Danish. For Swedes. Posted by Marcus Cederström on Jul 14, 2011 in Swedish Language
I’m spending my summer in Denmark, trying to learn Danish. Which is not Swedish. It’s close, but not close enough as I am realizing more and more as the days go by. So this post will not be about Swedish. At least, not specifically. It will be about Danish. Or at least about learning a Scandinavian language. (By the way, if you’re interested in learning more about Danish check out the Transparent Danish blog and the Transparent Danish on Facebook.)
I haven’t attempted to learn a language since four years of French in high school. By my senior year I was adequate at best. I could make myself understood and understand a decent amount. I could even watch the news and get the gist of what was going on. Today, I’m excited when I pick out a few words in French. That’s what happens after years of non-use. But all the while, my Swedish continued to improve, not because I ever took formal classes, but because my father kept babbling on in Swedish and I moved to Stockholm. That informal way of improving on an already solid base of language served me well. In the meantime though, I forgot just what a challenge it was to learn a new language. Which is unfortunate, because I teach Swedish to beginning students.
So when the opportunity came to learn another language, I chose Danish. It’s close to Swedish. At least in written form. It is the oral and aural skills that I struggle with though. In fact, many Swedish speakers have an especially hard time with the Danish pronunciation. There are several reasons for this. One is linguistic, like the use of glottal stops to differentiate between words, hun and hund for example. They sound so very similar in Danish aside from the glottal stop at the end. It’s a challenge for students of the language, not just Swedes. Another challenge though is mental. And it seems to be very much reserved for Swedish speakers.
Because the languages are so similar, it is difficult to train your mouth, your tongue, your head, to attempt those glottal stops. Or the guttural r. Or the apocope so common in Danish. It just sounds, well, wrong. It’s not. At least not in Danish, but to someone who has grown up speaking Swedish, it flies in the face of Swedish pronunciation. One teacher explained it as a sort of existential crisis. The idea being that by applying Danish pronunciation, a Swedish speaker is in essence bastardizing their own language. They aren’t, but the longer I try to pronounce “Rødgrød med fløde,” the more I appreciate that sentiment.
I figured that learning Danish would be a great way to remind myself of the difficulties of learning another language, while also immersing myself even more in Scandinavian culture. I was right. This has given me a new-found respect for the student sin my first year Swedish class who looked at me in horror when I walked in the first day and started prattling on in Swedish.
It’s a challenge learning Danish, just like it’s a challenge learning any language. It’s also an absolutely amazing way to spend the summer. But this isn’t the Danish blog, this is Swedish. So tell me, what do you find most challenging when learning Swedish? Is it the pronunciation? The vocabulary? The grammar? Or is it something else?
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About the Author: Marcus Cederström
Marcus Cederström has been writing for the Transparent Swedish Blog since 2009. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Scandinavian Studies from the University of Oregon, a Master's Degree in Scandinavian Studies from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and a PhD in Scandinavian Studies and Folklore from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He has taught Swedish for several years and still spells things wrong. So, if you see something, say something.
Comments:
Morten:
As a dane trying to improve my understanding of swedish, I can totally relate. When listening to swedish I definitely feel like I’m actually listening to someone speaking danish with a very weird accent and using alot of strange words.
Reading and understanding spoken swedish is usually no problem – though that is very much dependent on the perticular dialect – but trying to speak or write the language is much harder.
Trying to learn the correct “ordaccent” (word accent?) for every word is not easy. I think already knowing most of the words, but without the accent and using a slightly different pronunciation makes it especially hard to remember.
Rutger:
sjuksköterska
the sj, sjk, sk sounds are just terrifying to pronounce. At least for me as a Dutch person, maybe because we have a hard GGGGG sound. (the mother of my girlfriend called it a dogpuke sound, thanks mom)
The grammar is very logic, it just has different rules but I’m catching up on that pretty fast.
For now: Jag pråtar litet men inte bra Svenska.
Kalevi:
I agree with Rutger, it’s the sje-sound that always throws me (specifically, when to use it). But overall, the hardest thing about Swedish for me is that I keep trying to treat it like it’s Finnish (which I’m learning by myself–se on todella vaikea!/det är verkligen svårt!) and then I remember that hardly anything is the same, my mind switches to German, then I get totally lost.
Jag kan talar lite svenska, men min finska är mycket bättre.
Tira:
My biggest challenge is that I want to be learning so much faster than I am. I tried to teach myself Swedish before several years ago (back in the days of cassette tape systems — helvete!), and since my grandmother and grandfather spoke Swedish, it’s as if my mouth and brain THINKS it should be able to speak more fluently than I actually can. Also: spelling. And remember what’s “en” and what’s “ett”. I know… you just have to know it.
Chelsey:
Would love to see a post about how phone numbers are formatted in Sweden. 🙂
Letícia:
As a native Portuguese speaker, I feel the same way about learning Spanish. It feels like it’s “wrong Portuguese” (that’s probably how Spanish speakers feel about Portuguese, too), because the languages are so similar, but still are different languages.
To me, the most challenging thing about learning Swedish is the pronunciation, but that’s what got me interested in the language in the first place… Because once you get it right, it’s quite cool. 😀 Oh, and the noun gender thing is also a bit tricky.
Kendra:
For me the hardest thing is learning what tone pattern goes with each word. Tone is hard enough to hear, let alone memorize!
Jan:
You could better learn Norwegian which is in many respects almost Danish but with a pronounciation closer to Swedish. For me Norwegian was the central Scandinavian language through which it was easy to learn both Swedish and Danish.
John R Challey:
I have to admit that I am not really trying to learn Swedish. Actually, I am learning Norwegian and find that I must have a proclivity for comparative language study. Derfor, jeg er fascinert av forskjeller og likheter mellom Svensk og Norsk.
If I were actually learning Swedish I think probably would find the greatest difficulty in comprehending the spoken language just as I do with Norwegian. In one respect, Swedish might be slightly easier to comprehend than Norwegian. That is because Swedish probably does not have quite so many outlandish dialects as does Norwegian. Dessuten tviler jeg politikk har formet Svensk språk fullt så mye som det har Norsk.
Fargo, North Dakota, USA
Scott:
I went to Denmark in June for a long weekend. I don’t speak Swedish but I’ve been around the Swedish language thanks to trips to the country and Swedish friends I have. There’s a familiarity around Swedish that it’s almost not a foreign language any more, even though I don’t really understand it at all.
Danish on the other hand felt completely different. It was a foreign language (obviously) and it felt like one. Maybe when my Swedish gets better I’ll be able to recognise it in Danish. Luckily my familiarity in Swedish helped me and my friends out when it came to reading signs, labels etc.
Daniël:
As a fellow Dutchman, I also agree with Rutger. The different s-sounds are very hard to pronounce. Another difficulty is the ö-sound, which is slightly different from its Dutch counterpart. Different enough to cause funny, yet non-Swedish, sounds…
Like English, Swedish has a straightforward grammar. The vocabulary is similar to Dutch, English en German. Which is of course not really surprising… 🙂
almufalfal:
I lkie a swedish language so much
But i cant find the starting point of learning
Cuz as much i learned i find my self knew almost nothing . ANY HELP PLZZZ
JAG tycker svenska språket så mycket 🙂 .