smile, and responded to us in Norwegian. My brother and I had absolutely no idea what he said, so cue a change in to English and two slightly embarassed young boys.

As regards Swedish, I never found spoken Swedish intelligible until I made an effort to learn the differences. Growing up in western Jutland I was never really exposed to Swedish until I moved to Copenhagen. After a while of going regularly to Sweden and watching Swedish TV (which was not available in West Jutland when I was a lad) it began to make sense so that when people stopped me in the street and asked "hur kommar man til hamnet?" I understood straight away, which I'm not sure I would've done when I was younger.

I had two Swedish colleagues at work a while back (this was in London). One of them was from Skåne and we had no problem talking to each other in his Swedish and my Danish. The other was from Stockholm and he didn't really understand what I was saying when I spoke Danish to him.


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## Snik

As a native Swede, I have no problems understanding spoken and written Norwegian. Written Danish is easy too, but I can't understand spoken Danish at all. I suspect it would be fairly easy to grasp if I took some time to understand the differences in pronounciation though. The words and grammar are very similar in the three big Nordic languages.


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## Sepia

eujin said:


> I remember once, my brother and I, both Danish speakers, went in to a shop in Oslo to order something (I can't remember what). Thinking we were being clever, we ordered in Danish. The shopkeeper obviously understood what we said, gave us a knowing smile, and responded to us in Norwegian. My brother and I had absolutely no idea what he said, so cue a change in to English and two slightly embarassed young boys.
> 
> As regards Swedish, I never found spoken Swedish intelligible until I made an effort to learn the differences. Growing up in western Jutland I was never really exposed to Swedish until I moved to Copenhagen. After a while of going regularly to Sweden and watching Swedish TV (which was not available in West Jutland when I was a lad) it began to make sense so that when people stopped me in the street and asked "hur kommar man til hamnet?" I understood straight away, which I'm not sure I would've done when I was younger.
> 
> I had two Swedish colleagues at work a while back (this was in London). One of them was from Skåne and we had no problem talking to each other in his Swedish and my Danish. The other was from Stockholm and he didn't really understand what I was saying when I spoke Danish to him.


 
If this does not tell us anything else at least it indicates that people living directly in the border regions/port cities with a lot of traffic from the next country usually pick up the sound of the neighbouring country's language and understand it pretty well. While others may be totally lost.

It is the same down at my end of the Danish-speaking world: Somebody speaking only Danish or only High-German usually does not understand Platt-Düütsch or Friesian (the ladder sometimes reminds me of Swedish!). A Danish speaker who grew up close to the border and who knows the "Regional-Danish" from there has a good chance of understanding.


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## Myha

Well I usually have no problems with Swedish and Danish at all. Once you know the pronunciations and false friends it shouldn't be too difficult.


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## eujin

I think myha is right. It's easy(ish) if you make a bit of effort. I do think that Scandinavians should make an effort to speak their languages to one another rather than use English. Why I think that I don't know. It's probably just my petty regionalism.

However, it is usually the case that those people who are likely to make the effort to learn the differences are also those people who are highly proficient at speaking English anyway.

My guess is if you took two completely random Scandinavians, they'd understand each other better if speaking English than if speaking their own languages. There's the odd person who speaks no English and there are some who are really bilingual, but on the whole I think English is more widely understood than other Scandinavian languages. I guess this is mainly because of exposure. It's hard to spend a day in Scandinavia without bumping into some English somewhere but you could easily go months without seeing or hearing any other Scandinavian language. 

What do others think?

(If any Swedes or Norwegians have trouble understanding this post, I'd be happy to provide a translation in Danish )


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## Tjahzi

I agree with everything you said eujin. I'd also like to add that your story from last page was really interesting.


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## Eumnestes

I am particularly interested in the inter-intelligibility of Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish. In this (rather old) thread there are some very interesting suggestions or allusions, but I would very much like to have more specific information bearing upon the actual experience of Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes. 

 
If you are a Danish or Swedish tourist or visitor to Norway, for example, can you politely and easily say “I would like a cup of coffee with cream and toast with apricot jam” and expect to be understood? Or if you ask the way to the nearest post office, would you expect to understand the response?

