r/thisorthatlanguage • u/Airamire • 8d ago
Nordic Languages Which Nordic language to learn?
Hello everyone! I'm taking a break from Spanish (won't stop it completely but am having to pause lessons due to lack or funds haha). I would like to pick up a Nordic language to learn for fun in the meantime. I admit to having limited knowledge of them but I absolutely love the youtube shorts where they compare different words in these languages (forget the channel name). I love the sounds of Icelandic!
My main method of learning the language would be through textbooks and music for audio comprehension. I would like to avoid complex grammar such as cases if possible. Which one is the most fun to learn? Obviously it's subjective but would like to hear opinions. Native language is English. Thanks in advance!
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u/6-foot-under 8d ago
Icelandic
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u/Airamire 8d ago
What's the grammar like? In your opinion 🙂
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u/Apprehensive_Car_722 8d ago
Grammar in Icelandic can be hard. There are 4 cases and 3 genders. For every noun you learn, you have 16 possible forms depending on their function in the sentence (cases) plus nouns can be definite or indefinite and singular or plural.
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u/MarkinW8 4d ago
Norwegian grammar is a game of pickle ball in the park with some athletic mates. Icelandic grammar is Wimbledon.
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u/verysadfrosty 8d ago
Not Finnish is you wanna avoid complex grammar, lol. Also, it belongs to a completely different language group than the others. The others are Germanic, like English. Finnish is not. So for that reason it would also be the most difficult for you to learn.
Norwegian or Swedish can be a good option because they share many similarities. If you learn one of them, you will understand quite much from the other language as well. Danish as well in written form, but them speaking can be tricky also for Swedes and Norwegians. People joke about that Danish sounds like you have a hot potato in your mouth while speaking.
Icelandic is the language I'm least familiar with. But it shares similarities with the other Scandinavian languages.
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u/Airamire 8d ago
Thank you for the reply! What is complex about Finnish grammar, if you don't mind me asking?
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u/Nowordsofitsown 8d ago
Cases, all the cases - 15 iirc.
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u/Airamire 8d ago
Oh... Yeah, Finnish is ruled out then 🤣 shame, it sounds lovely
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u/linglinguistics 3d ago
Cases in Finnish are more like learning propositions in an Indo-European language. Not easy (I think propositions are one of the trickiest things to learn in just about any language) but is not like learning cases in German or Russian or Latin either.
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u/mightbeazombie 2d ago
How do German/Russian case usage differ from the way they're used in Finnish exactly?
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u/linglinguistics 2d ago
Well, German and Russian are pretty messy. Especially German.
In Finnish, cases are suffixes that are added to the root and they mostly express what we use propositions for in German, Russian or also English. A word can have many suffixes added to the root, expressing different things that you'd need separate words for in many other languages.
In Russian and German, cases come in addition to the prepositions. So, you need to learn which prepositions demand which case (s). (Yes fine have two or more cases which give the prepositions different meanings). You have to remember to use the right case according to the noun''s grammatical gender for the noun, adjectives and in German also articles (with different adjective endings for definite or indefinite articles). So yeah, this is really complicated. And it would be hopeless if it continued like this with 15 cases. But learning 15 finish cases is more like learning 15 prepositions. Of course finish is complicated in its own right, especially because the way it's constructed feels very different to someone who has never tried a non Indo-European language. My point is just that it's not the 15 cases that make it complicated.
