Learning one of the Scandinavian Languages

Originally posted by ulrich von hutten Indeed, the non-english board was closed a while ago, cause not everyone could follow the trips in other languages. So, hvernig segir maður a ensku ?

Man säger, I know precisely what you're talking about.

Originally posted by EbbeLockert Originally posted by King John EbbeLockert, i Norge, kommer du fra? Directly translated, that would  mean "in Norway, do you come from?"If you meant to add an "hvor" before the "i" and say "where in Norway do you come from?", I'd answer Levanger. That is a small town a few miles north of Trondheim, which is one of the major cities of Norway.If you meant to ask whether I came from Norway, the answer would be "yes".

I omitted the adverb "where" (hvor) for some reason. Thank you for pointing that out.

Here's a summary of what is going on in chapter 3 of Danbolt.

Chapter 3
Grammar Point 1
Word Order:
-Normally the word order is Subject Verb Object eg: Jeg reiser til Norge (I travel to Norway).
-If the sentence starts with a little word such as nå or så, expressions like i morgen or i sommer, or a dependent clause the subject and the verb change places.
     - Examples
       a. De reiser til Norge (they travel to Norway) now compare that with
           Nå reiser de til Norge (Now they travel to Norway)

       b. De reiser til Norge i sommer (They travel to Norway in the summer)
            I sommer reiser de til Norge (In the summer they travel to Norway)

     c. De skal spise, når de kommer (They will eat, when they come.)
          Når de kommer, skal de spise. (When they come, they will eat.) Notice that Når de kommer is dependent on the following clause. When they come, they will eat.

Grammar point 2
Nouns (plural)
-Plural of indefinite nouns is formed by -er at the end of the noun. If the word already ends with an -e then you just add the -r
      -en bil (a car)                     biler (cars)
      -en buss (a bus)               busser (busses)
      -et hotell (a hotel)           hoteller (hotels) *{edit as pointed out by Ekke hotell is a et word not an en word}
-Short (one syllable) et words take no endings in the plural (with a few exceptions)
       -et kurs (a course)          kurs (courses)
       -et bord (a table)             bord (tables)

Grammar point 3
Adjectives and Noun pairs (pt II)
-Indefinite Singular
     -en bil (a car)
     -en stor bil (a big car)
      -et kart (a map)
      -et stort kart (a big map)
-Definite Singular*
      -bilen (the car)
      -den store bilen (the big car)
      -kartet (the map)
      -det store kartet (the big map)
-Indefinite Plural
     -mange biler (many cars)
     -mange store biler (many big cars)
     -mange kart (many maps)
     -mange store kart (many big maps)

*Notice that in the definite singular the adjective has its plural ending and in addition to the noun definite ending there is a definite article den/det. A separate definite article is only used when a noun is modified by an adjective.

Grammar point 4
The adjective liten (small)
en liten bil                        den lille bilen                  mange små biler
et lite glass                      det lille glasset                 mange små glass

Edited by King John - 02-Jun-2008 at 20:24

Nice work! Just a few things:

1) it's ET hotell, not EN hotell

2) By following that book, you'll be writing and speaking very nice. I.e. a bit more than a bit upper-class. (actually, writing very riksmål - upper class/danish-like - is accepted, but speaking that way might sound a tad weird and even enhance the impression of you guys being forigners, as they often try to speak more correctly than the rest of us) Whether you think that's cool or not, that's up to you. It really depends on why you are learning the language.

3) Her/hit and Der/dit are easily the same as english Here/hither and There/thither, though the latter forms are seldom (i.e. never) used in modern english.

Dit and hit signify movement to the location, not just any momvement. If you aim to express movement from a location, use derfra and herfra (There-from and here-from, fra means from).

In Norway dialectal variations are generally acceptened and even enjoyed, even though somebody (the riksmål-movement mainly) would like to eradicate dialectal differences.

Personally I come from Trøndelag, a thus I got a clearly distinct dialect, but I do not alter my dialect when speaking to people from other places. Personally, I appreciate my local heritage and regional background too much to just give it up for a flat, boring imitation of danish (conservative written norwegian). I think most norwegians agree with me, except for those born in Oslo, who would wish the rest of the country spoke like them.

A minor question of interest to me in another area. From the examples it seems that Norwegian uses a different verb (as German and Russian do) for travelling in a vehicle instead of under your own power (fahren/gehen, iexat'/idti). Is that correct? How about Swedish?

Thanks. I checked back on the 'to town' thing, and yes they put in a 'shall': they just meant they didn't use any verb meaning 'go'. It's a bit like Pepysian English:

Edited by gcle2003 - 02-Jun-2008 at 20:11

Here's a summary of what is going on in Chapter 5 of Danbolt

Chapter 5
Grammar Point 1
Demonstratives: this/these, that/those
-These words are used in the same way as English. They appear in three forms
     
     -denne this        -den that
     -dette    this       -det that
     -disse    these     -de those

denne is used for en words and dette is used for et words
den is used for en words and det for et words

-At times the adverbs her (here) and der(there) are coupled with these demonstrative as a means of emphasis.
     -denne takes the adverb her
          EG
          -Jeg kjører i denne bilen her
          -I drive in this car here. (This type of construction is not present in most dialects of English. It does exist in some very lower class constructions. In these constructions one would say I drive this her car. Tis is not a "correct" way of expressing this idea. The correct form would be simply not translating the emphatic her. This sentence would read: I drive this car.)
     -den takes the adverb der
          EG
          -John går ned den gaten der.
          -John goes down that street there. (See parenthetical note above and substitute there for here.)

Grammar Point 2
Imperatives
-Imperatives are verbs that give orders. In English we use the imperative in situations like telling a dog to sit (Rover, sit!), telling somebody to go home (John, go home!)
-The version of the verb that is used to form the imperative is the shortest form. This form is called the stem.
     -The stem is the form used to make the imperative

Grammar Point 3
Nouns
-In previous chapters we have seen the regular form of nouns, there are some nouns that are irregular.
     EG
     en lærer     læreren     lærere     lærerne     teacher
     en seddel     seddelen     sedler     sedlene     banknote
     et teater     teateret     teatre     teatrene     theater
     en mann     mannen     menn     mennene     man

Grammar Point 4
og, men, fordi and, but, because:
3 examples of conjunctions
- Conjunctions are words that link two sentences together in order to form one sentence.
          EG
          I went to the store. I bought milk. I went to the store and bought milk
          I like Krista. I do not like Rachel. I like Krista but not Rachel
          I went to the store. I need milk. I went to the store because I needed milk.
-These conjunctions are used the same in Norwegian as they are in English
          Og = and
          Men = but
          fordi = because

Grammar Point 5
Possessive Genitive (English 's)
-When indicating who or what owns something is formed by adding -s- to the end of a noun.
          EG
          -Johns motorsykkel (John's motorcycle)
-Notice the similarity between Norwegian -s and the English -'s.
(I know there is more to the genitive and that will be discussed later)


These are the grammar points found in chapter 5 of Danbolt. I hope you all found this helpful.

Originally posted by gcle2003 ]And a different question. What are the third person reflexive pronouns in the Scandinavian languages? I'm referring to the use as in 'er freut sich'  or 'il se démenage'. The Celtic and Romance languages correspond to French and German, Russian doesn't use them, and in English they are gender-specific.

From what I can tell in Norwegian the reflexive pronoun is seg for both sexes and in both the singular and plural. I am going to check to see what Old Norse does in this case. Once I find out I will edit this post.

Originally posted by Styrbiorn We can use köra also, but it implies that you are the one doing the driving. Åka only refers to the passive passengers.