Complexity of Scandinavian languages

Guest   Fri Mar 09, 2007 5:02 pm GMT
I remember a Swedish person telling me that they thought that Swedish was much more difficult to learn than English, yet from what I understand the structure of the Scandinavian languages is only slightly more complicated than English, and certainly not comparable to German.

Are the Scandinavian langaues somehow actually quite complicated?
The Swede   Fri Mar 09, 2007 8:50 pm GMT
Well, compared to German I think they are easier. English is a very simple language specially the grammar, it´s always "the" and "a" sometimes "an",for example, and thats not hard to keep in mind. In Swedish the plural is shown with three kinds of endings -ar, -or and -er. In the simple English you just add an s.
Guest   Sat Mar 10, 2007 11:22 am GMT
>>In the simple English you just add an s<<

Oh I see, so would the following be correct then?

Mans
Womans
Childs
Tooths
Gooses
Mouses
Louses
Sheeps
Foots
Tooths
Wifes
Knifes
Lifes
Potatos
Tomatos
Phenomenens
Crisises
Analysises
The Swede   Sat Mar 10, 2007 11:59 am GMT
Not a rule without exceptions, if you compare it with other languages these exceptions are very few.
Guest   Sat Mar 10, 2007 12:57 pm GMT
So what about the tenses in Swedish?
Guest   Sat Mar 10, 2007 1:02 pm GMT
And there are rules which can be applied to learn most plurals in Swedish, right?
The Swede   Sat Mar 10, 2007 3:50 pm GMT
About tenses and verbs, I think the other language it´s so much harder than the other. For an examle take the verb "start"
In english: start started started
In Swedish: (to) starta startade startat
Englsih regular verbs has an -ed ending and has Swedish has -ade -at in the second and the third form.
English has an ing form if you do someting right at the moment.
Swedish has an form where you add an r if something happens at the moment. Like "Jag startar bilen" which mean "I start the car" or I´m starting the car". Swedish has an advantage when it´s about verbs it is that the verb does not change depenting on which person eho do something. For example I am, you are, he/she/it is, we/you/they are.
And in Swedish it´s always är jag/du/han/hon/den/det vi/ni/de är.
English has also unregular verbs but that exsist in Swedish too.

About plural, I shall say that I´m not an educated Swedish teacher so I can´t give you a answer which is 100% reliable but those rules is not that easy to discover as the English rules because I suppose that are a native English-speaker and I also asume that you knew the plural rule before I told you. I´m as a native Swedish speaker can not give you a real rliable answear so thats maybe a proof of that Swedish is a bit more compled than English, when it´s about the grammar at least.
Guest   Sat Mar 10, 2007 4:06 pm GMT
So to me the verbs and tenses look quite straightforward in Swedish.

What about cases and adjective endings? Do these change, as in German?
The Swede   Sat Mar 10, 2007 5:05 pm GMT
First I can say to you that I quit to study that lunguage because that the grammar was a nightmare. I have foten the most.
About the verbs they yes they change. They have also regular and unregular verbs. The verbs also have different endings dpend on which person who do something.
If it is as usually it is Ich whon-e, du whon-st er/es/sie whon-t wir whon-en ihr whon-st sie whon-en Sie whon-en. It means "live" as live in Englad for example not live as "live the life".
Er means "he", es "it" and sie "she". The last sie which is spelt with a big S is a form you use when you talk to a singel person that you do know so well. If you want to see the presens for of be it is.
Ich bin, du bist er/es/sie ist, wir sind, ihr seit, sie/Sie sind.
Adjective do also change specially words like klein "small" it´s very steered of the grammar.
suomalainen   Sat Mar 10, 2007 6:32 pm GMT
There are two indefinite articles in Swedish, 'en' and 'ett'. 'En' is used for common gender (masculine and feminine have converged), 'ett' for neutral gender. Norwegian has all three genders still in use, 'ei' is the article for feminine words.
Swedish has three declinations for en-words and two for ett-words.
1st declination: en-words with two syllables that end with 'a':
en flicka, flickan, flickor, flickorna (a girl, the girl, girls, the girls)
2nd declination: en-words with two syllables that end with 'e' and most en-words with one syllable:
en pojke, pojken, pojkar, pojkarna (boy / der Junge)
en hund, hunden, hundar, hundarna (dog / der Hund)
3rd declination: en-words with stress on the last syllable
(genuine Germanic words have stress on the first syllable, as in German and English): en elefant, elefanten, elefanter, elefanterna
4th declination: ett-words that end with an vowel:
ett häfte, häftet, häften, häftena (note book / das Heft)
5th declination: ett-words that end with a consonant:
ett hus, huset, hus, husen (house / das Haus)

