Tag: language tips

The best Scandinavian language to learn

How to choose the language to study among Swedish, Danish and Norwegian

Many people interested in learning languages of North Europe probably start with this question, Which, among Swedish, Norwegian and Danish, is the best language to study?

Surprise surprise, there is of course no answer, but you can pick one or the other depending on some factors which make one more “suitable” to your interests and goals.

You can first of all learn about general features and learn how to tell Scandinavian languages apart. Do not start all or two of them at the same time if you do not have solid knowledge of one, you can read how I managed to study all Germanic languages.

Some factors you might take into account

The next points can be considered for any language you want to study, with some specific information regarding the three Scandinavian languages:

#1 – Your personal interest

The first factor to consider is personal: is there a reason that makes a country/language more special than the other to you – A travel destination? Friends from there? Some book you would like to be able to read in the original language? Regardless what the reason is, it is good to have something motivating you, whether it is needing it to live somewhere or because you like how ø looks.

#2 – the language that opens the most doors

It is generally handy to speak a language that will give you “access” to the most other languages. The three Scandinavian languages are quite similar to each other, so it won’t make a huge difference. The one having a bit more than the others in common with the other two could be Norwegian: Danish and Norwegian have a more similar spelling due to historical reasons, but Norwegian sounds similar to Swedish, while Danish is….Danish.

Norwegian is theorically a West-North Germanic language as Icelandic, as opposed to Swedish and Danish which are grouped as East-North Germanic. There are traces of that in some Norwegian dialects, but for geographical and historical reasons Norwegian got a lot closer to Swedish and Danish. Icelandic (unfortunately?) retained its heavy grammar. More about the Icelandic grammar

#3 – the language which allows you to reach most people

Another factor people often take into consideration when starting a new language is how many people you will be able to communicate with. All Scandinavian languages are pretty small (all three make in total around 20 million speakers) but Swedish is significantly more spoken than all other languages of Nordic countries (as big as Danish and Norwegian together), and is present in Finland as well.

Some more or less tricky features

Grammar

Their grammar is very similar and essentially equally hard, with maybe the exception that Norwegian has the feminine gender too, although not used everywhere.

Pronunciation

Danes speak as if they have potatoes in their mouth. (While it is said Norwegian and Swedish sound like singing…) Some sounds like stød can be hard for foreigners to reproduce, saying rødgrød med fløde is a classic. Swedish Pronounciation has a sound similar to German ch in Bach, try this tongue twister: Sju Sjuka sjömän med sju sjuka sköterskor. People from Skåne, Sweden’s southernmost region, might sound to you like Danes speaking Swedish…Centuries ago, Skåne was actually a part of Denmark!

Language variation

Norwegian is famous for its dialects, “I” can be written/pronounced in a number of ways: jeg, Æ, eg.. Being already used to jump from a Scandinavian language to the other, hearing a new Norwegian dialect is not too scary I guess.. And it has two written standards, bokmål and nynorsk. Bokmål is far more popular than Nynorsk though.

This would mean Norwegian is probably the most convenient to learn: vocabulary/spelling lean towards Danish and Pronounciation to Swedish, while you will spare yourself the (for most people) struggle of learning how to pronounce Danish.

My journey

I personally started with Swedish and still keeping it as my “main”, although i learned the others on the way, I look at Swedish as my Scandinavian mother tongue or something, haha. There was no particular reason for this, Sweden and Swedish culture were just somehow more present in my mind and knowledge than the other two, and I just felt like learning Swedish without thinking much.

Truth to be told, many people are not particularly found of the sound of Danish. Not me though, pronouncing Danish is a guilty pleasure of mine.

If you find all of them interesting, just be patient and once you got to a decent level with one you can start picking up the others just by immersion!

How I learned all Scandinavian languages (and more)- Anchor language method

The ‘anchor’ language concept allowed me to learn Swedish, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian easily starting from studying properly only one language. This approach helps prevent confusion and builds a solid foundational understanding of language structures.

