Norwegian, Finnish, or Swedish?

Yeah I'm leaning towards Swedish :)

It looks a little intimidating but I have studied several languages so it shouldn't be too hard to pick up if I try.
 
Norwegian is the most like English, so it would be easiest to learn. After that, Swedish will be much easier to learn than if you started with it first.

Finnish has more in common with Hungarian than any other language. So take that if you want a challenge.
 
Swedish. Then you can sing along to ...and Oceans - Trollfan with me. I've memorized most of the Swedish lyrics and pronunciations (slightly vague on these but I'm getting there :p). Even though the band is Finnish :p
 
Well umm I like the swedish accent it's amusing (on women anyway). I've heard the tracks on the first TNT (glam basically) album which are in Norwegian and, umm it's very cool sounding but funny at the same time.
 
Oh and if this matters at all but Norwegian is often seen as a "happy language". It sounds very happy and funny when spoken. This has to do with the way they end a sentance in a higher pitch. Certain swedish dialects also do this (Gothenburg dialec for example). Im not sure how noticable this is for people in other countries but its very noticable for Swedes and I think Danes as well.

Swedish is more rought but from what I've heard from a few Americans they think the sounds of it is like singing. I dunno, maybe because Im born and raised here so I cant be very objective. I'd say Norwegian is happy sounding and German is very rough and hard sounding. Swedish would be in the middle somewhere allthough it has more in common with Norwegian.

These links are provided only for you to hear the differences in the languages. Dont care about the content of the videos other than the spoken language. I just wanted to provide you with them to get a feel for how the languages differ in sound.

Norwegian:


Swedish:


Danish:


Finish:
 
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Swedish. It's easier IMO.

And you can sing along to Otyg. Their music is so damn singalongable.
 
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I like how this add put it:

moooo.jpg
 
thanks for all the help and advice guys. I think I'm going to go with Swedish. I don't know how much time I will have to study, but if I study a lot and get good maybe I'll practice with some of you Swedes :)

Tack så mycket!
 
nuncheon said:
I have to sign up for one more class this quarter and I want to take a class in a Scandinavian language but I can't decide which one would be best. Does anyone have an opinion on which would be the best language to learn? I listen to a lot of music from each of these countries so I don't think I really have a preference.

V5, you're welcome to delete this thread once I've made up my mind. :)
Click to expand...
Learn one language that has common ground to understand the other ones.. like if you learn Russian you can pretty much understand more or less other Slavik languages like Ukranian, BeloRussian, Czech, etc... I would suggest exploring the following forum/site and ask around because they are language freaks and can help you learn it as well:

http://masterrussian.net/mforum/viewforum.php?f=32&sid=f7a3eed207357c1eb47c92054962e4d4

Books I recommend are:

[ame]http://www.amazon.com/How-Learn-Any-Language-Inexpensively/dp/0806512717/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219867190&sr=1-1[/ame]

Has interesting sections on Scandinavian languages... the author learned Norwegian and other ones...

[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Linguist-Personal-Guide-Language-Learning/dp/0973339403/ref=pd_sim_b_5[/ame]

Those are my 2 recommendations for books. There are others out there but these are the only 2 i read and highly recommend though the first one is a little outdated. The 2nd book also has an accompanying site:

www.thelinguist.com

Here's another good site for other languages:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/italian/index.shtml

And if you want more sites, let me know. I have them on my favorite files since I'm a language freak.
 
I looked in my language book about Scandinavian languages. this is what it had to say:

If your aim is to communicate in all three countries, learn Norwegian first. It's the linguistic center of Scandinavia. A Dane can deal comfortably with Norwegian, but much less so with Swedish, A Swede can deal comfortably with Norwegian, but much less so with Danish. A Norwegian can deal comfortably with both Swedish and Danish.
 
Unfaithfully Metalhead said:
I looked in my language book about Scandinavian languages. this is what it had to say:

If your aim is to communicate in all three countries, learn Norwegian first. It's the linguistic center of Scandinavia. A Dane can deal comfortably with Norwegian, but much less so with Swedish, A Swede can deal comfortably with Norwegian, but much less so with Danish. A Norwegian can deal comfortably with both Swedish and Danish.
Click to expand...

This.
 
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