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.
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Elenia
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Languages: English (N), Swedish (C1), French (Massively Atrophied) German (lowly beginner, somehow learnt to read)


Finnish?!
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Team Nordic [study and support group]

Postby Elenia » Mon Jan 04, 2016 5:24 pm

Hi, all!

A few people have expressed interest in a Scandinavian team and so I thought that I'd start a thread instead of sitting back and hoping that someone else does so. I'm not taking part in the TAC this year, so this won't be a TAC thread. Other than that, it can be whatever we make of it. It can be a study group with monthly goals or challenges, a support group, a place to share and talk about media (in which case, this thread ought to be moved).

Chime in with opinions and thoughts, and if you're interested in joining whatever this becomes, I'll add your name and log (if you have one) to this first post. *In honour of Brun Ugle being the first to signal interest, as well as the first non-active learner, the observers and native/advanced speakers will be called the Wise Owls

Active Learners
appelkoekje
Anya
caam_imt
Cavesa
cathrynm
eido
Elenia
Elsa Maria
Expugnator
grel
jennw
Martin
Montmorency
Morgana
Neurotip
Sarnek
Serpent
Soffia
Systematiker
tiia

Wise Owls
Brun Ugle
daegga
Ketutar
Ogrim
Sooniye
Last edited by Elenia on Fri Sep 07, 2018 1:05 pm, edited 28 times in total.
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Brun Ugle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
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Location: Steinkjer, Norway
Languages: English (N), Norwegian (~C1/C2), Spanish (B1/B2), German (A2/B1?), Japanese (very rusty)
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Re: Team Scandinavian

Postby Brun Ugle » Mon Jan 04, 2016 5:49 pm

I'll join you as a supporting member or something. I'm not studying actively right now, but I've reached an advanced level in Norwegian, so I might be able to give some help to those who are studying it. I don't have a native's expertise, but sometimes a foreigner's view can be useful to a learner too.
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Expugnator
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Languages: Native Brazilian Portuguese#advanced fluency English, French, Papiamento#basic fluency Italian, Norwegian#intermediate Spanish, German, Georgian and Chinese (Mandarin)#basic Russian, Estonian, Greek (Modern)#just started Indonesian, Hebrew (Modern), Guarani
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9931
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Re: Team Scandinavian

Postby Expugnator » Mon Jan 04, 2016 7:55 pm

Count me in! As I've stated in my log, most learners of Scandinavian languages are at an independent stage now, mostly consuming native materials, but I'd be glad to have all the support I need as well as assist beginners, since I've been through almost all of the laringe l learning resources published for Norwegian :p

Brun Ugle, I'd be happy to hear about your experience when you started to become fluent in Norwegian. How did it happen with the listening comprehension part? Norwegian ranks high with French and Mandarin in spoken languages hard to understand regardless of your written level. It doesn't help that at each TV show we can hear dozens of dialects, especially on NRK.
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Brun Ugle
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Location: Steinkjer, Norway
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Re: Team Scandinavian

Postby Brun Ugle » Mon Jan 04, 2016 8:21 pm

Dialects are tough. I still struggle sometimes with some Vestland dialects. They make my ears itch. But a lot of real Norwegians struggle to understand some of them too, so it's nothing to worry about.

Where I live now, the dialect is a fairly light version of Trøndersk, but when I first came here, I lived in a place with a much heavier dialect. I actually asked a lot of "how do you say...." questions and made my own charts over the grammar to figure out the cases. Nobody teaches you a dialect, you have to just figure it out yourself if you want to learn to speak it. However, as a foreigner, you don't really need a dialect. Everyone will understand you if you speak Bokmål. My dialect has been watered down a lot since moving farther south. I don't really remember the cases very well even. But also the dialects themselves are slowly disappearing. You can hear a great difference in the speech of older people and younger people. Even Individuals, over time gradually and unconsciously change the way they speak. We all do.

