Do you often mix Dutch with Scandinavian languages?

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Levo
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Do you often mix Dutch with Scandinavian languages?

Postby Levo » 2016-02-16, 15:54

Hoi!
I'm sorry to open a new topic, but I rarely visit the forum recently...

My question comes to those who have learnt a Scandinavian language and started Dutch afterwards or vice versa.

Does it often happen to you that you mix up Dutch words with Scandinavian ones, while talking?

Those who already had such an experience with other languages, did you have the same issue while learning Dutch/a Scandinavian language because the other language was so similar that you automatically used a word/expression from the other language without noticing it, and later be told you are mixing up the two languages?

For me Dutch and Norwegian seem to be frighteningly similar. I'm a native Hungarian speaker, (I must admit, even Spanish and Swedish seem to be very similar, but that's another story and a special Finno-Ugrian perspective.)
Or do you think Dutch and Scandinavian languages (pick one) are different enough not to mix them up?

Thank you for sharing your experience.

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Re: Do you often mix Dutch with Scandinavian languages?

Postby Aurinĭa » 2016-02-16, 17:31

As a native speaker, Dutch is the language I mix least of all (not that it never happens, mind you), but I understand your question very well. I had been learning German for two years, before I started learning Swedish, but from that point on it was as if all my German knowledge had flown out of the window. I struggled with the most basic sentences, somehow constantly mixing in Swedish words, or outright switching to Swedish - without noticing it - as soon as I didn't pay the utmost attention to what I said. I never really mixed much German into my Swedish, though - probably because German very quickly became the weaker of the two. After that one year of learning both, I went to university to study Swedish and didn't really speak any German for a couple of years. When I took up German again, I had to work fairly hard to keep both languages separate (and not simply forget my Swedish, like had happened to my German before). I don't know how common my experience is; there were several people studying both German and Swedish, an they seemed to be doing fine. Now I'm studying neither language, and forgetting both, but at least I don't mix them up anymore. :ohwell:

So yes, if I, as a native speaker of a Germanic language, can mix up Swedish and German, I see no reason why you couldn't mix up Dutch and a Scandinavian language. Don't take this as discouragement, it might require more work for some people, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. ;) Are you interested in learning Dutch?

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Re: Do you often mix Dutch with Scandinavian languages?

Postby Marah » 2016-02-16, 19:47

Yep, it happens to me regularly. I often have to be careful not to mix Dutch with Swedish. Which is funny in a way because I would have rather expected German to be the language that influenced these other two languages the most.
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Re: Do you often mix Dutch with Scandinavian languages?

Postby linguoboy » 2016-02-16, 21:02

Every time I try to play "The person under me" in Dutch or Swedish, I have to double check to be sure I haven't written "under" for "onder" or "mij" for "mig".
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Re: Do you often mix Dutch with Scandinavian languages?

Postby Levo » 2016-02-18, 14:19

Thank you Aurinĭa, Marah, linguoboy!

It's very good that you told stories with German too, because that is the other language I am considering (in secret).

Aurinia, Marah, that is exactly what is happening to me too with Norwegian and Swedish :/ And getting older I realised that I don't want to make that mistake again with the language choice.

So then my assumption was right... I seem to understand quite a lot of any Dutch text, and that is because I learned English, Swedish, Norwegian and some Afrikaans. However it seems to be too close to Norwegian and I have looots of money and time in Norwegian already, with very hard access to the language in my present life. So I don't want to risk seriously deteriorating it...
At the same time it would be good - once in my life - to learn a language that is spoken by more than 4-5 million people and there is a demand for it on the job market too.

I seem not to mix big time languages from other sub-language groups, fortunately.

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Re: Do you often mix Dutch with Scandinavian languages?

Postby viktor77 » 2016-02-19, 20:09

Oh totally. I started learning Danish and it screwed with my Dutch for a while. I once was in Flanders and asked a woman "Jeg wil graag een," but she didn't blink an eye and we kept on conversing in Dutch.

Though for me it's worse with German. I make a serious fool out of myself in my Dutch class, saying things like "De kinderen moeten arbeiten," "und ik kan," etc.

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Re: Do you often mix Dutch with Scandinavian languages?

Postby Prowler » 2016-06-04, 20:18

No, but if I mess with Dutch I'm bound to misspell some similar words in German. As in typing "Ich wil" or "Waarum". :silly:

viktor77 wrote:Oh totally. I started learning Danish and it screwed with my Dutch for a while. I once was in Flanders and asked a woman "Jeg wil graag een," but she didn't blink an eye and we kept on conversing in Dutch.

What does that even mean? "I really want one"?

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Re: Do you often mix Dutch with Scandinavian languages?

Postby mauw » 2016-07-23, 9:22

Prowler wrote:No, but if I mess with Dutch I'm bound to misspell some similar words in German. As in typing "Ich wil" or "Waarum". :silly:

viktor77 wrote:Oh totally. I started learning Danish and it screwed with my Dutch for a while. I once was in Flanders and asked a woman "Jeg wil graag een," but she didn't blink an eye and we kept on conversing in Dutch.

What does that even mean? "I really want one"?


"I would like a.."

Jeg is Norwegian (and Danish), the other words are Dutch
Feel free to correct my mistakes :partyhat:

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Re: Do you often mix Dutch with Scandinavian languages?

Postby הענט » 2017-04-26, 10:26

No. But this happens to me when I try to speak Slovak. I understand like 99,8% , but when I try to speak it I always throw in something Russian, Polish or Serbo-Croatian. Especially in case where the word is the same or super similar and I tend to overcomplicate it.

I speak very basic Swedish, but the sound is quite different to mix it up with Dutch. At least for me. Bruiloft vs bröllop.

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Re: Do you often mix Dutch with Scandinavian languages?

Postby lingasms » 2017-05-17, 17:59

I was lucky enough to learn in full immersion (while living in Leiden) and consequently by speaking with my gf, her family, and her friends whenever I visited. I did not confuse Dutch with other Scandi languages while I was in the earlier stages, but now I have sort of the reversed effect, I cannot for the life of me speak Danish because Dutch words will creep into my brain and just block the Danish out to a ridiculous extent.
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Re: Do you often mix Dutch with Scandinavian languages?

Postby Woods » 2019-04-17, 7:57

Well I definitely mix Danish and German, mostly when I don't know how to say something in one of the languages - I just take the expression from the other and replace with words from this one. I also do it for variety - I may know another way to say that in the other language, but I like this one in particular. And it can actually be worse - I make up a word because I know it in the other language but I've never heard it in this one. It actually works more often than not. The same goes for French and Italian.

Well one thing is for sure - knowing another closely related language definitely helps - both to learn this one and to be more creative when using it. Well in some cases when the two languages are literally exactly the same it might be a little bit annoying (like Danish and Swedish - I would much prefer of they were considered the same language with two (or even just one) written standards allowed).

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Re: Do you often mix Dutch with Scandinavian languages?

Postby TeneReef » 2019-09-04, 18:26

Dutch has many words that look like Nynorsk. :P
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Re: Do you often mix Dutch with Scandinavian languages?

Postby ginkgobiloba » 2020-03-22, 13:46

Norwegian and Swedish have been influenced by Danish, while Danish has been influenced by a low German which was reportedly close to Frisian and old English. I don't know those two languages, but I can say that often the German spoken today is strongly influenced by high German which has undergone so many sound changes and all, with the result that I often have the feeling that the Norwegian I learned often had more of a Dutch vibe than a German one, I don't know. Many of those specific 'low-german' words were quite recognisable for me, which is a great help for learning Norwegian you don't have when learning Icelandic which is still largely devoid of this foreign influence.


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