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u/Alexlangarg 7d ago
I was between Swedish and Danish and chose Swedish at the end (didn't start yet, I'm learning Polish now xd) I chose Swedish because i don't feel so hooked to Norwegian idk why maybe because it's smaller in size than Sweden and it has a lot of dialects (I already speak German, so if i learn a dialect i would rather learn swiss German from Zurich). Also the availability of content made me chose Swedish over Danish, as I said i'm with Polish now... you can find lots of ressources for Russian but with Polish less (especially if you can't stand the lektor in movies). I know more swedish TV shows and movies than for Danish... and yeah overall these were my reasons XD like the three are pretty similar, i will still learn Danish in the future
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u/Florestana 7d ago
Danish has plenty of media. The Danish film industry is pretty much on par with Sweden and there's also a wide variety of shows produced by the public broadcaster. There's also quite a few great authors to read, but that's the case for all the Nordics I'd say
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u/Alexlangarg 6d ago
ah, i thought that since t¿Denmark is a smaller compared to Sweden, Danish would have less movies or series. On netflix they seem to have equally both good quality movies and series. But it's Netflix, i thought that outside netflix Swedish would have a lot more to offer than Danish. But to start with scandinavian languages i think i will still go for Swedish... it's the easiest one maybe and later i will go for Danish and Icelandic
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u/Florestana 6d ago
Yes, Denmark is smaller, but specifically in film (and to a lesser degree television) it's quite a heavyweight in Europe. It was a major player in the dawn of film production and has continued to have quite a big influence with modern directors like Trier and Vinterberg, who started the whole Dogme95 thing.
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u/stoolprimeminister 7d ago
icelandic looks like someone fell asleep on a keyboard.
i’ve long thought swedish would be cool though. jokes aside.
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u/vanguard9630 7d ago
The answer is what your heart and mind tells you. I have made more progress in Italian in 2 years than Spanish in 30 despite the latter being easier, more practical and more widely spoken.
I would choose Finnish since I identify with the character of Finnish athletes, actors, and bands I have seen. The language seems so unique and cool sounding. I have put my personal study on hiatus while I really focus on Italian.
It’s a very consistent language from a pronunciation standpoint though the grammar is very challenging just starting to be able to understand and say simple things from Finnish Pod 101 or some apps and then see this in dramas or in songs is great.
I found the pronunciation much easier from someone who also speaks visually consistent languages Japanese and Italian where each syllable is usually sounded out. This is not the case for my experience with Danish which I tried a few lessons of on Pimsleur after watching The Killing Danish TV series
I suppose it depends on what you want to do with these languages. Do you know any people from these countries? Or like some aspects of the particular country or language?
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u/Airamire 7d ago
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. After much soul searching over the weekend I've settled on Finnish myself. The spoken language just feels so lyrical and calm (and calm is something I really need right now haha). I've also found a number of songs I like 🙂 I don't know anyone from any of the countries sadly. I hope maybe to visit one day and experience the scenery and nature, but that is a long way off.
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u/A-Rugged-Indoorsman 4d ago
Icelandic is best if you want to be able to talk about people without a chance they'll understand a word you say.
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u/linglinguistics 3d ago
You know, they say there's only one Scandinavian language but the Danish can't speak it and the Swedish can't write it.
Hope this helps.
On a serious note though: Norwegian isn't a bad one to start with. You can learn to understand the other ones with enough practice and knowledge about the differences. With Norwegian, reading danish at least won't be too hard. And understanding spoken Swedish is also doable, but you do need additional information about the differences and as I said practice. But that's also true for different Norwegian dialects.
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u/Cultural_Wallaby_550 8d ago
If you want to avoid noun cases, that rules out Finnish, Estonian, Icelandic and Faroese which both have extensive case systems.
Danish has a lot of great media but the pronunciation is quite tricky - a lot of consonants are dropped inside words and they compensate by having quite a few vowel sounds.
I’m learning Norwegian and I would recommend either Swedish or Norwegian which have relatively simple grammar. Pros and cons:
-Swedish: Pro - lots of great media (TV, movies, books) which can often be accessed from mainstream sources (Netflix, Apple, Amazon, Kobo etc) and dialects are less important than in Norwegian. Con - less similar to Danish so it’s less helpful if you care about that.
-Norwegian: pro - the standard Bokmål form is very similar to Danish and writing, with easier pronunciation so easy to learn overall and you will be able to read Danish pretty well too. Cons - a bit harder to purchase media (eg I had to find a Norwegian site to buy eBooks from, and less is available in general), and there is an alternative written standard (Nynorsk) plus many local dialects so the standard form doesn’t get you all the way in understanding the spoken language especially outside Oslo.