Other languages you would like to learn - Page 5

Spanish, Ookami? :thinking: :D

I don't think that there are varieties of Swahili, so to speak. It was actually developed as a sort of trade language. So many peoples from different countries were finding themselves doing business in East Africa, that a common language was needed to interact on the merchant topics. In Swahili, you'll find words from several other languages. At least that's what I've been told. By the way - "Swahili" in Swahili is actually "KiSwahili". :) How would you say "Swahili" in Spanish?

As far as I have heard there are multiple dialects and variants of Swahili. Some of them are even said be mutually unintelligble, so it seems like it does matter which Swahili you choose. I have never looked into Swahili though, so I can't say for sure.

Sure, if you have any questions of any sort, just let me know! :)

And yes, geographically speaking, they are quite close to each other, but not linguistically. They are both Germanic languages, but the branches which they are part of, South Germanic and North Germanic, for German and Danish respectively, split up some 2000 years ago, so the development of the languages have naturally been quite different, although they have maintained some similarities due to the physical areas they are spoken in.
You will quickly realize that the grammar of Danish is somewhat easier than the grammar of German. To pick one thing, which most people think is good compared to German, is the lack of cases in Danish. Our pronunciation however is a completely other thing, which I believe is much harder to get a grip of than in German. :)

Vi snakkes ved!

Quiero aprender:

chino mandarín
islandés
ruso
rumano
finlandés o húngaro
esperanto
volapük
lojban

Y también quiero construir y aprender una lengua!! (I want to construct and learn my own language)

Interesting, thanx! :thumbsup: As said I have never looked into any of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic languages beyond short texts or the occasional Danish movie :p (such as "Festen" e.g. great movie :thumbsup:) .

I realize there are clear differences, yet in the cases where I have tried to understand e.g. Norwegian or Danish, I managed to understand some when reading it (though listening to it soon turned out to be quite a different thing.. :rolleyes: )

Yes I know.. :D I have a Swedish friend (who is a Dutch fanatic..:D) he has explained some things to me in Swedish but yes indeed the pronunciation (assuming Danish is somewhat similar?) is quite difficult.. So I guess Danish and Dutch have this in common .. :p

Still I might take you up on your kind offer for help! :thumbsup: :)

there is a thread on Mandarin Chinese and Russian :) and I can help you with Chinese

Jambo!* There are various dialects but one of them is the standard.


* ¡Hola!

Yes :rolleyes:, there is a long way before I can say I master it.

Thank you about the Swahili replies... my first impression is that regional variations might hinder understanding between population groups.

@Lou Ann: The name is written and pronounced in Spanish the same way as it is in English.

Oh! I haven't even seen Festen, but I have heard it should be a good movie indeed. It is one of the many Dogme 95-movies. Some of them are quite good, while others the very opposite. :p

Yes, I can imagine you have problems with the spoken language compared to the written language. Danish pronunciation differ a lot from writing. It's even worse than in French. Once you have learned some of the basics of our writing however, it will be easier for you!

Well, actually, the funny thing is that Swedish and Danish are quite distinct from each other both in pronunciation and vocabulary. Norwegian shares the vocabulary, but not the pronunciation, with Danish, while it shares the pronunciation with Swedish, but not the vocabulary. Swedish and Danish however, do not a lot in common, compared to the relationships between Norwegian and Danish, and Norwegian and Swedish. So, well, actually, Norwegian would be a good language to learn, as it's just in the middle of the two other languages.
Personally, I have no problems at all understanding Norwegian when I read it. Bokmål is an adaption of the written Danish language, and was introduced in Bokmål. It had some few changes to fit the Norwegian language better, and it has naturally developed over time as well, but it's only some hundred years ago, so it's still very close to the Danish writing. Nynorsk however is another thing, as it's very different from written Danish, but I'm still able to understand by far the majority of it.
I understand most of Swedish when I read it, but I would need a dictionary to get everything straight, as we don't share the vocabulary. An example I stumbled upon the other day while reading a Swedish text is the Swedish "skydda," which I in the beginning thought meant "(to) shoot" as it resembles the Danish "skyde" with that meaning, but after having looked it up, it turned out it means "(to) protect," where Danish has "beskytte." They are from the same root though "(be)skytte/skydda", but it isn't always obvious. The Norwegian equivalent is the same as the Danish, "beskytte." :)