At the Polyglot Gathering 2025 – an event to connect with fellow language lovers and attend talks on language-related topics – Richard Simcott mentioned an interesting concept during his talk Language Bubble. Replying to a question about learning many closely related languages (and avoid confusion) he talked about relying on an ‘anchor’ language. And I realized i actually used that method without being fully aware of it.

As I mentioned while talking about learning all Germanic languages simultaneously, I did not start 5 languages at once. It was a gradual journey. And I relied on different languages at different stages. First on German, then on Swedish, and that is how I gradually studied/learned all Scandinavian languages. My experience as follows.

How I learned Scandinavian languages together

My first Scandinavian language was Swedish, which I picked out of feeling. Sweden was probably just slightly better represented in my head than Denmark and Norway. I started it after having studied English and German for years, and that helped me significantly, vocabulary and grammar wise. The same goes for Dutch, which I started at the same time as Swedish – they are related, but not that closely.
When I started, I could make a lot of assumptions and give things for granted thanks to my German knowledge: verb position, past verb paradigm, vocabulary I could understand etc. Back then, German could be loosely defined as my Anchor language for both.

Then, after having focused myself only on Swedish for 2 years, I started trying to write in Danish. I could not express myself but all i needed was figuring out how to modify my Swedish. The grammar works In the exact same way for most things, vocabulary is often very similar and has recurring spelling differences. After a while just google translating you see the patterns, and learn fast because of how similar they are.

Similarly, as I happened to chat with more Danes than Norwegians, I expanded a lot my Danish skills, making it more ‘independent’ from my Swedish. For Norwegian I have been relying on both, being aware of typical Norwegian features. I believe the key when attempting to speak is learning well filler words. The listener will be impressed about it before you recycle a word in another language – fake it until you make it they say.

Knowing Scandinavian languages surely did not have the same role as an anchor language when learning Icelandic, but I guess I could/can still use them as a ”reference”. German similarly when it came to Icelandic grammar in the beginning.

Anchor language concept In a nutshell

This concept consists in one language being on a higher level than the rest, To know something also means to know what distinct it from the rest, and for that you need a solid base you can rely on and use as reference. At some point, you will rely less and less on the anchor language.

  1. Pick a language and focus only on it and no new closely related ones for a while. You do not need to become fluent, but you need to know the language structure well: how grammar works, general vocabulary etc. So you are sure of what is Swedish, and do not mix it with what isn’t when learning.
  2. Get exposure in other related languages: start getting to know the other members of the family. Just like in a real family you do not remember the names of everybody after first introductions with many new people, so you have to have contact with them again here and there to actually be acquainted.
  3. Start using the other languages. As the passive language skills are already there due to language intellegibility, and you can use what you naturally absorb after a while, also by searching words you do not know and grammar concepts that might be different in your anchor language.

you can also see it as writing two essays: it works better to first write and finish one with a defined structure, then take that structure for a different topic and slightly modify it, than starting two different essays simultaneously, adding bits to both now and then, ending up with two randomly written texts.

The same can be applied for Romance languages, though my Anchor language is my native language, which I obviously have a strong base of to begin with…

I do plan to focus on Finnish to be able to make it my anchor language in order to easily learn/understand Estonian. It already helps with absorbing grammar features and some words I have randomly encountered, but to be a proper anchor there is work to do!

Find more language tips & facts on Nordic languages learning on this blog, or check out my free language resources list.

5 symbols of Sami culture

Sámi people, indigenous people of North Scandinavia, have a distinct culture, symbolised by its unique flag and traditional clothing, and part of it are Duodji handicrafts and unique musical expression through yoik.

Chiara's avatar by Chiara

Guide to practice languages with penpals

Snailmail is a great way to practice languages at your own pace, make friends and get creative at the same time!

I have been into penpalling/snailmail since my early teenage years, and I started using this hobby more recently as a way to practice languages.

