Why is Swedish so messy and complicated

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Woods
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Re: Why is Swedish so messy and complicated

Postby Woods » 2018-11-20, 9:26

I don't understand why people get pissed off when I have an opinion and defend it, be it about a feature in a language that is not my mother tongue which I'm learning.

I recently spoke with one Swedish girl in Finland and told her the one thing I don't like about Swedish is how it changes the spelling of some words she said "that's because we don't do things like everybody else!" Knowing the reaction that will follow if I insisted that I think it's more cool to write "restaurant" even then the thing is pronounced as /rɛstoraŋ/, I just answered "That's really cool."

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Re: Why is Swedish so messy and complicated

Postby langmon » 2018-11-20, 9:37

Woods wrote:I don't understand why people get pissed off when I have an opinion and defend it, be it about a feature in a language that is not my mother tongue which I'm learning.


Well, one of several possible reasons could be that at times, people make mental connections like "you "attack" my point of view=you attack myself personally"... This is what some think, even if things in reality of course aren't that simple...

I recently spoke with one Swedish girl in Finland and told her the one thing I don't like about Swedish is how it changes the spelling of some words she said "that's because we don't do things like everybody else!" Knowing the reaction that will follow if I insisted that I think it's more cool to write "restaurant" even then the thing is pronounced as /rɛstoraŋ/, I just answered "That's really cool."


Maybe she was referring to a common point of view among Swedish people (I don't know). So it could be that she even perceived that saying as, sort of, a verbal attack towards them. Whatever I wrote right now, I wrote it because of my interest in All Things Communication only, I am not implying anything beyond it.

As for more in-depth information on things like these, I'd just like to mention:
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Re: Why is Swedish so messy and complicated

Postby Woods » 2018-11-25, 20:10

SomehowGeekyPolyglot wrote:Well, one of several possible reasons could be that at times, people make mental connections like "you "attack" my point of view=you attack myself personally"... This is what some think, even if things in reality of course aren't that simple...

Yeah, that's pretty dangerous. Because in order to avoid that reaction, people stop saying what they think, and things start going in a bad direction.

I think it's high time people start listening to each other and giving the other side's arguments a chance and consideration. It's mostly people that are not used to debating a lot who have this kind of reaction - the ones who do realise at some point, after the knife fight, that it doesn't make much sense to disagree about anything but rather to listen, understand and agree as much as you can. Indeed the only way to make your point come through in an argument is by agreeing with the other side's arguments and then finding a way to let them know that your solution makes more sense also in their context.

Like in this context I could try to say that in a globalised world and a constant flow of words between coexisting languages, when striving to get a certain command of as many of them as we can (which we're here on this forum for, I guess?), it would make more sense to keep the original language's roots in order not to add extra confusion to the mix for the brain and for the eye, and to also keep the receiving language pure and authentic by keeping a distinct spelling for words with foreign origin. I don't see what's wrong with my argument and why it should be invalidated, even if the person doing that would still prefer to write sås rather than sauce.

Because they first disagree, then listen. And if they take it as a personal attack, then this conversation can never do anything good. And now we're talking about the features of some language, that we don't even have the power to change. Imagine if we were MPs talking politics?

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Re: Why is Swedish so messy and complicated

Postby shifu » 2019-02-02, 13:19

I believe there is historical reasons behind the different of languages even if they are similar. Also note there are "false" friends between languages, examplvis rolig means fun in Swedish but it means calm in Norwegian. We all are roliga! :mrgreen:
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Re: Why is Swedish so messy and complicated

Postby Woods » 2020-10-14, 7:11

Jurgen Wullenwever wrote:
Woods wrote:Och i förhållande till främmande ordena, är det en helt annan diskussion som vi redan har haft här i forumet och inte bliver eniga om :)

Jag har inte besökt forumet på några år, så jag är inte bekant med den diskussionen. Var den generell eller för svenskan? :?: (Har jag skrivit där?)

This is the discussion in question, where everyone is against me in keeping foreign loans as they are.

It is my opinion that languages are the heritage of everybody and nowadays when access to education is easy and we all wish to learn many of them, we should strive to keep them as pure as they can be (use the language's own word if there is one) and whenever we decide to make use of a fancy foreign word, we mustn't try to hide that it's foreign.

English has luckily done that and that's one of the reasons it succeeded as the world's biggest language.


