I've actually been learning it on and off for a long time. Started about 12 years ago in 9th grade, but didn't pay attention in the class, so that was a waste. Started learning on my own about 6 months ago. It's a very difficult language for me to learn for some reason, especially the pronunciations. The best thing to do is probably move to some French speaking region because I learned English that way in less than a year. Although, English seems to be a lot easier.
Trance-MB
Dutch, German, English.
French a little and tiny bit Italian and Spanish, although those last two maybe aren't worth mentioning.
Moongoose
Well obviously slovenian, then english (though i have a bad accent that i picked up from watching too much american tv) and serbian, im currently relearning german since i forgot most of it (know enough to get around though) while also learning french (its going surprisingly well).
Im also patiently waiting for Lira to provide that "hangul for idiots" lesson since i also want to pick up an asian language or two after im comfortable enough with german and french to be able to hold a conversation.
Chimney
Can't hear any difference. Danish is all the same. But her voice is sexy.
_Ocean_Drive_
quote:
Originally posted by Banora
Here you go. Watch this video first for proper Danish, then listen to my hick Danish.
The Scandanavian lanugages sound incredibly difficult to me, let alone to read and make a fairly educated guess at pronouncing it. But I find it interesting how Scandanavians all seem to understand one another's language.
Banora
quote:
Originally posted by Igaryok
I like your voice, it's uhh... relaxing
Cheers! I wish I had kept the voice recordings from the 'what is your accent' thread. :/
quote:
Originally posted by Lira
Your Danish > The Danish on that video :D
Haha, cheers!
quote:
Originally posted by _Ocean_Drive_
The Scandanavian lanugages sound incredibly difficult to me, let alone to read and make a fairly educated guess at pronouncing it. But I find it interesting how Scandanavians all seem to understand one another's language.
Hah, actually I think most of it sounds incredibly close to English!
You can sound that out and figure out what is being said. When you hear it, it sounds very close to English!
Lira
The guide will be ready this month, Miha, I promise :D
quote:
Originally posted by _Ocean_Drive_
The Scandanavian lanugages sound incredibly difficult to me, let alone to read and make a fairly educated guess at pronouncing it. But I find it interesting how Scandanavians all seem to understand one another's language.
That's because the definition of "language" is incredibly loose. If Americans suddenly decided to call their language "American", someone like Lews who speaks North American English and South African English would then be able to say he doesn't just speak two variants of the same language, but two distinct languages ("English" and "American" in this case).
Danish/Swedish/Norwegian share a lot more in common than some of the Chinese "dialects", which are actually completely different languages (such as Mandarin and Cantonese). Mind you, there's no clear-cut division between what's a dialect and what's a language, although mutual intelligibility is expected from two speakers of the same language - mind you, this is not always possible and/or easy to define: Germans living near the Dutch border can speak Dutch just fine, although they can't understand "Swiss German" just as clearly; on the other hand, someone from Munich can't understand Dutch (reason why they're considered distinct languages)... see how complicated it gets after a while?
Long story short, they're closer to being dialects of the same language, but we call them distinct languages because they're spoken in countries that would rather see their languages that way.
Lira
quote:
Originally posted by Banora
Haha, cheers!
Really, it sounds so cute :)
By the way, can you understand any Dutch? A Dutch friend says she can understand some Danish, so I wonder whether it goes both ways.
I know for a fact that, although Chimney can understand me perfectly well, I can't understand Romanian not even if you hold me at gun point...
Chimney
I lived in Skåne in Sweden, which borders Denmark. Over there, people talk Swedish with a thick Danish accent. Sounds absolutely horrid. Everyone in the rest of the country hates "skåningar".
quote:
I can't understand Romanian not even if you hold me at gun point...
I think French and Romanian are the most difficult of the latin languages, especially since we've got Slavic influences and tons of irregular verbs.
Lira
quote:
Originally posted by Chimney
I think French and Romanian are the most difficult of the latin languages, especially since we've got Slavic influences and tons of irregular verbs.
Actually, French is a lot easier for me to understand (and that's the only reason I guess I was able to pretend I spoke it when I craved for some coffee in the airport :p). I'm not sure if, to the average European, Portuguese is easier than French - whether or not a language is difficult depends on your mother language, after all. We use more verb tenses in the everyday language, our pronominal system changed quite substantially here in Brazil, and fewer words that made their way to the English language. But, I could be wrong... it's not like there's a good way to independently measure these things anyway.
Funnily enough, Portuguese speakers usually have the opposite problem with Spanish: We can understand Spanish quite well, but they can't make head nor tails of what we say most of the time. It's probably because we dropped lots of consonants, and make loads of distinctions they don't perceive.
Banora
quote:
Originally posted by Lira
Really, it sounds so cute :)
By the way, can you understand any Dutch? A Dutch friend says she can understand some Danish, so I wonder whether it goes both ways.
Actually, yes, I can pick out words in Dutch! A lot of times I can read Dutch and get the gist of it, but Dutchies talk to quickly and their accents are so heavy that I have trouble understanding them. I was with a group of Dutch guys back in April after a festival, and they were talking about the girls at the festival and who they wanted to bang in the car ride we were sharing, and I couldn't stop giggling at the stuff I was catching.
quote:
Originally posted by Chimney
I lived in Skåne in Sweden, which borders Denmark. Over there, people talk Swedish with a thick Danish accent. Sounds absolutely horrid. Everyone in the rest of the country hates "skåningar".
At least it wasn't the ed up dialect of Bornholm... which really should be considered another language.