I actually started learning Danish and Norwegian by writing letters in them. I spoke decent Swedish already and could read them, but had to look for a lot of words and correct grammar forms, and that was a boost, learning actively while having fun and being creative! At the moment, I am actively using my Finnish and Japanese with my penpals from Finland and Japan.

How to find penpals: hashtags, communities, websites

scandinavian stamps
Pretty stamps from Scandinavia!
From a Finnish penpal

One of the ways to find other people interested in penpalling is searching with the right hashtags on social media as instagram and tiktok. For example #penpalswanted , #lookingforpenpal, etc. In some cases snailmail accounts give a chance to comment and introduce themselves under a post to those looking for a penpal.

There are also websites made for people looking for a penpal, for example Global Penfriends, interpals.net... Here you can select a country and age to find your future penpals! Other websites are country-specific as Pen friends clubs of Japan.

introduce youself with a video or post adding the hashtags above, or interact and send messages to other penpal-wannabes. Talk about your interests, your aesthetic, show your letters and. No creativity, special things you’d send as stickers, postcards..

Get creative: material you need & ideas. pinterest board

Some of my snailmail material: washi tapes, stamps and pretty sticky notes

There are no right or wrong things to include in a letter, but usually, the more things you include in it, the nicer it is for your penpal receiving it!

In this Pinterest board I add inspirational pictures for my letters. Some ideas:

  • washi samples, stickers
  • memo notes
  • postcards
  • cutouts (pictures from magazines..)
  • Questions for your penpal
  • songs

Similar the length of your letter is up to you. When practicing languages, the longer the more space to improve! It can be as personal as you want it to.

fun fact: When writing to a new penpal, I always write/doodle about things I like or know about the other person’s country, copying illustrations from books I had as a child among others 🙂

Stick to the language

As I mentioned in my blog post about practicing a language spoken in a country with high English proficiency, it is important to find a space whee you force yourself to use that language no matter what – and writing letters is a perfect solution for that. It is a relaxed, fun way to practice taking your time, both when reading others’ letters and writing your own. You can look up words, and exercise writing in other scripts too if needed! Just handwriting å, æ or ð feels quite satisfaying to me.

letter for Japanese penpal
For a Japanese penpal
Letter for Danish penpal
For a Danish penpal

Penpal etiquette

  • If you are the one asking to become penpals and get a yes – write first. It is also possible to do swaps – one-shot mail exchanges where you send more things than in an ordinary penpal letter. In that case, sending it at the same time would be a fair option if you inform yourselves about what the other person likes to begin with.
  • In the first letter, introduce yourself and your interests, what you like/dislike..
  • Try to put similar effort in letters as your penpals do, or ask them what they’d like to receive – it would be a bit unfair if someone uses a lot of materials, decorations and small gifts while you send a half empty sheet in a blank envelope.
  • If you do not feel like continuing writing to a penpal – that’s totally okay, but let the penpal know.

Tips to Practice the Local Language where everybody speaks English

4 tips to practice a language as Swedish and Dutch, where most people are fluent in English and foreigners struggle to improve the local language.

You are learning a language and would be eager to use it when you are in the country where it is spoken. But what if everybody switches to English the second they hear you are not from there?

This is a typical problem in Holland and Scandinavia, where most people speak English well, and the fact that English will simply always work better and be the easiest option prevents you from attempting at speaking anything else.

I have had experiences with Dutch, Swedes, Swedes and Norwegians in various contexts and with the given language being at various levels at different times, and these are a few tips to exercise the language if you are not (or do not feel) fluent yet:

1. important information in English, smalltalk and chitchat in local language

Sometimes you just have to be sure you know what is going on and what you need to do, other times you can miss some parts of a dialogue without causing yourself any damage – in the latter give a go at your target language, you’ll never understand 100% anyway if you never practice.

example: Last time I was in Denmark, I heard a confusing announcement on the train. As i wanted to be 100% sure my train would reach my destination, I first asked that in English to the person sitting next to me, to switch to Danish right after having received that piece of information, (saying that I actually did speak Danish) and had a nice conversation in it.