 
If you were a Dane visiting in Stockholm and you knew no Swedish, and you attempted to speak Danish in a store or on the street to a stranger, would you “apologize” in advance, with some remark (in Danish) like “I’m a visitor here and don’t speak Swedish…” or is the circumstance so commonplace and so obvious that it doesn’t call for any explanation?  Or would it just be easier to go directly to English?
 

If you are a (typically well-educated) Swede, can you read news stories from the front page of a Danish or Norwegian newspaper? To what degree would you expect to understand it? Just the substance, or pretty much everything except the finer nuances? 

 
How about a best-selling fiction?

When Swedish films are exhibited in Denmark or Norway are they subtitled in Danish or Norwegian, respectively, or English, or none of these?


If a university student from Norway went to Sweden to study, would he or she have to study Swedish first at least in some systematic way, or just expect to assimilate Swedish in a matter of a few weeks? At present there are many Swedes working in Norway. Do they require systematic study or expect to “pick up” Norwegian?

 
I’m aware that some earlier posts treated some of these points, but individual experience seems to vary and I would appreciate a wider sample of opinions.

Thank you.


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## Lingvisten

When I visit other Scandinavian countries, I speak Danish. If People don't understand, I don't switch to English, but repeat what I said, instead. The only thing I change is the numbers (Swedes and Norwegians just don't get the way Danes count) 
When Swedes study in Denmark, I don't think they study Danish in advance to do so. On my institute there's a Swedish teacher, he teaches in Swedish, and the Danish students are expected to understand. Swedish and Norwegian books are also commonly used in the original language at the university. 

Swedish and Norwegian films are subtitled, but so are people, who speaks a Danish dialect, or imigrants, who speaks a poor Danish.


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## Myha

Yup. I can read newspapers in Swedish and Danish and understand everything. I read university books in Swedish and Danish and am expected to understand. I go to Sweden or Denmark and speak my own language, perhaps only just a little slower depending on the person I'm talking to. I have friends who have studied in Sweden and Denmark, and none of them have been given any language courses, of course I'm not sure what they do with formal papers, if they are asked to write them in the language of the country that they're in or if they can write them in Norwegian which their professors would understand anyway...


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## kirsitn

I agree with Myha. Both oral and written Swedish and Danish is perfectly understandable, although I prefer written Danish since it's closer to Norwegian, while spoken Swedish is easier to understand than spoken Danish.
Swedish or Danish people who live in Norway are not expected to speak Norwegian, but most of them end up speaking a mixture after a while. 

I would not "apologize" for speaking Norwegian in Sweden or Denmark (don't see any reason why I should), I would just speak slightly more slowly and clearly than I would in Norway.


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## missTK

I'm Norwegian, and when I go to Sweden or Denmark I always speak Norwegian to people. Sometimes with Danish it can be difficult but I still can't remember ever speaking English with a Dane, except when there were people around who spoke neither. It's as unnatural to me to speak English to Swedish friends as it would be to speak English to a Norwegian. I will do it if there is someone around who doesn't speak a Scandinavian language, but it's uncomfortable.

People do adapt by speaking slowly or by word choice. If a Swede doesn't understand an important word usually a synonym will clear it up, or I might know the Swedish word.

I do read Swedish and Danish newspapers and fiction, and sometimes there's a word I don't understand, but I can read it more or less normally. I don't have to puzzle it out or think about it too much.

I'm studying at a Norwegian university and as far as I know no Danes or Swedes take language courses. But I think the rule is that exams and papers may be written in Swedish or Danish as well as Norwegian. So the students would be expected to understand, but not to produce correct Norwegian themselves.


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## María Madrid

I'm not a native Swedish speaker but I'd like to add my 2 cents to a couple of things you said 





Eumnestes said:


> If you were a Dane visiting in Stockholm and you knew no Swedish, and you attempted to speak Danish in a store or on the street to a stranger, would you “apologize” in advance, with some remark (in Danish) like “I’m a visitor here and don’t speak Swedish…” or is the circumstance so commonplace and so obvious that it doesn’t call for any explanation? Or would it just be easier to go directly to English?


