Team Nordic [study and support group]

An area with study groups for various languages. Group members help each other, share resources and experience. Study groups are permanent but the members rotate and change.
Soffía
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Re: Team Nordic [study and support group]

Postby Soffía » Sun Feb 14, 2016 8:11 am

Anyone who's at all interested in Icelandic (and lives in the UK) should definitely be watching "Trapped" ("Ófærð") on BBC4: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06xttds

I watched the first two episodes last night and really enjoyed it. It's a fairly typical Nordic noir mystery, along the lines of "The Killing" or "The Bridge" or "Fortitude," but so far hasn't gone as far into the really dark gruesome ritualistic torture/serial killing stuff. I'm certain there will be more to come but so far I'm enjoying the relatively low body count and focus on characterisation. Not to mention the lovely Icelandic scenery.

One of the frustrations of Icelandic films is that they often don't have a lot of dialogue. This series has a decent helping, and the language is fairly simple. The benefit of this production being relatively high-budget for Iceland is that the sound is pretty good (again, unlike a lot of Icelandic films). The subtitles seemed mostly faithful although I was amused to see that "já já" was translated once as "that's true" and another time as "I know." Probably it was the right choice... that's Icelandic for you!

(Of course the meaning of "Ófærð" is more like "Impassable," but perhaps if you don't live in a country with serious winter storms, that doesn't sound ominous enough as a title.)

The only downside of watching it on BBC4 is that, of course, you can't turn the subtitles *off*. But I intend to try watching again with my gaze averted from that part of the screen...

Is anyone else watching?
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Brun Ugle
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Re: Team Nordic [study and support group]

Postby Brun Ugle » Sun Feb 14, 2016 10:03 am

I was thinking of watching it, but figured it might be too scary, but if you say it isn't, maybe I'll give it a try. That's assuming I can tear myself away from my telenovelas.
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Soffía
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Re: Team Nordic [study and support group]

Postby Soffía » Sun Feb 14, 2016 2:19 pm

Brun Ugle wrote:I was thinking of watching it, but figured it might be too scary, but if you say it isn't, maybe I'll give it a try. That's assuming I can tear myself away from my telenovelas.


I mean, it is suspenseful, but so far it leans less on gruesomeness and horror than other Nordic noir I've seen. We'll see how it develops.
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Brun Ugle
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Re: Team Nordic [study and support group]

Postby Brun Ugle » Sun Feb 14, 2016 3:13 pm

Soffía wrote:
Brun Ugle wrote:I was thinking of watching it, but figured it might be too scary, but if you say it isn't, maybe I'll give it a try. That's assuming I can tear myself away from my telenovelas.


I mean, it is suspenseful, but so far it leans less on gruesomeness and horror than other Nordic noir I've seen. We'll see how it develops.



OK. If I watch it, I'll make sure it's well before dark.
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grel
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Re: Team Nordic [study and support group]

Postby grel » Mon Feb 15, 2016 12:53 am

Hello,
I was just registered and I'm exploring...
I'm trying to study Swedish and I would like to join your team as a beginner.
I don't understand yet how this works :oops: , but by doing some more reading in the forum I think I'll find my answers.
Have a wonderful day!
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Elenia
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Re: Team Nordic [study and support group]

Postby Elenia » Thu Feb 18, 2016 10:44 pm

grel wrote:Hello,
I was just registered and I'm exploring...
I'm trying to study Swedish and I would like to join your team as a beginner.
I don't understand yet how this works :oops: , but by doing some more reading in the forum I think I'll find my answers.
Have a wonderful day!


Hey, grel, welcome to the forum and the team! Sorry for the late response, I've been more than a little bit absent this week. I'll add you to the first post :) if you'd like to create a log, let me know and I'll add it to the list, too. You might want to follow some, or all, of our logs if you're not following them already. It's also worth checking the logs of users studying other languages, a lot of interesting discussions and useful tips can be found there :)
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Montmorency
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Re: Team Nordic [study and support group]

Postby Montmorency » Thu Feb 18, 2016 11:44 pm

Soffía wrote:Anyone who's at all interested in Icelandic (and lives in the UK) should definitely be watching "Trapped" ("Ófærð") on BBC4: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06xttds

I watched the first two episodes last night and really enjoyed it. It's a fairly typical Nordic noir mystery, along the lines of "The Killing" or "The Bridge" or "Fortitude," but so far hasn't gone as far into the really dark gruesome ritualistic torture/serial killing stuff. I'm certain there will be more to come but so far I'm enjoying the relatively low body count and focus on characterisation. Not to mention the lovely Icelandic scenery.