If your level is still basic, do make sure to (be able to) say small things like hi/thanks/sorry/excuse me/good evening etc. You’ll get those small expression stuck in your head, and give yourself and others the feeling you do speak the language, which is a better start than not using it at all.

3. Prepare what you want to say in advance, or fake it until you make it.

Sometimes you can look up how to properly say something in advance, as in shops and restaurants – things like ‘do you have a free table’ ‘i would like to this and that’, or even look up some extra vocabulary for a conversation of which you already know the topic.

Also: in given contexts like shops the things you get asked tend to be standard, as ‘do you want a bag?/receipt..’ , so you know what words might be pronounced, anticipating what you’ll be asked, and be less scared you will not understand.

example: I had to talk to a Norwegian client on the phone, so I wrote down what I would say, and looked up vocabulary I needed: that means learning new words and getting to practice with them!

3. Find ‘comfort zones’ and people with whom you stick to the language

If your level in a language is not very high, you might not dare making attempts with strangers. I am a quite shy person myself, other than a perfectionist, so I know that feeling well. But you learn a language by practicing it (and making mistakes), and as soon as you have someone or somewhere to freely practice -no matter how off your grammar is, how many gaps you have in your vocabulary, how many times you ask for repetitions – do it. Having active conversations is also important to absorb the language yourself and learn from your language partner.

With strangers you can stick to English if you feel uncomfortable otherwise, but it is good to have a situation in which you’ll always stick to the language (This counts also when chatting online!). Or at least often enough that your default language is Swedish, Finnish, etc. You learn to swim by swimming – but it does not have to be in the open sea from moment one.

Other options if you do not know anybody, you can use find tandem partners on apps such as hellotalk, tandem etc. and give yourself the rule to rather use translators, but never use English. Events as language cafés are also great occasions to practice if you find any!

keypoint: sometimes it is a matter of self-confidence more than language level

The thing with Swedish, Dutch, Danish etc. is, you might be pretty good at them, but if you are a bit insecure, allowing yourself to use them language over English will be hard. In countries where the average level of English is poor, that is of course completely different.

So you’ll just exercise your Italian, Japanese, Spanish, etc. without thinking much about whether you are good enough at it. You might barely know how to order a drink in Italian or Japanese, but still, you’ll do it, because they will understand it better than in English, even with bad pronunciation or grammar. Maybe they will be relieved they can use their language with you, while the Dutch either want to help you by using a language you are more fluent in or just want to have a smooth communication.

It does take some self-confidence to stick to a language if the counterpart easily switches to English! Even if it does not necessarily mean you are bad at it. It is all about finding contexts and people to use the language, broadening them gradually as you get more comfortable or fluent enough to use it for everything.

How I have done it: First I would use Dutch only in written form and with given people, then I got to the point I’d dare using it with strangers, in shops, but not at an airport desk, then I started using it even for formal things like registering at the municipality , but I did not switch back to Dutch if people switched to English. Now i stick to Dutch, always. With Danish I am in the phase where I could use it in formal context but do not always dare due to fear of not understanding. But I did ask for information in Danish at a museum desk, which I did not do one year ago.

Who are Greenlanders? 3 symbols of Greenlandic culture

Discover Greenland, home to the Inuit Kalaallit, and its most iconic aspects as its flag, language and folk costumes. The biggest island of the world has a rich history of indigenous culture intertwined with Norse colonization and later Danish rule.

Chiara's avatar by Chiara

knowing Swedish/Danish/Norwegian helps with Icelandic?

Is it easier to learn Icelandic if you speak a Scandinavian language? My experience of studying it while knowing Swedish, Danish, Nowegian and German

A while ago a follower of my langstagram asked: Hi Chiara, I was thinking about starting Icelandic, what are your thoughts on the difficulty of the language? I already know swedish on B1 level, is that helpful?

