SomehowGeekyPolyglot wrote:In Norwegian, there is some kind of tonality, although it isn't the same as the one of Mandarin, for example.
How to start learning it (i.e. Norwegian tonality)?
Yes, it's called a pitch accent. It also very much depends on the accent, like where a Western dialect would drop down, an Eastern one will go up and vice-versa.
You learn it by listening to people speaking the variety you want to emulate and mimic what those native speakers do as best you can until you get a feel for it and don't have to think about it in order to get which one is used in what words.
SomehowGeekyPolyglot wrote:Is it true that Norwegian's spelling is more phonetic than Swedish and Danish?
And if yes, does it apply to Nynorsk as well?
Not really.
First of all, orthographies are at the very best
phonemic, not phonetic. A phoneme is a sound that makes a difference in meaning, for example the English words "spool," "pool" and "loose."
spool --
/spuːl/ --
[spuːɫ]pool --
/puːl/ --
[pʰuːɫ]loose --
/luːs/ --
[luːs](orthography -- phonemic representation in IPA -- phonetic representation in IPA)
No one makes a difference in writing between non-aspirated and aspirated /p/, or velarized and plain /l/, simply because those are details that depend on the environment. There may be several ways of spelling the same phoneme, but I have yet to meet an orthography that makes a difference between allophones.
In any case, this all ties into your next question:
SomehowGeekyPolyglot wrote:As it is no secret
, there are two variants of Standard Norwegian, Bokmål and Nynorsk.
Any particular reasons for learning one of them instead of the other?
Norwegian is a language in which everyone speaks their own dialect and writes either Bokmål or Nynorsk. There is no such thing as Standard Norwegian,
at all.
Which one you as a learner would want to go with depends on the dialect you're aiming for. A Southern or Western one? Nynorsk. An Eastern one? Bokmål. Don't ask me about Trøndish, Nordland or Troms...
Also, there is a lot of flexibility built into both standards and you tailor them quite a lot to your needs. For example, if you go with Bokmål, you can choose between using two genders with vestiges of a third, or all three genders fully.
native;
good;
read fluently, understand well, speak badly;
read fluently, understand badly, can't speak;
read some, understand a bit, speak a few sentences;
forgetting;
heritage language.