can you (foreigners) hear any difference between Swedish and Norwegian? (best, work)
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Everyone in different parts of Norway sounds different to me so I usually mistake Swedish for a dialect at first. My Norwegian is pretty poor, though since I am American. (it is very good for an American I will admit, ha ha.)
And I think its also the one taught to foreign students, or am I wrong?
Foreign students (and immigrants) learn a little bit of "bokmål" which I guess is a standard, except nobody talks like that so they have to re-learn a lot in real life encounters.
Anyway, no worries, this thread made me view Harald Eia's "Kamelåså" skit on Youtube
Foreign students (and immigrants) learn a little bit of "bokmål" which I guess is a standard, except nobody talks like that so they have to re-learn a lot in real life encounters.
Anyway, no worries, this thread made me view Harald Eia's "Kamelåså" skit on Youtube
What dialect is it that they usually or most commonly speak on Norwegian TV and news like NRK?
On Swedish TV and news its usually the dialects spoken around Stockholm (around 20% of Sweden lives around that area), called "rikssvenska" which resembles the dialects in and around Stockholm. Big budget Swedish movies and tv-series are also usually in rikssvenska.
Though in later years, southern dialects like Skånska has started appearing more in the media and on TV, but still not nearly as much as rikssvenska. The southern dialects on TV though are a bit more simplified and not really authentic, cause if they had for example authentic Skånska on TV it would be very hard to understand for those who are not from the south.
There is a few (very few) shows on TV that are in authentic and genuine Skånska like Hipp!Hipp! but those are usually shown with rikssvenska subtitles. And for a year ago when SVT made a documentary about fur farming here in Sölvesborg, that was also shown with rikssvenska subtitles since our dialect is considered as too hard to understand for others.
If I listen very carefully in media I can, sometimes, distinguish both. But I'm sure in a real event I couldn't.
The main difference, which is silly, is that if it reminds me the peasants voices of Age of Empire, it's Norwegian. While if my first though is some kind of Arabic language, but there is snow and white people, it's Swedish.
But yeah, my knowledge of both languages is limited to skol...
I can sure understand how it can be hard for unexperienced foreigners to notice any difference. ut at the same time I think its even hard to notice the difference between Spanish and Catalan and the difference between those 2 is much bigger than the difference between Swedish, Norwegian and Danish.
I would not be surprised if Danish could easily be confused with German or Dutch due to the guttural and harsh pronounciation that we dont have in Norwegian and Swedish. The words are still pretty much the same as Norwegian/Swedish though.
Swedish and Norwegian is 2 of the most similar official languages in the world, both in written and spoken form, along with Czech-Slovakian, Serbian-Croatian, Macedonian-Bulgarian and Turkish-Azeri etc. Swedish and Norwegian are mutually intelligible and are indeed very similar, but native speakers can of course notice the difference, kind of like a distinct dialect. Infact there is archaic and complicated Swedish dialects that are alot more different from Standard Swedish than Standard (south-east) Norwegian is. Conversations between Swedes and Norwegians are almost always in their respective languages.
Danish is also similar to these 2, but easily distinct since they have a completely different pronounciation that reminds more of German and Dutch, even if the words are mostly the same as in Swedish/Norwegian. Even many Danes often mistakes Norwegians for Swedes, and so does the Germans.
So here is a test, do you hear any difference between Swedish and Norwegian? The question is of course mostly to those who are not familiar with these languages.
And here is Swedish AND Norwegian (Stellan speaks Swedish, and the one who interviews him speaks Norwegian)
What dialect is it that they usually or most commonly speak on Norwegian TV and news like NRK?
I dunno, I only watch children's TV in Norwegian these days. In the news presentation below, the three presenters all speak different dialects (Southern, Eastern, and Northern variations). IIRC this is a deliberate policy.
When I watched the movie "Insomnia", I thought it was pretty easy to tell when they were speaking Swedish and Norwegian, even though I do not understand either language. To me, Norwegian sounds more choppy and guttural.
That is what I thought listening to the interviewer speaking Norwegian and the Swedish actor. Swedish seemed a bit smoother, Norwegian a bit more choppy.
So the interviewer is asking questions in Norwegian and Skarsgard is answering in Swedish then?
( Yeah, basically Swedish and Norwegian sound as one and the same language to me, just words are pronounced in a different way, kinda...)
P.S. Cool interview by the way..
Yes, the interviewer is asking questions in Norwegian, and Skarsgård is answering in Swedish. He has been in many Norwegian films, of course speaking Swedish in all of them. I guess its hard for other people to understand why Swedish and Norwegian is even considered as 2 different languages, kind of like Russian and Belarusian/Ukrainian I guess, or even closer than that. I also heard some saying they are as close as Serbian/Croatian and Macedonian/Bulgarian. But politically they will always be 2 seperate languages, regulated by 2 seperate national language councils with 2 different standards (3 if you include Nynorsk).
Most words are the same, often spelled differently with just 1 or 2 letters. There is also some words that are used in Norwegian today that used to be in a little bit older (like 19th century) Swedish, like spis (eat), vanskligt (difficult), jänta (girl), dräpa (kill) etc, those words all exists in the Swedish language but are not used today, however in Norwegian they are used today. It is gramatically correct to say "god spis" (bon appetite) in Swedish, but most people today says the more modern "smaklig måltid" instead. But in modern Norwegian they say "god spis".
Danish also has mostly the same words and just spelled differently with 1 or 2 letters, but with a pronounciation that is very far from Swedish and Norwegian. I personally dont have any big problem understanding Danish though since I'm a southern Swede, but very many Swedes and also Norwegians finds spoken Danish very hard to understand because of the pronounciation. Most people in Sweden and Norway does not have any problem reading Danish though.
No Norwegian would say "god spis," except possibly someone deliberately mangling their dialect to make it sound Swedish. "God appetitt,"(Bon apetit) or more likely "Værsågod" (Help yourselves) would be what you're looking for... But you're right, many words are the same or at least very similar - I'd hazard a guess that most Scandinavians can read text written in all three languages.
I can also guarantee you that if those show hosts had been from Western or Northern Norway, they would not have been able to interview Skarsgård so easily in their native language Notice how at the very start, he doesn't quite understand them, and then they start making an effort to enunciate.
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