Generally speaking, good knowledge of Scandinavian languages will certainly help, but Icelandic is to be taken as a very distinct language, for which you’ll need to spend quite a lot of time for both grammar and vocabulary, even if many things will look familiar.

As follows my impressions and experience with my prior knowledge of Scandinavian languages:

Learning grammar

Needless to say now, the trickiest part is the grammar and the inflections, it’s something you have to practice with and get used to. For that aspect knowing some German might help you more than knowing Swedish honestly. Just like they told me Latin would help me understand how German works. And I think it did, even if it was just to understand what cases are at all. German and Icelandic belong however to the same language family, and as fellow Germanic languages there are still some endings they vaguely share. They also use the same 4 cases: Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Genitive. This is clear by looking at the personal pronouns: while you only have I-me in the rest of Germanic languages, from Swedish to Dutch, Icelandic and German have the dative version: ich-mich-mir and ég-mig-mér.

IcelandicScandinavianGermanEnglish
case inflections4 cases used in nouns, adjectives– only personal pronouns (I-me, he-him.. forms)4 cases used in
articles, adjectives, personal pronouns		-only personal pronouns (2 forms)
verb conjugations (examples with present tense) a couple conjugations with similar endings: -/a,-(u)r/-(s)t/ð, -(u)r/-; -um, -ið, -a/ualways same ending for all people (-a/er)always same endings (with some irregularities in root vowels): -e,-st,-t;-en,-t, -enno ending except for third person -s
word orderas in English +verb in 2nd position ruleas in English +verb in 2nd position ruleverb in 2nd position, conjugated verb at the end after given connectors

To put it simply, I could say Icelandic is like an overcomplicated version of something you might be familiar with. Of course there are unique features Icelandic shares with its cousin languages, like:

  • definite article at the end of the word: (a) boy, strákur, becomes strákurinn when you want to say the boy. the ending is -n for the feminine and ,-ið for the neuter, and gets a bit more complicated in the plural. But once you got how it works that’s it.
  • passive/reflexive verb form made with the Middle Voice, formed by the addition of the ending -st to the Active verb, in any tense: við sjáumst, vi ses = we see each other; Hann kallast – han kallas = he is called.

Learning vocabulary

Scandinavian languages might come in handy for vocabulary. There are a lot of cognates and things which will remind you of something you already know, although not used in the same way. However, generally speaking I would say knowing any other Germanic language is often as helpful, maybe just slightly less similar, but to a smaller extent for English, which has a significant higher share of romance vocabulary due to its history.

IcelandicScandinavianEnglishGermanDutch
blómblomma/blomstflowerBlumebloem
maður, konaman, kvinna/kvinde *kone in Danish=wifeman, womanMann, Frauman, vrouw
jarðarberjordgubbe, jordbær..strawberryErdbeeraardbei
höfuðborghuvud/hovedstadcapital cityHauptstadthoofdstad
eðaelleroroderof

But still, quite often you will encounter obscure words, for which most other languages use the same word, for instance háskoli for university (literally ‘high school’, just higher than high school in Icelandic 😉 , or tölva for computer. You can check out many others in an article with a comparison between Icelandic and Finnish.

Sometimes you won’t recognize some related words instantly but once you’ve realized the connections with Swedish/Danish/Norwegian they will be much easier to remember (I had this some time ago with keyra (to drive), köra/køre in Swedish/Danish).

IcelandicScandinavianEnglishGerman
hvað heitir þu?(h)va(d) heter/hedder du?What’s your namewie heißt du?
ég tala ekki enskujag/jeg pratar/snakker inte/ikke engelsk(a)I don’t speak Englishich spreche kein Englisch
hvað ert þú gamall?hur/hvor gammal/el är/er du?how old are you?wie alt bist du?
  • English: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
  • Scandinavian: Alla/e människor/mennesker är födda/født fria/e och lika/lige i värde och rättigheter/værdighed og rettigheder. 
  • Icelandic: Hver maður er borinn frjáls og jafn öðrum að virðingu og réttindum.
  • German: Alle Menschen sind frei und gleich an Würde und Rechten geboren.