Jurgen Wullenwever wrote:
Woods wrote:2. Främmande ord skrivas i vissa fall liksom i främmande språket: bureau, niveau, essai, e-mail

En extra svårighet tillkommer för namn och ord från andra skriftsystem, så Akilles skrivs med Linear B, Sargon med kilskrift och Ramses med hieroglyfer, om man ställer saken på sin spets. :P

Well, I'd love to see that but of course there's a limit. English does it with words that use the Latin alphabet only (diacritics not existent in the language included). I'd love to see Bulgarians type foreign names in Latin letters and then Cyrillics in parentheses if necessary. The same for English texts including Chinese names (cause it might be pretty damn hard for the reader who actually speaks Chinese to reconstruct the Character on their own, so if the writer knows it, it will be nice to include it. Of course there is a limit and we can not all learn all alphabets and languages. Car mentioned that for German, words from French, Italian, English and in recent years also Spanish are not only written, but also pronounced the original way, but other languages fall far behind. I think this is a good approach - stick to the roots as much as you can.

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Re: Why is Swedish so messy and complicated

Postby Jurgen Wullenwever » 2020-10-14, 17:44

This is the discussion in question, where everyone is against me in keeping foreign loans as they are.

Thank you. :yep:

For my part, I enjoy respellings. Welsh novels often have respelt English, such as "ffycin hel".

And I lean towards phonemic spelling.
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Ta mä rä ränn där.

Swedish spelling is very bad, so I do not advocate it, but English spelling is worse, I think.

German spelling is unnecessarily horrible, due to small things like the letters v and ä, that can denote whichever sound. :?
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Re: Why is Swedish so messy and complicated

Postby awrui » 2020-10-14, 18:44

I think the question of respelling is more of a philosophical dimention: Who is written language for? Respelling makes it easier for children to learn how to write, while using the original spelling is for people who already have a lot of knowledge about language.

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Re: Why is Swedish so messy and complicated

Postby linguoboy » 2020-10-14, 19:05

Jurgen Wullenwever wrote:German spelling is unnecessarily horrible, due to small things like the letters v and ä, that can denote whichever sound. :?

V I get (though in practice, it's never ambiguous because v only has the value /f/ in native words), but ä? In what way is this letter ambiguous?
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Re: Why is Swedish so messy and complicated

Postby Jurgen Wullenwever » 2020-10-14, 19:32

linguoboy wrote:
Jurgen Wullenwever wrote:German spelling is unnecessarily horrible, due to small things like the letters v and ä, that can denote whichever sound. :?

V I get (though in practice, it's never ambiguous because v only has the value /f/ in native words), but ä? In what way is this letter ambiguous?

V in place names is arbitrary to me, so if I read Seevetal, has it f or w? Ä in ordinary words is often e, Qualität, Diät, Ägypten, so I have only a vague idea of how Germans regard the phonetical content of a-umlaut. Standard German also has fewer vowels than my Central Swedish, and the borders between vowels are in other places, so I hear some say Bundeswehr and others Bundeswähr, but a native might consider those the same, or irrelevant unless phonetically obsessed. :oops:
Chekhov wrote:I don't know about naive worldviews, but Jurgen Wullenwhatever pisses me off to no end because of his extreme pessimism and cynicism. You'd think the world was going to end imminently when talking to that guy.

Jag är rebell: jag sockrar teet, saltar maten, cyklar utan hjälm, och tänder glödlampor.
(Ovanstående var förut, nu försöker jag minska sockret och saltet, och har gett upp mejeriprodukter.)

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Re: Why is Swedish so messy and complicated

Postby awrui » 2020-10-14, 23:19

Jurgen Wullenwever wrote:V in place names is arbitrary to me, so if I read Seevetal, has it f or w? Ä in ordinary words is often e, Qualität, Diät, Ägypten

With place names I go with if it's in the north, it's w, if it's in the south, it's f :idea: Like the name Valentin: in the north it's "Walentin", in the south it's "Falentin". So Seevetal, I'd pronounce it Seewetal if it's in the north and Seefetal if it's in the south (no idea where it actually is), and then wait for a local person to correct me in the rare case I'm wrong ;)
Also, it's pronounced ä in all of those words... If you hear e instead, you're probably talking to some kind of hillbilly.