One of the frustrations of Icelandic films is that they often don't have a lot of dialogue. This series has a decent helping, and the language is fairly simple. The benefit of this production being relatively high-budget for Iceland is that the sound is pretty good (again, unlike a lot of Icelandic films). The subtitles seemed mostly faithful although I was amused to see that "já já" was translated once as "that's true" and another time as "I know." Probably it was the right choice... that's Icelandic for you!

(Of course the meaning of "Ófærð" is more like "Impassable," but perhaps if you don't live in a country with serious winter storms, that doesn't sound ominous enough as a title.)

The only downside of watching it on BBC4 is that, of course, you can't turn the subtitles *off*. But I intend to try watching again with my gaze averted from that part of the screen...

Is anyone else watching?


Yes, I watch all the Scandi-noir, and also most other subtitled drama that BBC cares to show. This is the first Icelandic "noir" that they have shown, as far as I know. The only other Icelandic thing I've seen on BBC was the hilarious (once you get into it) "The Night Shift":
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0116qjx

But back to "Trapped": didn't you find it interesting that the Norwegians and Danes spoke to each other in English? (except when they lost it and started swearing at each other ...).
(Belated Edit: Doh! I meant Icelanders and Danes! Sorry).

And did you notice "Theis" from "The Killing", series 1?
Last edited by Montmorency on Thu Mar 17, 2016 1:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Soffía
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Re: Team Nordic [study and support group]

Postby Soffía » Sat Feb 27, 2016 10:00 am

Montmorency wrote:The only other Icelandic thing I've seen on BBC was the hilarious (once you get into it) "The Night Shift":
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0116qjx


"Night Shift" (AKA "Næturvaktin") was IIRC the first Icelandic series to be shown on the BBC, period. It's great! If you enjoyed it, there are two subsequent series, "Day Shift/Dagvaktin" and "Prison Shift/Fangavaktin", plus a film, "Bjarnfreðarson", which was a huge hit in Iceland. And then there's "Gnarr" which is a comedy/documentary about the actor who plays Georg, and his joke candidacy for mayor of Reykjavik. The joke was on him at the end, because he ended up as mayor...

But back to "Trapped": didn't you find it interesting that the Norwegians and Danes spoke to each other in English? (except when they lost it and started swearing at each other ...).


Icelanders and Danes, you mean? Or maybe I just haven't got to the bit that you're mentioning yet. It actually surprised me more when the investigator did speak a bit of Danish to the ferry captain, because despite the fact that Icelanders are required to study Danish in high school, they're notoriously unable to speak it. Even the Icelanders and the Faroese seem to often end up speaking English to one another.

Here's Jón Gnarr on Danish. Hilarious and (after the first 30 seconds) all about linguistic barriers...
https://youtu.be/FEzIu6Cv_Ek
(For some reason I can't work out how to embed.)
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Elenia
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Re: Team Nordic [study and support group]

Postby Elenia » Mon Feb 29, 2016 1:01 pm

Montmorency and Soffía, you're both making me very anxious to find these shows! Sadly, I can't seem to watch them from the BBC website :( Soffía, do you know if they're available elsewhere? For example, does the channel that originally aired them obligingly have it available?
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Soffía
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Re: Team Nordic [study and support group]

Postby Soffía » Tue Mar 01, 2016 7:23 am

Glad to hear that we've succeeded in raising some interest! Let's see...

"Night Shift" and its sequels: aired on the BBC a long time ago, hence no longer available on iPlayer. Your best bet is to order the DVDs from someplace like the Nordic Store: http://www.nordicstore.net/collections/icelandic-dvds/products/naeturvaktin-the-night-shift-dvd

"Gnarr": Is, excitingly, on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUraTP6d6cg

"Trapped": Should still be available on iPlayer if you're within the UK: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06xttds/episodes/player If iPlayer isn't working for you, the next episode is airing on BBC4 Saturday night at 9pm. Sadly the show was region-locked when it was on RÚV, so that wouldn't help, plus there would be no subtitles. If nothing else works I assume that the DVDs will eventually also be available from the Nordic Store, if they aren't already.
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