As follows the plot of the movie Nói Albinói. words in bold are similar in Scandinavian languages, underlined ones in other Germanic languages as well, meaning that knowing the given language(s) spared me from the pain of looking them up. Words in italic are unique to Icelandic, and I had to copy-paste them somewhere…:

Myndin gerist um vetur í smábæ úti á landi. Nói er ungur strákur í menntaskóla. Hann býr hjá ömmu sinni. Pabbi Nóa býr einn, hann er þunglyndur og drekkur mikið. Nói er sérstök persóna, hann er gáfaður en hann er ekki duglegur í skóla. Hann er oft einn og hann er ekki félagslyndur. En ung stúlka, Íris, flytur í bæinn. Hún er úr Reykjavík. Nói kynnist henni og þau verða vinir. (text from IcelandicOnline)

Is it useful to learn a Scandinavian language before starting Icelandic?

Of course speaking a Scandinavian language will make your journey with icelandic a bit easier, but definitely not as much as Norwegian/Swedish/Danish with each other. So learn a Scandinavian language before or after Icelandic to have fun, but do not think Icelandic will be easy after it. On the other hand, Learning them simultaneously might confuse you a little bit but in my opinion they are different enough to not mess up too much.

Learning Icelanding before a Scandinavian language will make the latter feel a lot easier. Similarly to what it is like to first learn German and then Dutch, when finding yourself with a simplified version of a known grammar, instead of the opposite.

Icelanders learn Danish in school but the chances that that will make it any more convenient to speak Danish in Iceland are probably very low.

Some dialects of Norwegian have more in common with Icelandic though, mostly in the pronounciation, with hva being pronounced as ka, similarly to Icelandic hv-words. But that’s more a language geek thing than something actually helping you learn Icelandic I guess?

My experience

Although learning it not too consistently and keeping it as an “extra”, I started picking it up a couple years ago. I already spoke Swedish and more casually learned Danish and Norwegian, and Icelandic was my missing puzzle, the living ancestor of these three, with its unique þ and ð and the obscure grammar. I was first mainly interested in just understanding its grammar, the same I had with Finnish, and my current goal is becoming conversional. In the meantime, I gained a good insight on how the language works and challenges it gives.

I am currently using Icelandic Online and reading Short Stories to keep up with Icelandic (not consistently enough, unfortunately), and I do often find cognates which help me recognizing words, but that’s mostly due to having studied all the main Germanic languages than just Scandinavian ones. Probably also because of this my experience learning Icelandic goes more smoothly than Finnish, which belongs to a separate language family.

7 fun facts about Lucia, Sweden’s pagan saint

Lucia brings light in the darkest night of the year and is a mix of pagan and christian traditions. It is celebrated in Scandinavia with processions, saffron buns and church concerts.

Chiara's avatar by Chiara

How I learn all Germanic languages: tips and insights

What I’ve learned through my language learning journey trying to master many Germanic languages, from German to Faroese through Dutch and Swedish among others.

This article is derived from my Instagram post on my language learning profile inspired by @haluska.langs with her slavic version. I had also made a post about learning multiple similar languages in the past!

I speak to different degrees most of the main Germanic languages, including being familiar with a few lesser known ones as West-Frisian and Faroese.

I gradually added more and more of them through the years, starting from English and then German at school, then self studying more since I was about to finish high school.

As English was heavily influenced by French and uses many words with latin roots, besides the fact that it just feels like a given-for-granted language everybody speaks, it sometimes feels weird to include it in the Germanic languages family, but it indeed helped understanding for example to instantly recognize är in Swedish as the verb are, and the fact that verbs have att – in the infinitive form makes sense as English has to –.