Whatever language you ever choose to use in a foreign country, (I mean any but the country's language) it's just a question of good manners to apologise: "Sorry, I don't speak xxx, Do you speak xxxx?" and *then* you go on and ask whatever you want. You just can't expect people to understand your own language when they're in their country just as if they had to. Even if it's English. When it comes to Scandinavian languages, you can relax a bit, since you can more or less manage and make yourself understood. If I know there's a specific word that's different in each language I try to use the local one, instead of the Swedish one, just to make things easier and send the message that I'm doing my best. However if I were to speak in a non-Scandinavian language I'd never dream of saying a word before going first with the "Sorry.... Do you....?". Just like I would in any other country (where I'd first find out how to say sorry in the local language and then switching to the language I speak)



Eumnestes said:


> When Swedish films are exhibited in Denmark or Norway are they subtitled in Danish or Norwegian, respectively, or English, or none of these?


When a film from a different country is exhibited, the subtitles are in the country's official language. Why would anyone have subtitles in a foreign language instead of the country's official language? The fact that most of the Scandinavian population speak English doesn't mean English is the official language in any of those countries.


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## Myha

I am sure that Eumnestes is aware of this, and that these were just example questions. 
I however don't apologize for speaking Norwegian in Sweden or Denmark, nor do I expect Swedes and Danes here to apologize.. nor Americans or Brits who speak English either.


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## María Madrid

When I first moved to Sweden I didn't speak any Swedish and I had to ask strangers for guidance, assistance, etc and I always said "sorry... etc". All the responses I got were positive. 

My classmates who just addressed people in English without the "excuse me-thing" met different reactions. Sometimes friendly, sometimes not. So I do think it does make a difference to *some* people.


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## Spectre scolaire

According to suggestions by university teachers in Scandinavian countries regarding reading material to students of, say, sociology, social anthropology, psychology, international relations, geography, physics or whatever – but excluding language studies! – the following neighbouring languages would come into consideration:

In Denmark:
Norwegian – provided it is _Bokm__ål_!) *OK*
Swedish *NO*

Because _Bokm__ål_ is often considered as a “Norwegianized variety of Danish” (Wikipedia) which it incidentally is if you look at the linguistic expression exemplified by writers like _Henrik Ibsen_ (1828-1906) and _Ingvar Ambj__ørnsen_ (b. 1956), both living for decades abroad and adhering to very different language standards, a Dane would feel that, by the years, written Norwegian has departed from what it originally was (i.e. Danish written more or less erroneously by Norwegians), whereas _spoken_ Norwegian probably always was a different cup of tea.

Generally, Danes do not hear the difference between Norwegian and Swedish. As reading is a more sedate activity they would discover what is Norwegian and understand it reasonably good. 

In Norway:
Nynorsk *OK*
Danish *OK*
Swedish – an article *OK*, but any extensive chunks of text (like a whole book) *NO*

Norwegians generally understand (or think they understand ) _spoken_ Swedish, but are reluctant to read it. 

In Sweden: 
Norwegian *NO* - _Nynorsk_ *NO* *NO*
Danish *NO*

In most cases a Swede wouldn’t feel obliged to embark on any text of some greater length in any other Scandinavian language. Probably the orthographic conventions regulating Danish and Norwegian are abstruse to most Swedes. As Sweden, previous to around 1970, was more of a prestigious centre in Scandinavia, at least Norwegians – being peripheral in the same setting compared to Danes - were slightly more accustomed to Swedish orthographic convention than Danes. This centre/periphery assessment does not obtain any more.

A Norwegian is likely to imitate Swedish but hardly ever Danish. A Dane would gladly accommodate a Norwegian by trying to speak Swedish (which he thinks is Norwegian) and a Swede wouldn’t change a iota to his Swedish linguistic habits, but he is polite enough to address his Scandinavian audience in English. 

