The Norwegian Project

LL   Wed Feb 25, 2009 12:57 am GMT
Awhile ago, I noticed that RW, one of the founders of Antimoon was learning Norwegian. Does anyone know if he succeeded with his method?
Eddie   Wed Feb 25, 2009 1:28 am GMT
He has been busy undertaking and completing a PhD in maths.
LL   Wed Feb 25, 2009 4:00 am GMT
Thank-you, Eddie. Too bad. I would have enjoyed hearing about his success.
interested   Wed Feb 25, 2009 11:09 am GMT
What Norwegian-Bokmål or Nynorsk?
Tom   Wed Feb 25, 2009 12:47 pm GMT
The fact that there are two varieties of Norwegian was one of the reasons that MRW gave for stopping. The main reason was simply that learning a language purely as an experiment requires a lot of time and dedication. By the time the initial excitement wears off, you can think of 10 better things to do with your life...
LL   Thu Feb 26, 2009 3:16 am GMT
Perhaps it is better to be interested in the language first-its people and culture as Charles Berlitz used to say.

As far as things go, I think language learning is quite a worthy thing to do. It can be good for the learner and it can be helpful for others as well. How many leisure activities do both?

Not many people have ruined their health with language learning-unlike many other activities. Perhaps a stack of books may fall on them once in awhile.
The Norsk Man   Sat Feb 28, 2009 9:27 pm GMT
It is documented in the reports of Norsk Experiment that he has read a couple of books in Norwegian. Isn't that success enough? Is he supposed to go on learning Norwegian forever? It's too easy and too meaningless for a guy who can learn languages like that. I wish he made more progress with his Latin and Ancient Greek because that would be very useful.

As for bokmaal or nynorsk it is also documented that he read in both varieties and even in a strange mixture of both because Norwegian authors are not limited to the two official versions.
`   Sat Feb 28, 2009 9:33 pm GMT
He was studying Latin and Ancient Greek? What a Pole! What a renaissance dude!

What is success in a language? Being able to read books? Being able to read 90%? It's not that hard to do in a language. The "hard parts" are being able to speak and write very well. Understanding and reading are easy, passive skills.
The Norsk Man   Sat Feb 28, 2009 9:38 pm GMT
I would rather be able to passively understand Latin and Ancient Greek than be able to speak and write fluently in Norwegian. I guess that guy thinks the same.
Norweg maids lover   Sun Mar 01, 2009 8:06 am GMT
I thought this was a project where Norwegian strong maids were to be exported all over the world in an attempt to clean up the planet...just a thought...
rep   Sun Mar 01, 2009 7:14 pm GMT
If You know English,German or Dutch, it is easy to learn Norwegian (for Swedish and Danish speakers it seems like dialect).
Earle   Tue Mar 03, 2009 5:21 am GMT
Particularly easy knowing both English and German...
polyglot   Tue Mar 03, 2009 8:34 pm GMT
Perhaps Norwegian is even easier than English :-)