However, When i started Swedish and Dutch simultaneosly in the now distant April 2017, it was German that made a lot of things easier than it would have perhaps been without it.

MY JOURNEY

  • I started English in primary school, and was always quite excited about learning it, wishing to have more hours for it every year.
  • My second Germanic language arrived much later, I choose German over Spanish in high school, but it had been fascinating me for many years, trying to learn random words of it here and there, I did learn the first word on cornflake boxes: Zutaten (“ingredients”).
  • During my last year of high school, after 5 years of English, French and German, I started self-learning Swedish and Dutch simultaneosly, using exclusively Duolingo for months. I theorically dowloaded duolingo for Swedish, but I loved Dutch too so i immediately started the course and used duolingo basically every day for a good year. I had a strong knowledge of German to begin with, it heavily helped me and made a lot of grammar and vocabulary instantly clear/recognizable, but also meant having interferences (see below), for example it ruled the verb order making me place verbs where it made no sense in Swedish nor English nor my mother tongue…
    • Two years later I wanted to learn some Danish and Norwegian: exposure, writing “adjusting” my Swedish with the help of online translators, but the effort to learn grammar and vocabulary was 70% done. learning Danish and Norwegian together without knowing Swedish would have been bad, you wouldn’t know when you are learning one or the other, but with a good Swedish knowledge and some exposure for both it’s manageable. Needless to say, focusing on one will make you better at it than splitting time/energies for both.
  • During the first corona lockdown in spring 2020, I started learning Icelandic with textbooks and online resources. I had actually read about pronunciation in a mountain hut in summer 2018, but didn’t understand much or took the time to process it at haha.
  • In the last few years I’ve been also getting some exposure to Faroese and West Frisian (which i can understand to a given extent thanks to other languages as Dutch and Icelandic) and casually learning them.

MIXING THEM UP

When learning multiple related languages, it is easy to end up mixing them up in one way or another. The more fluent you are in one, the less it is likely that you let yourself get influenced by another, this is way reaching a good level in onee language before learning another one in the same family is important. Moreover, you will be very familiar with much of its grammar and vocabulary, and you might rely way too much on your first language of that family. Using Spanish words when speaking Italian might not be the best, but you’ll be much better off than only knowing more distant related languages locals hardly speak.

There are a lot of false friends and words which would “fit” in the other language used without even realizing it. Some examples are short words existing in multiple languages but with different usage/meaning:

  • en means “and” in Dutch, “a(n)” in Scandinavian languages, and “but” in Icelandic!
  • om means “about” something in Scandinavian languages, while it’s usually “(in order) to” in Dutch
  • A false friend example is Icelandic að kenna meaning teach; while kennen/känna/kjenne/kende all mean “know (usually someone)”!
  • a funny fact about interferences is that I once used mensen talking in Swedish, “people” in Dutch, but “the menstruation” in Swedish!

Verb order is very vulnerable to interferences when learning multiple Germanic languages, at least at first: with subordinate clauses in German you have “..that I something done have“, in Dutch “..that I something have done“, in North Germanic languages ” ..that I have done something” as it is in English.

At first I would instantly use the German verb order with Swedish (for no apparent reason since the order in Swedish is supposed to be the most natural for me..), that doesn’t happen anymore, however, I still mess up it with Dutch and German since they only have the very last part switched! I hate it, but that’s what you pay for speaking both I guess…

To avoid interferences one of the most useful things is getting corrected or being aware of them, detecting the mistake is the first step to stop making it.

BONUS POINTS

Easy to learn vocabulary

Knowing languages related to each other can cause interferences but can also come very handy at times! Besides all words sharing a common root, You will understand and easily remember cognates and words which are everyday vocabulary in one language and seldom used ones in another one.

