Choosing a Scandinavian Language
Howdy ya'll...I've been studying German for nearly three years now and I like to think I've been doing pretty well... I was considering trying to teach myself a Scandinavian language. I have read that Norwegian has the greatest mutual intelligibility with at least Swedish and Danish. However, I understand Danish and Swedish have more speakers and may even be easier for English speakers...
What do ya'll think?
Or should I just forget it and start learning Dutch or Japanese or something? lol
For Europeans, Japanese is not easy to learn for the following reasons:
1. Japanese grammar is totally different from European language.
2. Japanese characters are very complicated and confusing.
3. It is not easy to pronounce Japanese words correctly.
So wake up and smell the coffee
Coffee...where's the sake?
If you've ever bought any Japanese electronic products，you could find out that there're generally 3 or 4 langauges at least in the instructions， such as English、French、German、Spanish、and sometimes，even Italian、Portuguese、as well as Russian。You could just read the instruction in your native langauge without any obstacles，after you took your favourites home，such as PS2、TV、Camera、Walkman、or Sound System。
<<For Europeans, Japanese is not easy to learn for the following reasons:
1. Japanese grammar is totally different from European language.
2. Japanese characters are very complicated and confusing.
3. It is not easy to pronounce Japanese words correctly.
So wake up and smell the coffee>>
I just said the other day that Japanese is not hard to learn grammatically but to be literate is too time comsuming for most people. Yes Japanese is different, but different does not equal hard. Japanese pronunciation is not difficult, I don't know what your native langauge is but for most it isn't difficult, much easier than other languages.
My first language is Korean. And since my dad is engaging in international business,
I stayed in Canada and Japan for a couple of years. So I speak English and Japanese quite well.
I went to Japanese language school in Tokyo, and I found many western people
were having a hard time to pronounce Japanese words "CORRECTLY"!
Arigato(Thank you) is not "Arigato" it is more like "아리가또".
Most Koreans or other Asians pronounce Japanese words almost perfectly,
but Europeans? I don't think so =(
The closest foreign language to Japanese is Korean and that's why Koreans
learn Japanese faster than any other non-native Japanese speakers.
superdavid
나는 중국사람(朝鮮族이 아니라 漢族이다)입니다. 많은 중국사람들도 일본어를 잘 할수 있다고 생각합니다.
I'm a Chinese [Han（漢） nationality], and I think that many Chinese can also speak Japanese very well or perfectly.
No foreign language is EASY to pronounce correctly, but relatively speaking, Japanese is among the easiest languages to pronounce for english speakers.
Japanese pronunciation is very similarly to Italian to a large extent.
very easy!
Well, My advice about which Scandinavian Language you should learn is Danish because their accent and pronunciation differs a lot from Norwegian and Swedish and is also harder to learn, but if you understand them I think you will understand both Norwegian and Swedish, because they speak much clearer.
When it´s about writing, Danish and Norwegian (bokmål) are almost the same Swedish just differ a bit, but not much.
Norwegian includes 2 sorts of langauge？
Standard Norwegian & New Norwegian？
Norwegian includes 2 sorts of languages？
Standard Norwegian & New Norwegian？
To 漢族 a.k.a 中國人:
I never said Chinese people were not good at speaking Japanese.
Apparently, Chinese are Asians so I'm pretty sure you guys can speak Japanese very well.
Plus, Japanese mix-use Chinese characters(漢字) in their language so that's another advantage for Chinese people.
BTW, do you speak Korean or did you just get machine-translated that Korean text?
I'm impressed anyway.
"Norwegian includes 2 sorts of languages？
Standard Norwegian & New Norwegian"
Yes the old Norwegian is called "bokmål" and is most similar to Danish, specially in writing. The New Norwegian is called ny norsk and means New Norwegian if you translate it.