My _impressions_ are based on experience from some 25 years back and I’d like to emphasize the university setting (where you are not supposed to read just for pleasure). I doubt whether things have changed in any considerable way since then. A second caveat: _impressions_ are always difficult to quantify . 
 ​


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## Andreas_Jensen

Spectre>> Interesting post!
I study pharmacy and have at one point been presented with a book in Swedish (Nordiska Näringsrekommendationer (tilgiv min stavning) / Nordic Nutrition Recommendations) and most people in my class were pretty outraged by this. The text was, as you might expect, rather complicated, and it was a huge drawback to read it in Swedish. I would definitely have preferred Norwegian (or English for that matter)!... As a post scriptum the book is now available in English 

I feel the same as the others about speaking English to fellow-Scandinavians... I simply HATE it, but have sometimes found it neccesary. Especially with Swedes (not Scanians) who for some reason don't seem to pick up on the beautiful Danish tongue :-D As some people here point out, I also find it better to repeat what I said, but if you're having a longer conversation, English is sometimes the only option.

When I go to Sweden (never been to Norway) I speak Danish and expect people to understand me and when Swedes or Norwegians come here they should speak their mother tongue and expect to be understood. No apologies!  In Copenhagen where I live, we have a quite sizeable proportions of Scandinavians living and also just working here (that'd be Swedes from across the water) and it's not at all unlikely to bump into Swedish people when going shopping or at your new job. And they are hired without any knowledge of Danish... I've even been in an H&M shop in central Copenhagen where EVERYONE was Swedish  And 5 out of 15 people in my dorm are Swedes... 

Scandinavians that come here don't receive Danish training before-hand. They pick it up underway and I guess it takes a couple of months before they are able to have a complicated conversation at a normal pace. And of course they learn to substitute their words that we don't understand for Danish counterparts. I do know one girl, though who took classes before coming and now most people can't tell that she isn't Danish. 

When I (it happens, but rarely) read Norwegian newspapers I expect to understand everything, even finer nuances. They have very few words that aren't the same in Danish. With Swedish I have to concentrate a lot and if was a really complicated text I'd probably be lost rather quickly... Simpler texts are usually not a problem. Eumnestes>> As you might see from this discussion board we mostly write our Scandinavian languages if no "foreigners" are involved in the discussions, and I haven't seen any problems yet.

At some universities in Copenhagen most papers can be turned in written in Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and English (for example medical school). I do believe though, that there are places where it has to be Danish or English.

PS: Sorry for the outrageously long post!


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## Eumnestes

I am so new to this forum that I don't understand how to quote a post from one thread into another, so I am just copying and pasting a post from a contributor GoranBcn, in August, 2006 in the rather oddish thread 

Danish/Swedish/Norwegian/Dutch:  mutual intelligibility

GoranBcn quotes a unspecified source that gives the appearance of concreteness, indicating that, for instance, that Danes understand "69% of spoken Norwegian"  and "43% of spoken Swedish."  Given that no sources are provided for these figures perhaps they should not be given much credence, especially in light of the personal experience reflected in this forum.  HOWEVER, I wonder if the experience reported in posts in this forum reflects mainly that of sophisticated students of language, and that a typical individual who is not university-trained or who has not lived abroad may in fact find it more difficult to understand a fellow Scandinavian than responders to this post.  --  If it is not out of line to do so, may I express my appreciation to the kind contributors who have substantially enlightened me on this issue.  --  

GoranBcn wrote: 

I asked the same question in another site similar to this one and I've got this answer. This person is from Norway

Quote:

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.

We in Norway undestand the danish written language best. the norwegian bokmål has developed from the danish language and we have seen the language from 100-150 years ago. all of the big writers in Norway used the danish language.


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## María Madrid

I think I recall that thread. 48%, 23%, 89%... How can you possibly come to that conclusion? How do you measure it?

If it wasn't that thread, it was another one where it was mentioned that all individuals have not been exposed to the other languages in the same way, not all the individuals have the same language skills and even if you can use figures to express *approximately* how much you understand, it's completely impossible to translate the level of understanding in an *exact* figure that applies to all the natives of one language. 

As for quoting from other threads, just click on quote on the original post. When you get the new message box, select the text, cut (Control+x), go to the other thread, and paste (Control+V... assuming you're using Windows) in the new message box you open there.


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## aaspraak

I expect to be understood in Denmark and Sweden when I speak Norwegian. Sometimes I might have to modify my dialect by using changing some words to the forms used in bokmål. I'm from the western part of Norway.