  • In Danish jeg spiser is “I eat”, you might easily remember this word as Speisekarte means “menu” in German. In the closely related Swedish you say “jag äter”, which however resembles eat, eten etc.
  • Despite my Swedish being more advanced, Danish and Norwegian helped me with understanding right away obsolete words in Swedish while reading an old book: Danish pige and Norwegian jente are the word for “girl”, while piga/jänta are “maid” in Swedish, not a word you’d learn in an everyday context.

Easy to guess the gender

Germanic languages, except for English, have different genders, whether masculine, feminine, neuter as German, Icelandic, and partially Norwegian, or general + neutral as Swedish, Danish and Dutch*. Being from the same family in many cases genders are usually the same for words with the same root:

  • House is neutral: das Haus/het huis/ett hus/husið;
  • Earth is feminine, sky is masculine: die Erde, der Himmel (German) /jörðin, himinn (Icelandic) /jorda, himmelen (Norwegian)

The closer the language the safest the bet: Dutch and German are more likely to have words with the same gender than them and North Germanic languages: book is neutral in West Germanic languages but feminine/general in North Germanic – het boek, das Buch (n) / boka, bókin (f).

*Neutral exists in all but English, while In Dutch, Swedish and Danish masculine & feminine merged. However, they are sometimes still visible, for example in pronouns for objects: hij/zij as he/she in Dutch (knowing German can give you great advantage compared to natives!); to tell the time in Swedish you say “hon är..” (she is..) because klocka (clock) was feminine! Norwegian does have feminine, even though in some Norwegian dialects feminine (book: ei bok, boka) and masculine are not distinct and general en is used (having en bok, boken which would be masculine).

Easy to learn Irregular verbs

All Germanic languages have irregular verbs, which mean learning lists of paradigms present-past perfect-past participle. Once you have learned them for one, it’s all downhill to learn the others, as not only you already know how the verb system works but many are very similar across different languages (and the set of verbs being irregular is more or less the same), or follow similar patterns:

  • ate=aß/at/åt; saw=sah/zag/så(g)/sá
  • drink-drank-drunk: drinken-dronk-gedronken/ trinken-trank-getrunken/ dricka-drack-druckit

Method

Don’t learn more than 2 similar languages at once, if very similar and from scratch keep that at one. You might be dying for the other for a while, but the path will be downhill and you’ll be less confused.

I learned Norwegian and Danish more or less simultaneously but it wad 95% just exposure, as I already spoke Swedish. That means I knew well what I was dealing with and most importantly I didn’t have to learn a grammar system from zero, but mostly only how to adapt it to Danish and Norwegian, same for how spelling behaves in both. The proficiency you acquire then depends on how much time you spend on each. My Danish is better and I don’t have to check words as much as in Norwegian because I happened to use Danish more because of friends and such, but I used to write letters in Danish/Norwegian and basically check every other word on google, while the grammar structure was as good as done with some exposure on top of speaking Swedish.

Getting a little exposure is always fine, you will just get to know the other languages a bit more, preparing yourself for a more serious approach when you are ready. With some effort you’ll then split from the “rely on X language” phase and speak it independently.

Dutch and German are maybe almost as similar as Scandinavian languages to each other, but not as much, and if you learned Dutch first you’ll have to deal with cases and an additional gender, not quite the same as just adapting it and only learning from immersion.

Nevertheless, give love to all your target languages through frequent immersion, scheduling study sessions for those which require help.

A little fact in conclusion: in Germanic languages “moon” is masculine and “sun” is feminine, while in romance languages it is the opposite! I can see why if you look at the weather and daytime in North vs South Europe 🙂

Nordic findings in japan

Nordic culture experienced in Japan: Moomins, Dala horse stationery, Nordic-inspired foods and books about Scandinavia seen by the Japanese.

Chiara's avatar by Chiara

How Nordic are Baltic countries

Are Baltic countries Nordic at all? I explored Latvia and Estonia, noting their ties to Nordic culture, from languages to Rye bread and Midsummer.

Chiara's avatar by Chiara