Team Nordic [study and support group]

[cathrynm]

I'm still plugging away at Finnish. Setup to watch Finnish TV now with VPN, but still also plugging away with clozeaster. There's also a semi-active Opisuomea Discord server I've been reading a little.

But right now, heavily distracted by work and upcoming JLPT N2 test (Japanese)

[Morgana]

Are there any other Danish learners in this group?

Not yet, but I plan to add the language early next year.

How is everyone doing with their Nordic languages? I am still working on Danish, but I will be working on Danish forever so that is not really an update

What you said, but replace “Danish” with “Swedish and Icelandic” It’s a long road.

[tiia]

Finnish is going great. I moved again to the country this year and will have my work in Finnish.

Now, there's also Swedish, but uhm... I don't really do enough/anything. So I consider taking regular classes again from January onwards. I will decide about it, depending on the type of courses I find + how much time and energy I have next to my work. Language classes seem to be surprisingly cheap in Finland. (Except for the books, so I'll aim for a course that uses Rivstart as my previous course did.)

[PeterMollenburg]

Hey guys,

I'd like to join Team Nordic (Norwegian).

If you know me from my French studies/log, don't expect the same degree of intensity. In fact, it will be very different. Now with my "French only years" behind me, like many of us here on the forum, i'll be juggling several languages, with at least three of them being more important than Norwegian for reasons of maintenance/improvement (French), location (Arabic), and potential future employent (Dutch).

Although Norwegian isn't top priority for me, it's still a language I want to learn and one that definitely interests me, or I wouldn't be here. It's also a language my daughter is keen on learning too, and I think it might be nice/wise to encourage her in something that interests her. Since I take it upon myself to read to my children in foreign languages, in order to do so in Norwegian, I need to deconstruct the language and study it actively, albeit for dismally short periods of time, but that's better than not at all.

I also decided a while back that if I wanted to learn either Danish, Swedish or Norwegian, I'd choose Norwegian, as I've been there (so I know I like the place), I've friends there that I'm regularly in contact with, and for reasons of mutual intelligibility, I think it's a good choice too.

So here I am, don't expect lightening-fast advancement- I've only done about 30 minutes of Pimsleur so far and that was enough to both feel very strange at hearing the breakdown of a new language into separate syllables/phonemes and excited to learn more.

Peace out, Pete Mollenburg, for reals an' that

I’d like to withdraw my request to join Team Nordic.

Upon discovering that Norwegian is not French enough, I dropped the language immediately. What a joke, can’t they even say ‘bonjour’ instead of... what was it again?

No that’s not true, iguanamon wrote a really nasty email to me and told me I must learn Haitian Creole or else ummm... what did he say... okay okay he never said anything nasty to me at all!

The real reason is Norway is too peaceful = not enough action. After watching truck loads of Hollywood action films from the 80s and 90s (think Arnie, Bruce Willis, JC Van Damme) dubbed by me in French... okay I imagined they were speaking French here and there, and I also took the liberty to relocate the films to various parts of Norway, you know the American looking parts, yeah yeah those parts of Norway, whatever they’re called, I’ve been sorely disappointed to learn that none of these films really took place there! So no, I cannot accept this betrayal. Norwegian has to go.

Fineprint (if it doesn’t look fine, your eyes are in outstanding condition!):
See my log for an alternative reason.

Sorry guys, I was really excited with this irrational short-lived action-packed peaceful Norwegian affair. Maybe we’ll meet again

[PeterMollenburg]

wow... tough crowd. Hopefully you are all busy learning dammit!

[eido]

wow... tough crowd. Hopefully you are all busy learning dammit!

I've learned 20 words/phrases of Faroese so far. I'm eyeing the only Faroese italki tutor who is perhaps the only one in existence. I will go through my Faroese textbook and might even go through the complicated grammar from over 50 years ago to add fuel to the fire. It's possible I'll study the basic online course provided by one of Iceland's universities in tandem with government agencies from the Faroes. I'll be anxiously waiting for the C1 course in Faroese from the same site that will probably never come, even though I hate the teaching method. I will go nuts.

And then I will learn Icelandic and get all confused because Faroese is basically Icelandic, but with more dialects and pronunciation that makes you go, "eh? or was it /œ/?"

That's me.

[Elenia]

I'm plugging along with Swedish and getting in some gentle Norwegian exposure. One day I'll throw myself into that thing they call Danish, too.

For Swedish learners, in case it hasn't already been mentioned, https://www.svenska.se is a great resource. It collates the Svenska Ordlista, Svenska Akademiens Ordbok and Svensk Ordbok.

[lavengro]

A clip from the Fallet series, available (at least in Canada) on Netflix, with equal parts Swedish, English and silliness, with a smattering I believe of Finnish, Norwegian and Danish(?). Elsewhere in the series so far, I have encountered one line of Latin and a non-conversation via Morse code.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9v5jA7OxHw

The Netflix version has English subtitles. This series appears to have been sponsored in part by the Norrbacka Tourism Board: "Norrbacka is a ****** little town with horrible restaurants and nothing much to do. And a population of 17,000 idiots"

[Elenia]

A clip from the Fallet series, available (at least in Canada) on Netflix, with equal parts Swedish, English and silliness, with a smattering I believe of Finnish, Norwegian and Danish(?). Elsewhere in the series so far, I have encountered one line of Latin and a non-conversation via Morse code.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9v5jA7OxHw

The Netflix version has English subtitles. This series appears to have been sponsored in part by the Norrbacka Tourism Board: "Norrbacka is a ****** little town with horrible restaurants and nothing much to do. And a population of 17,000 idiots"

Upsettingly, I can't watch it on youtube as SVT has blocked it. And I don't have Netflix, and I'm not all too sure I would have been able to watch it there anyway... ho-hum.

[cathrynm]

That's definitely Finnish, as for the rest, Swedish or Borkmal or something? I'm still confused by Norway, and its languages, to be honest.