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Re: Why is Swedish so messy and complicated

Postby Jurgen Wullenwever » 2020-10-15, 0:51

awrui wrote:Also, it's pronounced ä in all of those words... If you hear e instead, you're probably talking to some kind of hillbilly.

The journalists in Tagesschau. That category of international loanwords are spelled and pronounced with e in Swedish, and spelled with ä in German, but usually pronounced e, as far as I have heard. I get surprised when someone uses ä.

awrui wrote:
Jurgen Wullenwever wrote:V in place names is arbitrary to me, so if I read Seevetal, has it f or w?

With place names I go with if it's in the north, it's w, if it's in the south, it's f :idea: Like the name Valentin: in the north it's "Walentin", in the south it's "Falentin". So Seevetal, I'd pronounce it Seewetal if it's in the north and Seefetal if it's in the south (no idea where it actually is), and then wait for a local person to correct me in the rare case I'm wrong ;)

I have only been in the north, but there are lots of such placenames. In this case it is directly south of Hamburg.

Cuxhaven, Verden, Hannover, Bad Bevensen, Veddel, Grevesmühlen, Volksburg, ...
Chekhov wrote:I don't know about naive worldviews, but Jurgen Wullenwhatever pisses me off to no end because of his extreme pessimism and cynicism. You'd think the world was going to end imminently when talking to that guy.

Jag är rebell: jag sockrar teet, saltar maten, cyklar utan hjälm, och tänder glödlampor.
(Ovanstående var förut, nu försöker jag minska sockret och saltet, och har gett upp mejeriprodukter.)

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Re: Why is Swedish so messy and complicated

Postby Car » 2020-10-15, 14:07

awrui wrote:
Jurgen Wullenwever wrote:V in place names is arbitrary to me, so if I read Seevetal, has it f or w? Ä in ordinary words is often e, Qualität, Diät, Ägypten

With place names I go with if it's in the north, it's w, if it's in the south, it's f :idea: Like the name Valentin: in the north it's "Walentin", in the south it's "Falentin". So Seevetal, I'd pronounce it Seewetal if it's in the north and Seefetal if it's in the south (no idea where it actually is), and then wait for a local person to correct me in the rare case I'm wrong ;)
Also, it's pronounced ä in all of those words... If you hear e instead, you're probably talking to some kind of hillbilly.

No, the pronunciation of ä as /e:/ in those cases is common all over northern Germany at least.

https://www.dw.com/de/b%C3%A4ren-fresse ... /a-4159476
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Re: Why is Swedish so messy and complicated

Postby h34 » 2020-10-16, 6:48

Jurgen Wullenwever wrote:
awrui wrote:
Jurgen Wullenwever wrote:V in place names is arbitrary to me, so if I read Seevetal, has it f or w?

With place names I go with if it's in the north, it's w, if it's in the south, it's f :idea: Like the name Valentin: in the north it's "Walentin", in the south it's "Falentin". So Seevetal, I'd pronounce it Seewetal if it's in the north and Seefetal if it's in the south (no idea where it actually is), and then wait for a local person to correct me in the rare case I'm wrong ;)

I have only been in the north, but there are lots of such placenames. In this case it is directly south of Hamburg.

Cuxhaven, Verden, Hannover, Bad Bevensen, Veddel, Grevesmühlen, Volksburg, ...

The -v- in Grevesmühlen is usually pronounced [v] (at least by the local population). Likewise, -v- in Travemünde and the river Trave is voiced. But of course in the other placenames you mentioned it is pronounced [f]. In general I follow the rule of thumb that Awrui mentioned: the further you go north, the more likely you'll hear -v- being pronounced as [v].

Car wrote:No, the pronunciation of ä as /e:/ in those cases is common all over northern Germany at least.

https://www.dw.com/de/b%C3%A4ren-fresse ... /a-4159476

Also in Bavaria and Austria, I think. My impression is that [ɛ:] is quite common in the westernmost parts of Germany (especially in the Rhineland), but not really in the north, not in the east, not in Bavaria, not in Austria …