One of the few books I had to read at University that weren't written in English, was in all three languages. A few chapters in each language, depending on the nationality of the writer. Reading the swedish parts didn't feel quite as easy as reading the norwegian and danish parts. But only because I wasn't used to reading much in the language. It was not difficult. 

Swedish books get translated to Norwegian. If both versions of a book I want to read are easily available to me I always choose the original. 

There has been done research about mutual intelligibility. Some information in Norwegian can be found by googling for "nabospråkforståelse" or "nabospråkforståelse i Skandinavia".


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## Ayazid

Hei!
I have really enjoyed reading of this thread and find it very pleasant that even in our age of globalisation when more and more people think that it´s enough to know just one international language (usually English) most Scandinavians try to communicate in their languages among themselves  (altough I don´t have anything against English itself, of course). However, it would be also interesting to know another thing, which is: how do speakers of more distantly related languages as Icelandic, Faroese and also completely different Finnish usually communicate with the rest of Scandinavians? I know that most of Icelanders and Faroese people learn Danish at school, but how do they make themselves understood with Norwegians and Swedish people? And how do Finns, who usually know some Swedish, communicate with Danes and Norwegians?


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## kirsitn

I have only spoken to three people from Iceland, and they all spoke Norwegian (ranging from perfectly understandable to completely fluent), so no problem there. 

With Finnish people I normally speak Norwegian, while they speak Swedish, unless they specifically want to speak English for some reason or other. I think the Finnish way of speaking Swedish is really nice to listen to.


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## Spectre scolaire

This article by Arne Torp (kindly referred to through a key word given by _aaspraak_), http://www.sprakrad.no/templates/Page.aspx?id=7560, dealing with “myths and realities in interscandinavian communication”, merits public attention beyond those who are able to read Norwegian – in one way or another. 

In relation to my posting #112 there is one big surprise to account for and (at least) one required precision to make. 

Let me start with the latter. The article in question claims the level of understanding a Scandinavian neighbour to be _geographically determined_. Hence, a person from Malmö (Sweden) understands a Dane much better than one from Stockholm, and a person from Bergen (Norway) has a lower level of understanding Swedish than a person from Oslo. This is obvious – just imagine the impact of the new bridge linking Malmö and Copenhagen!

The surprise happens to be a surprise to everybody:


> Et annet artig poeng som det kan være verdt å merke seg for oss i Norge, er at nynorsk – som venta – ble forstått dårligere enn bokmål i Danmark, men derimot bedre enn bokmål i Sverige. Dette er et resultat som står stikk i strid med den seigliva myten i Sverige om at «nynorskan är obegriplig».


 In Denmark, _Nynorsk_, as expected, enjoys a lower threshold of understanding than _Bokmål_, but the opposite obtains for Sweden! This is in stark contrast to the inveterate Swedish myth saying that _Nynorsk_ is (absolutely) incomprehensible. 

As a result of this –-


Spectre scolaire said:


> In Sweden:
> Norwegian *NO* - _Nynorsk _*NO **NO*
> Danish *NO*


 
--my adamant *NO NO* to _Nynorsk_ reflecting precisely this myth, should be deleted altogether. 

There are more interesting details in the article, but I’ll leave it there.
 ​


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## 0stsee

COF said:


> Firstly, how hard is Swedish/Danish/Norwegian for an English speaker? Any harder than French/Spanish? Someone told me their infact easier. Also, if you speak one of the 3, how much of the other 2 will you be actually able to understand - will you be able to converse fully?


 
I think learning French for an English speaker is not much harder than learning a Scandinavian language. In fact, Danish might be harder to learn than French. But this kind of answer will always be subjective.


Now about the mutual intelligibility amongst the Scandinavian languages, I read many times that Norwegians are the ones who find it easiest to understand Swedish and Danish.

While I thought that it's especially difficult for Swedes to understand spoken Danish, but not the other way around; I've found out now that many Danes actually have a hard time understanding Swedish.

