hazylynx Posted February 20, 2009 Share Posted February 20, 2009 Everyone speaks it.. even i was in Spain trying to talk spanish.. i'd be asked to give English lessons... I feel arrogant that i only know one Langauge..when the rest of Europe is bi-lingual.. so which langauge to learn? German,Spanish or maybe a scandinavian langauge( i love how it almost sounds like music) I want to learn for both personal and business... Swedish is looking like the one atm but i really don't know... what langauges do people know? or want to know? ( apart from English) aaaaaaah! Link to comment
Scorpion Fury Posted February 20, 2009 Share Posted February 20, 2009 English is pretty universal. It's an important language for people to know. German or French might be useful for you to know, but if you like the way Swedish sounds, learn that one. Link to comment
D_Lish Posted February 20, 2009 Share Posted February 20, 2009 I can speak some French and German... I'd love to learn more languages though. Link to comment
Whiskers Posted February 20, 2009 Share Posted February 20, 2009 I can read fairly good Spanish Portuguese and a little Latin...however I have yet to master one of them. My partner is multilingual...french, spanish, english, italian and some german (he has good understanding of Latin and a little dutch and is Portuguese) Though I cannot talk to his family, they can talk to me and I understand what they are saying...which helps me a lot in Spanish. I try to talk to the language...do my best to ask at least a sentence but the moment they suss I am english they are happy to practice their english and my lack of portuguese or whatever usually falls away. I think, if you don't mind the suggestion, that Spanish or Portuguese is a nice place to start (Portuguese due to the fact it's closer to latin and they say that if you get that then you can learn anything - also they say if you learn spanish first you'll never learn Portuguese. However, if you learn Portuguese, Spanish follows easily - and then Italian. So by learning one you open the door to more and that's what I have been doing, in fairness I find that it is working. The more Portuguese I learn, the more Spanish I have and the more Latin and Italian I pick up. Now all that's left is commitment from me and some serious work - we're planning to have children and the lack of interest and focus on language by the english education system has made it so we'll raise them in the portuguese tongue and they'll learn english mostly at school. By secondary school they'll do spanish, german and french. It's just thought but I totally understand your need to learn another language. XXXX Link to comment
hazylynx Posted February 20, 2009 Author Share Posted February 20, 2009 I think i'll learn Swedish then... then hopfully from that i will be able to speak Danish/Norwegian.even Finnish though must Finns speak Swedish and English anyway.. swedish looks hardcore to try and learn to write with.. need to change my keyboard settings thanks for the advice Link to comment
hazylynx Posted February 21, 2009 Author Share Posted February 21, 2009 No problem at all, and for any language learning, check out Rosetta Stone software. It's wonderful, and really working for me. i have looked at rosetta stone.. it costs an arm and a leg!!! is it worth it from somone who is learning from scratch...i mean will i be able to learn it... as well as learn to read and write give me 1 year and i can go to sweden and get around..( thats 3 maybe 4 hours a week) Link to comment
purpleduckie Posted February 22, 2009 Share Posted February 22, 2009 download rosseta stone off of torrents. also, pick a language that is most relevent in your field if you don't hav ea particular prefernce. Link to comment
metrogirl Posted February 22, 2009 Share Posted February 22, 2009 I taught myself Spanish when I was much younger and married to a man who's family didn't speak English. It wasn't as hard as I thought and I actually made more money in one of my positions within the company. Bilingual pay was something like .75 cents more an hour at that time. I actually would like to learn another language but unsure of which. I'm leaning towards Chinese or Vietnamese. (don't ask) LOL Link to comment
purpleduckie Posted February 22, 2009 Share Posted February 22, 2009 Is that legal? I wouldn't want him to have to end up learning the language of local prison slang. hahaha if you're in canada, it's legal to download. just don't upload. Link to comment
hazylynx Posted February 22, 2009 Author Share Posted February 22, 2009 download rosseta stone off of torrents. also, pick a language that is most relevent in your field if you don't hav ea particular prefernce. would i not want all the infomation etc that i'd get buying the actual package? rather than downloading it i wouldn't know if it has all the infomation rar rar rar... basically the box ha.. i want to learn a langauge and don't care if i have to pay a fair bit to learn it.. just don't want to download it ( illegally) and find out half of its missing etc.. i am learning Swedish =) Link to comment
hazylynx Posted February 23, 2009 Author Share Posted February 23, 2009 I chose Swedish because.. I love how it sounds so melodic and enchanting.. I can learn Danish and Norweigan with it =) theres somthing about scandinavian culture that i am in love with.. i truly think England is the sewer of europe...i know there are some redeeming elements within England but.. theres a culture of not learning or rather not wanting to know... Link to comment