In those regions where the distinction between [e:] and [ɛː] is made, the pattern is a bit similar to Swedish, as far as I know (except that we don't have [æ/æ:] in Standard German):

e = [ɘ]* / [e~ɛ]** / [ɛ]*** / [e:]****
ä = [e~ɛ]** / [ɛ]*** / [ɛ:]****

* only in unstressed syllables (this is meant to be a schwa, correct me if I picked the wrong one): Vogel (fågel), Besuch (besök)
** at the end of some unstressed syllables, especially in loanwords: Republik, Präsident, Ägypten
*** before more than one consonant; this is where the pronunciation of -e- and -ä- is usually identical: Elch (älg), Ebbe (ebb), fällen (fälla)
**** before a single consonant, before -h- or at the end of a stressed syllable; this is where the pronunciation of -e- and -ä- is either identical or different, depending on the regional pronunciation: leben [e:] (leva), Väter [e:/ɛ:] (fäder)

(Why is German so messy and complicated? :))

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Re: Why is Swedish so messy and complicated

Postby Woods » 2020-10-28, 8:33

awrui wrote:I think the question of respelling is more of a philosophical dimention: Who is written language for? Respelling makes it easier for children to learn how to write, while using the original spelling is for people who already have a lot of knowledge about language.

I would argue it's the other way around.

Children learn any kind of spelling without a question, and teaching them an etymologically correct form sets them up for more easily learning languages in the future and understanding more about their own language as well.

Example: My 48-old student whose two native and close-to-native languages are Finnish and Swedish - both neglecting etymology in their writing as if it wasn't even a thing - asks spelling questions which no person from any other nationality which language I know a thing or two about would ever come up with (not even speakers of Bulgarian which uses another alphabet - but to all of yours' surprise it still follows the original spelling when transcribing the words - for example, "c" will become "ц", while "s" will become "с" - in order to avoid any confusion about whether medicine was "medicina" or "medisina" in Latin or whether Cicero was "Cicero" or "Sisero").

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Re: Why is Swedish so messy and complicated

Postby awrui » 2020-10-28, 14:36

They believe the reason Finnish pupils are better at reading than Norwegian pupils is the phonetical writing. I don't think it matters for most people where a word comes from. With names, you rarely learn them without context- You wouldn't learn the name Cleopatra without learning who that guy was. Also, let's be honest- most people don't become language nerds like us. Most get a reagular job as mechanic, accountant, shop assistant or nurse. I don't care if my nurse knows where the word "bandage" comes from, I just want him do know how to remove my bandage. Don't care if my mechanic knows the etymology of "tire", I want her to change it correctly.

Actually, children question spelling A LOT. "Why do I have to write it like this?", "Can I just drop this letter?", "But why is my answer wrong?!", "But I can read it!"
When they're just starting to write, they don't care and just want to write. When they've learnt all the letters, they are writing the way they hear words. So foreign speling is frustrating and makes them suffer, because it makes no sense to them. And when they are even older, like 10 or so, they start using rules. And those rules also have to make sense. Children that age ususally don't know the difference between french and latin. They have enough with learning more words in their own native language(s).. Even when rules make sense, it frustrates a lot of children. Then they refuse to write at all and are bad writers and readers for the rest of their life.
The un-phonetical writing is also one of the reasons why children hate laerning french and english so much. You don't just have to remember how the word sounds, but also how to write it. Twice as much work.

My solution: remove all foreign words which would have difficult writing. Make native words instead. Niveau (nivå) -> trinn.

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Re: Why is Swedish so messy and complicated

Postby Woods » 2020-10-28, 15:47

awrui wrote:They believe the reason Finnish pupils are better at reading than Norwegian pupils is the phonetical writing.

I'm not sure I understand you - "they" (some unknown to all of us set of people) believe Norwegian children to be less capable of reading than Finnish ones, whatever that means? It sounds like total nonsense, but I guess we would have to agree with it since "they" have said so!

Nonetheless as far as I know Norwegians manage to become literate and language-capable people somehow (in spite of the fact that their written language, probably more so than Finnish, is a mess from an etymological standpoint.

Well, on the other hand I would expect them to be a little bit more confused when they start learning foreign languages than Danes or Germans would be (and learning a language or two, in this day and age, is something we all want to do, isn't it?)


Also, let's be honest- most people don't become language nerds like us.

Actually I'm super surprised that the majority of people here would rather have the words respelt. It just doesn't make any sense to me.


I don't care if my nurse knows where the word "bandage" comes from

I getcha. I just start to care when my doctor has not learnt to use his or her brain to understand things - whether it is about languages, any other thing or medicine - cause when you don't question things and want to get the whole picture about any area of knowledge or expertise you come in contact with (either languages such as English or Latin that you will use in your practice or the particular area in which you specialise or the whole anatomy of the human body for example), they often come with pretty dumb solutions that do not do the best for their patients.