As you can notice, definite article is added to the end of the word. This is the case in all Scandinavian languages.
Swedish has only two cases, Nominative and Genitive. In genitive -s is put at the end of the word: pojkens hatt (boy´s hat, hat of the boy).
Adjective has different indefinite and definite forms: 'en hård sten' = a hard stone / ein harter Stein, 'den hårda stenen' = the hard stone / der harte Stein.

Swedish has 4 verb conjugations:
I: starta, startar, startade, startat
II: läsa, läser, läste, läst (to read / lesen)
gräva, gräver, grävde, grävt (to dig / graben)
III: ro, ror, rodde, rott (to row / rudern)
IV: "irregular verbs": ta(ga), tar, tog, tagit (to take / nehmen)
gå, går, gick, gått (to go / gehen)
sitta, sitter, satt, suttit (to sit / sitzen)

Thus, we can conclude that basic grammar of Swedish is more complicated than that of English, but less complicated than German, as stated already before.
Guest   Sat Mar 10, 2007 7:13 pm GMT
The Swede

Thank you for your explanation of some of German grammar. I do already speak German and would advise you not to quit. While it's true that the grammar is complicated, the rules are very systematic. Of course you have to make an effort to remember the genders and plurals, as mainly there are no rules governing them. However the cases and endings follow fairly logical rules, so you should not be put off by this. The verbs in German do take different forms, however I don't think they are as complicated as in the Romance languages. Plus German does not use many tenses. Therefore I would recommend you take it up again, it is a very satisfying language to speak.
The Swede   Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:21 am GMT
Well, actually it was years since quited with my German studies but who knows one day I maybe get new motivation. Think that to handle the grammar is the key (schlüssel?) to succeed otherwise the words are not so difficult to learn, many words in German reminds of the Swedish correspondence. (As you probably has discovered above). Right now I have other studies to focus on.
One thing I want to add is that it´s easier to spell the German and the Swedish words because these written languges is more adapted to the the speaking languages.
Adam   Sun Mar 11, 2007 11:47 am GMT
"In the simple English you just add an s. "

In English you add s, es, ies or en.
Adam   Sun Mar 11, 2007 11:54 am GMT
And sometimes the words don't add anything on the end to make plurals or they just change their internal spellings.

What's the plural of "sheep"? It's "sheep."

I wouldn't say Swedisn and Danish are much more difficult than English. They might have gender - common and neuter - but about 75% of all nouns in both languages are of the common gender, so most words have the definite article "en".

Not to mention that English has several different ways to say the verb "to be" in the present tense -

I AM
You ARE
He/she/it IS

whereas in Swedish and Danish there is only one way to say it.

E.g. in Swedish......

Jag ER
Du ER
Han/hon ER
Adam   Sun Mar 11, 2007 11:58 am GMT
"Thus, we can conclude that basic grammar of Swedish is more complicated than that of English, but less complicated than German, as stated already before. "

It's no more complicated than English. Two genders doesn't make a language more difficult. Finnish has no genders whatsoever, and neither does japanese, but are they easy to learn?

75% of all nouns in Swedish and Danish have the common gender - hence it's name - whereas in languages like French and Germans it's more like 50-50.

An English speaker learning Swedish will not have much trouble learning what gender a noun is as there will be a 75% chance that it will be a common gender and only 25% chance that it'll be neuter.