Salam,


0stsee


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## Jónurin

> Hei!
> I have really enjoyed reading of this thread and find it very pleasant that even in our age of globalisation when more and more people think that it´s enough to know just one international language (usually English) most Scandinavians try to communicate in their languages among themselves  (altough I don´t have anything against English itself, of course). However, it would be also interesting to know another thing, which is: how do speakers of more distantly related languages as Icelandic, *Faroese* and also completely different Finnish usually *communicate with the rest of Scandinavians?* I know that most of Icelanders and Faroese people learn Danish at school, but how do they make themselves understood with Norwegians and Swedish people? And how do Finns, who usually know some Swedish, communicate with Danes and Norwegians?


 
Hey!

We speak Danish when speaking to Danes, and Danish with a (usually) more relaxed pronounciation when speaking to Norwegians and Swedes, as their pronounciation is more closely related to our pronounciation than that of Danish. A speakers of Faroese can easily "modify" their Danish into true Norwegian or Swedish if necessary.

There was something mentioned earlier about the Danes having "ruined" the original Norwegian. They've tried to "ruin" our language as well, but thankfully they didn't succeed. 
... Just joking, I love the Danes


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## jonquiliser

A curiosity (or simply reflection of how close Scandinavian languages are): a requirement of university education in Finland is fluency resp. good level of two foreign languages. For Swedish-speaking students, Norwegian and Danish don't count as foreign languages.


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## 0stsee

jonquiliser said:


> A curiosity (or simply reflection of how close Scandinavian languages are): a requirement of university education in Finland is fluency resp. good level of two foreign languages. For Swedish-speaking students, Norwegian and Danish don't count as foreign languages.


That would be like an Indonesian taking Malaysian as a foreign language, which is quite a nonsense because the two are almost like the same language.

Basically the closeness of Scandinavian languages is comparable to Indonesian and Malaysian.


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## 0stsee

Hello!

A friend just said that she had a Norwegian and a Swede among her colleagues, and they spoke English among themselves. It quite surprised me, but my guess is that the Norwegian had a pretty strong dialect and the Swede preferred English in speaking with him. Or perhaps both had a strong dialect/accent. Who knows.


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## kirsitn

0stsee said:


> Hello!
> 
> A friend just said that she had a Norwegian and a Swede among her colleagues, and they spoke English among themselves. It quite surprised me, but my guess is that the Norwegian had a pretty strong dialect and the Swede preferred English in speaking with him. Or perhaps both had a strong dialect/accent. Who knows.



That sounds a bit weird to me, but if they are both living outside Scandinavia, it might be that they are speaking English in order to be polite with their other colleagues who don't understand Norwegian/Swedish?


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## 0stsee

kirsitn said:


> That sounds a bit weird to me, but if they are both living outside Scandinavia, it might be that they are speaking English in order to be polite with their other colleagues who don't understand Norwegian/Swedish?


 
That thought crossed my mind, but they were working in Spain. If they wanted to be polite with their colleagues they could've spoken Spanish, because for many Spaniards, Norwegian or Swedish is not much more foreign than English.
In any case, if I worked with a Malaysian, the only reason I would prefer English talking with her/him is because s/he had a strong accent.
But what you said was not impossible.


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## María Madrid

0stsee said:


> because for many Spaniards, Norwegian or Swedish is not much more foreign than English.


Even at the risk of being off-topic, sorry, but it's not like that. You can't compare the extent of English to Swedish/Norwegian in Spain. To start with most Spanish speakers would be completely unable to tell apart Swedish from Norwegian (if they've ever heard it...) or even German. English is perfectly recognizable. Not to mention the number of English vs Scandinavian speaking tourists and the areas they usually concentrate on. The number of Spaniards who study English (I won't say speak decently) is large enough for them to at least understand a few words (kids have to study English at school). The number of Spaniards who speak a Scandinavian language is hardly anyone, basically those who have Scandianvian heritage, those who got married to one, students in the EU's Erasmus programme... 

If they're working in Spain and they don't speak Spanish it's just standard they communicate with their coleagues in English, but no Scandinavian expat would ever expect their Spanish colleagues to speak Scandinavian. Maybe they were being polite or having a hard time understanding each other's accents.


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## Lemminkäinen

This has been an interesting thread, but as it seems to me, the subject has been exhausted for now, and not much new has been brought to the discussion. I'm therefore closing the thread.

Any issues or questions, please PM me.


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