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Easiest language for an English speaker? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6391 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 49 of 80 03 June 2012 at 12:25am | IP Logged | |||||
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| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4566 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 50 of 80 03 June 2012 at 1:00am | IP Logged | |||||
Of course, clerks do have to be courteous and polite to customers, but even in informal situations this didn't happen to me. I remember going to a party organized by some students of Japanese from the University of Oslo. At that point I had taken only two or three classes of Norwegian, but I did manage to have a couple of conversations in Norwegian there. One of the people I talked to told me, after we switched to English, that she did realize that I wasn't a native speaker as soon as I started talking, but didn't switch at first because she though it would have been rude to judge my ability to keep up a conversation based on my accent alone. But then again, the people at the party were all language geeks, so I'm not sure how representative they were of the population at large. I do think that the high proficiency of Norwegians in English made it more difficult for me to practise the language, but I believe that the biggest problem wasn't them refusing to speak Norwegian to me. Instead it was my own temptation to just fall back on English. Since their English was pretty much guaranteed to be better than my Norwegian, most of the time I just didn't feel like the effort was worth it. Of course, if my job and residency status depended on it my attitude would have been different, and from what I heard getting a job in Norway without knowing any Norwegian is almost impossible. Even if your potential customers, colleagues, partners and superiors can speak to you in perfect English, ceteris paribus they would still prefer to deal with someone who speaks their language. Edited by vonPeterhof on 03 June 2012 at 2:03am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5247 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 51 of 80 03 June 2012 at 1:03am | IP Logged | |||||
Most immigrants here are not native English speakers. Generalizations will always fail, but I'll do it anyway: – Swedes and Danes either stick to their native language, switch to Norwegian or to something in between. – Native speakers of English either stick to English or learn Norwegian. – Non-native speakers of English may speak English at first (provided that they actually know English) and then switch to Norwegian as soon as they think their Norwegian is good enough. – A few immigrants never bother to learn Norwegian and do not integrate into Norwegian society at all. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4462 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 52 of 80 03 June 2012 at 1:57am | IP Logged | |||||
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I found this blog useful, a foreigner living in Norway:
http://mylittlenorway.com/2008/09/learning-norwegian/ http://mylittlenorway.com/2008/09/learning-norwegian/ ''Reading and writing Norwegian is fine (it just seems like English spelt badly) but trying to learn how to listen and speak Norwegian is a whole different language – literally! You see, the language that you learn in Norwegian class is called Bokmål (book language), which is only a written language, and only a pretend spoken language. The other written language is Nynorsk (new Norwegian) – which should be called ‘old Norwegian’ as it is a historical representation of the old country language. Unfortunately, in real life, no one speaks Bokmål, they speak Norwegian and there are hundreds of different dialects spoken across Norway. Each town and village has its own take on the language and this is what makes learning Norwegian so hard. What I learn to say in class is most often not what you say in real life. Even in my town, Tromsø, I can’t understand what people are saying – and my hubby, Moose, he speaks a whole different dialect altogether.'' 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4459 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 53 of 80 03 June 2012 at 3:58am | IP Logged | |||||
That was interesting. There seems to be a lot of difference of opinion on how difficult Norwegian is, with some saying it's very hard and others saying it's one of the easiest languages for English speakers. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| jazzboy.bebop Senior Member Norway norwegianthroughnove Joined 5212 days ago 439 posts - 800 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian | Message 54 of 80 03 June 2012 at 4:31am | IP Logged | |||||
I suppose it depends where you go in Norway. The language in general is very easy grammatically and very similar to English. Pronunciation and recognition of speech might throw some people off though. I'm lucky in that I've been visiting Norway since I was a baby. Only ever learned or spoke any Norwegian while in Norway until recently but I have very good pronunciation as I picked it up as a child (which can confuse people as I sound like I should be totally fluent) and, though I might not understand all the words, they don't sound like a blur. I guess I'm not a good judge of whether it is difficult or not pronunciation wise. I would imagine the discrepancy between the Norwegian taught in class and the dialects people can encounter would be a bit bewildering at first but it just takes enough exposure. There are materials out there which can help you with certain dialects though. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 4850 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 55 of 80 03 June 2012 at 6:42am | IP Logged | |||||
Lets say only close to English, not objectively easy. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5247 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 56 of 80 03 June 2012 at 7:14am | IP Logged | |||||
Funny. People from Oslo often say that people from the North "sing". 1 person has voted this message useful |
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