I think most foreigners never learn a dialect completely. Most of us end up speaking something that's half Bokmål and half dialect. Learning to speak a dialect even that well without living here would be very difficult, I think. First, you would probably have to do a bit of research before choosing one. There are dictionaries for at least some dialects and some books about them, all for Norwegian speakers of course, so you probably need to learn Norwegian before you can learn a dialect, if you don't live here. If you could find a dialect for which you could get such a dictionary and for which you could find some videos or recordings in the dialect, you might be able to do it. You could also find an exchange partner or tutor from the right region. But I doubt that most people would bother. I don't try to have a dialect in any of my other languages. The only reason I have anything approaching a dialect in Norwegian is because I live here and I've lived in the same general region the whole time.
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Brun Ugle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
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Joined: Mon Jul 27, 2015 12:48 pm
Location: Steinkjer, Norway
Languages: English (N), Norwegian (~C1/C2), Spanish (B1/B2), German (A2/B1?), Japanese (very rusty)
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Re: Team Scandinavian

Postby Brun Ugle » Mon Jan 04, 2016 8:22 pm

I just saw you called me a wise owl. I love it! :D
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Expugnator
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Posts: 1728
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:45 pm
Location: Belo Horizonte
Languages: Native Brazilian Portuguese#advanced fluency English, French, Papiamento#basic fluency Italian, Norwegian#intermediate Spanish, German, Georgian and Chinese (Mandarin)#basic Russian, Estonian, Greek (Modern)#just started Indonesian, Hebrew (Modern), Guarani
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9931
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Re: Team Scandinavian

Postby Expugnator » Mon Jan 04, 2016 9:43 pm

So the dialects you've run into have cases?
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daegga
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-- ≥ C1 passive --
English (IELTS 8.5)
Scandinavian (a: N>D>S)
-- along the way --
French, Italian
-- can read with dict --
Old Norse
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Re: Team Scandinavian

Postby daegga » Mon Jan 04, 2016 10:33 pm

I'll stop by from time to time, also not TACing, as I won't keep a proper log this year for Scandinavian languages. I guess I'll update a list of things watched, read and listened to, that's all.

For learners of Norwegian, this year starts promising. Anno is going into its 2nd season on tv.nrk.no (the first season is still available, but not necessary - I would recommend it though). Mammon is also in its 2nd season, but access is restricted - I'm sure there will be other ways ;)

edit:
here is the thread I update from time to time:
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1035
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jag nöjer mig med tystnad

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Brun Ugle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2273
Joined: Mon Jul 27, 2015 12:48 pm
Location: Steinkjer, Norway
Languages: English (N), Norwegian (~C1/C2), Spanish (B1/B2), German (A2/B1?), Japanese (very rusty)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=11484
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Re: Team Scandinavian

Postby Brun Ugle » Tue Jan 05, 2016 6:56 am

You can see traces of the old case system in modern Norwegian in set phrases like:
til fjells, til bords, til sjøs, ei times tid, verdens gang...... which use genitive case
and
av gårde, på tide, i live...... which are dative

The dative is pretty much gone in the standard language outside of a few set phrases, but it still exists in some dialects. I asked how to say various sentences using the same noun as subject, direct object and indirect object to figure it out.

The genitive still exists in modern Norwegian in a number of set phases and as a possessive. But possession is more often expressed using "til" like "bilen til Erik" rather than "Eriks bil". Norwegian is opposite to English in that the shorter form sounds fancy and the long form sounds ordinary. In the countryside, you would often hear also "Erik sin bil," but that's not considered proper in writing and in some places sounds like uneducated speech. Where I live, it's very common and not looked down on in speaking, but in other areas it can be.
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Elenia
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1888
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 1:22 am
Location: London
Languages: English (N), Swedish (C1), French (Massively Atrophied) German (lowly beginner, somehow learnt to read)


Finnish?!
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Re: Team Scandinavian

Postby Elenia » Tue Jan 05, 2016 11:42 am

A question: would we like to widen our remit to include the other Nordic languages? I, for one, am interested in Finnish and Icelandic and the experiences of learners. I believe it would still be entirely possible to create a team feeling, although I am worried that Finnish learners might be left out in the cold a bit.

EDIT: Also, any ideas for a name? Team Scandinavian is great, but also just a wee bit boring.
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Anya
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Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=21&t=754&p=11667#p11667
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Re: Team Scandinavian

Postby Anya » Tue Jan 05, 2016 12:58 pm

Hello,

I would like to join yout team as a beginner for Swedish.
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