kamila Posted February 24, 2009 Share Posted February 24, 2009 I chose Swedish because.. I love how it sounds so melodic and enchanting.. I can learn Danish and Norweigan with it =) theres somthing about scandinavian culture that i am in love with.. i truly think England is the sewer of europe...i know there are some redeeming elements within England but.. theres a culture of not learning or rather not wanting to know... how about you choose a language that will be useful to you.. something that is used around the world will be valuable when you start your career .. Spanish and French for example.. I grew up bilingual then learned english and will hopefully learn spanish .. it's so enriching to know more than one language .. the other day I saw an Indian person speaking Chinese to his asian friends .. now that's what I'm talking about! Link to comment
kamila Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 Swedish may not be as widespread, but if someone takes to a particular culture, then learning the language is one of the best insights one can have into learning about. I agree that learning a language is one way to learn about a culture.. but think about the effort it takes to learn a new language, better invest that effort into something that'll be useful .. not saying that learning about Swedish culture is not useful, but you can always do it in English too.. interesting fact: Swedish people are heavy coffee consumers, so for the Englander, can you handle coffee and no tea Link to comment
kamila Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 Right, I just mean that if the culture means that much to someone, then by all means take up the language, whether or not it will be widely useful. From my own experience, one can't fully learn about a culture, unless it's in their own language. The languages I've been learning, Spanish and Portuguese, are for my own interest in Latin music, and luckily enough for me, they're in wide enough use. When song lyrics are translated into English from Spanish and Portuguese, I've found they often don't make sense unless you understand the home language (poetry, slang, vernacular, etc., which can get lost in translation). As for heavy coffee drinkers, I think Latin America's got them all beat. you're right.. I personally get interested in a culture partially because of the language (backwards I know ) for example I have no interest in learning about German culture (apologies for any Germans who might read this) and this is partially because of how the language sounds .. and I guess that's why the poster wants to learn about swedish culture (swedish sounds like a melody apparently) .. and just an opinion; Portugese sounds like you're reading backwards doesn't it.. p.s. I totally agree about English translations for lyrics being off .. for instance, I love Mano Chao's songs IN SPANISH Link to comment
hazylynx Posted February 26, 2009 Author Share Posted February 26, 2009 I looked at learning spanish.. i know bits and bobs.. but it doesn't inspire me the way Scandinavian langauge does..well im in love with paco de lucia =) but it's just how scandinavians talk and act i guess,they're a very enlightened bunch..well some of them... yeah i drink alot of coffee... trying to cut down last year i was on i'd say 3 or 4 cups a day, as now i'm on 2 or 3 haha.. Black! Link to comment
alatas Posted August 3, 2009 Share Posted August 3, 2009 Just wanted to add this: Being able to speak Swedish helps you to be able to read Norwegian and Danish, and makes it possible to have a fair guess at spoken Norwegian, but spoken Danish is incomprehensible unless you're fluent in Swedish and have some experience with understanding the Sweden's Skåne accent (my opinion). Trust me, I've been there...I am fluent in Swedish and struggle to understand spoken Danish. I'm ok with Norwegian if people don't speak too fast and don't use technical language or slang. Also, the grammars of the languages are different in subtle ways, and you can very easily get confused between words accross the languages - when I was in Norway last year I started to write Swedish verb endings in a Norwegian way for a while after that. I would not try myself to learn Norwegian now, I think I would just get too confused. But as you said, most Scandinavians speak English, so you should be fine with English (and Swedish) in Norway and Denmark. Enjoy learning it though, I think Sweden is THE most beautiful language in the world (and no, I'm not Swedish myself ) It looks beautiful written down, sounds very melodic and is one hell of a lot of fun to pronounce! And finally: if you need a source for Swedish, try the Sveriges Radio website: http://www.sr.se They have live feeds and podcasts for when you become more skilled. Lycka till! Link to comment
hazylynx Posted August 3, 2009 Author Share Posted August 3, 2009 Hej, I've been learning svenska for about 2 months now.. Rosetta stone and Norwegians are helping me.. Apparently I sound like someone from Bergen ( now and again) An American/ one swede and a couple of Finns are also helping me, abit of a mix I know but hey.. Tack Link to comment
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