Complexity of Scandinavian languages

Also, I would say that forming the plural in French and German is easier than in English.

Most French plurals just add S -

e.g. un chat
deux chats

une maison
deux maison

une fille
deux filles

Most Germans nouns just as N or EN in the plural.

Whereas English adds S -

e.g. Cats/cats

ES (usually in words that end in two or more consonants or the letter O)

e.g. Dish/dishes
Match/matches
Potato/potatoes
Tomato/tomatoes
Volcano/volcanoes
Hero/heroes

But NOT if it's a foreign-derived word e.g

Piano/pianos
Kimono/kimonos


IES (words that end in Y)

Berry/berries
Ferry/ferries
Lady/Ladies

Some words that have an F change the F to a V and add ES e.g.

Calf/calves
Knife/knives
Leaf/leaves

Some can do EITHER e.g.

Dwarf/dwarfs, dwarves
Hoof/hoofs, hooves
Roof/roofs, rooves (latter archaic)
Staff/staffs, staves
Turf/ turfs, turves (latter rare)

Others follow the old Anglo-Saxon/Germanic way of forming plurals e.g

Goose/geese
Child/childrenMan/men
Woman/women
Ox/oxen
Cow/kine
Brother/brethren

Some don't have any plural at all e.g.

deer
fish (and many individual fish names: cod, mackerel, trout, etc.)
moose
sheep
swine

(although its "fishes" if you are talking of several fish of the same species)

Adam

Forming plurals in German is definitely not easier than in English and it is not just a case of just adding N or EN. Many end in E, many in ER, in some as well as changing the ending you have to add an umlaut to the word, some don't change at all and a few add S.

Examples:

die Katze/die Katzen
der Hund/die Hunde
die Frau/die Frauen
das Kind/die Kinder
das Auto/die Autos
das Buch/die Bücher
der Kuchen/die Kuchen

There are some rules that you can learn, such as feminine words ending in E add an N in the plural, and feminine words ending in UNG add EN. There are also certain patterns that you will recognise after a while, which will help, but even then you cannot usually apply them with certainty

Dear Adam,

I agree with you that complicity of a language can´t be measured only by the number (or lack) of genders. But even word order and adjective forms are more complicated in Swedish than in English. True, Swedish has the same present tense form for all persons. In this respect Swedish is more simple than English. It is also true lack of clear rules and the amount of exceptions make English more difficult than it looks like at first glance.
I have heard more than once from foreigners who have learnt Finnish that they have enjoyed the mathematical regularity of the language. True, a German teacher who taught for a while in Helsinki, said to me: "Das ist wahnsinnig!" (= It is mad!) Finnish is different, as it isn´t a Indo-European language, and words are built in a different way, as there are case forms and other suffixes at the end of the word instead of prepositions. Perhaps the most difficult thing is the stem variation: poika, pojat = boy, boys; lupa, luvat = permission, permissions, kirjain; kirjaimet = letter, letters; käsi, kädet = hand, hands.
Difference often means difficulty; it is difficult to memorize words that often don´t resemble at all words in the Indo-European languages

How is word order more complicated in Swedish?

English: My father doesn´t speak English.
Did you know that my father doesn´t speak English.
Swedish: Min far talar inte engelska.
Visste du att min far inte talar engelska.

In Swedish negation is after the verb in main clauses but before the verb in subordinate clauses. Finnish politicians who otherwise can speak Swedish make very often mistakes on this point.

I see, that doesn't seem to difficult to remember though, it kind of reminds me of putting the verb to the end in German subordinate clauses.

I agree that English word order is mainly straightforward, but it does also have it's complications. For example, the fact that the normal SVO word order sometimes has to be reversed i.e.

Only then did she realise
Among those involved were two teenagers

Also the position of adverbs can cause confusion, as sometimes they come before the verb and sometimes after.

>>In Swedish negation is after the verb in main clauses but before the verb in subordinate clauses. Finnish politicians who otherwise can speak Swedish make very often mistakes on this point.<<

The thing is that things like this still are quite predictable, as "complex" as they may be. The cases which really are confusing are those which are not all too predictable, such as many things in actual usage in English (or any language).

>>I agree that English word order is mainly straightforward, but it does also have it's complications. For example, the fact that the normal SVO word order sometimes has to be reversed i.e.

Only then did she realise
Among those involved were two teenagers

Also the position of adverbs can cause confusion, as sometimes they come before the verb and sometimes after.<<

The thing is that the "basic" English word order is relatively straightforward (but even then has its complications, like your example of adverb placement), English word order is actually much more freeform than one might guess offhand, even permitting things like placing the direct object before the subject or placing adjectives after the nouns they modify. At the same time, it is not stil not nearly as freeform as, say, Latin, and one really has to know what one can and cannot do.

>>even permitting things like placing the direct object before the subject<<

Yes, exactly. This can normally only be used for emphasis though, can't it? For example, you would normally say

I like him

but if you wanted to emphasise that you liked him as opposed to someone who you don't like, you might say

Now him I do like

Swedish has indeed rather clear rules of word order, yet it seems to be difficult at least for Finns to remember them.

''engelska''

it sounds Slavic

<<''engelska''

it sounds Slavic>>

But it´s Swedish.