In your case - yes, it doesn't matter if they know where an English word came from if they can remove the bandage, but if matters whether they cared about this word when they were learning it the same way it matters whether they cared about all the other things which will determine whether or not they should do this operation or something else! It all comes together at some point!

And can you point me to a single person in Europe who wouldn't like to learn more languages? If you, like me, want to learn all of Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and German, wouldn't you prefer them to all be aligned with the most etymologically correct set of rules?


children question spelling A LOT. "Why do I have to write it like this?" (...) When they're just starting to write, they (...) are writing the way they hear words. So foreign speling is frustrating and makes them suffer.

How difficult is it to explain to them? "We write ph, my dear, because a lot of the words in our language come from Ancient Greek, which had a culture which has contributed a lot to our knowledge and understanding of the world. Whenever you see ph, just remember - it's word that has its origins in Ancient Greek." - Boom! We have a child that's now more intellingent and understands things. What a pity!

The problem is not that children don't want to learn things like that, the problem is that teachers are stupid and don't take their time to explain, or they themselves don't understand things. Making the whole writing system of a language look like shit in order spare teachers and students the thinking and facilitate memorising does not seem like a good idea to me.


Children that age ususally don't know the difference between french and latin. They have enough with learning more words in their own native language(s)

Well, I think it's also a good idea to know as much about which word comes originally from one's own native language, or its language family, and which one was borrowed, from where and for what purpose. I don't know how it works with Norwegian, but whenever I hear the bunch of very ungifted journalist use English and French words instead of much-better sounding and having clearer meaning Bulgarian ones (happens all the time), it makes me cringe.


The un-phonetical writing is also one of the reasons why children hate laerning french and english so much.

I used to hate learning French too. It has the totally crazy particularity of writing grammar that hasn't been pronounced for centuries in writing. That particular thing actually doesn't make any sense to me. And for some strange reason, in their latest reform from 80-something, which was abandoned because it doesn't make any sense but "exhmated" recently by some stupid politicians, they have redone the spelling of some words but kept the nonsense-grammar in place. Actually, they have removed some grammar that does make sense (concord of past participle with gender), but kept all the useless part of it (different spelling for personal endings that sound the same and so on).


English is the one that does it right - the grammar is simple, modern and as easy to handle as possible, while words keep their original spelling! Or Danish - it mostly follows the same idea, though a tiny bit less.


My solution: remove all foreign words which would have difficult writing. Make native words instead. Niveau (nivå) -> trinn.

I support you 100%! But whoever wants to use the French word should write "niveau".
Last edited by Woods on 2020-10-29, 9:54, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Why is Swedish so messy and complicated

Postby linguoboy » 2020-10-28, 15:51

Woods wrote:Children learn any kind of spelling without a question, and teaching them an etymologically correct form sets them up for more easily learning languages in the future and understanding more about their own language as well.

Example: My 48-old student whose two native and close-to-native languages are Finnish and Swedish - both neglecting etymology in their writing as if it wasn't even a thing - asks spelling questions which no person from any other nationality which language I know a thing or two about would ever come up with

"Children learn any kind of spelling without question. As evidence, I offer up an anecdote about a 48 year-old I know with no details relevant to the question at hand."

Woods wrote:(not even speakers of Bulgarian which uses another alphabet - but to all of yours' surprise it still follows the original spelling when transcribing the words - for example, "c" will become "ц", while "s" will become "с" - in order to avoid any confusion about whether medicine was "medicina" or "medisina" in Latin or whether Cicero was "Cicero" or "Sisero")

Why would this surprise any of us? Bulgarian didn't borrow those words from English (or some other language where the distinction is neutralised), it borrowed them from Latin (either directly or through an intermediary like Italian or Russian which preserve the distinction) and in doing so preserves a distinction which was found in Latin. Nothing could be less surprising.

Woods wrote:English is the one that does it right - the grammar is simple, modern and as simple to handle as possible, while words keep their original spelling!

Honestly, this statement is so completely shot through with misconceptions about language that it feels like satire.
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Re: Why is Swedish so messy and complicated

Postby Johanna » 2020-10-28, 20:33

My take on this discussion is that we should respell things so that they fit Swedish phonology.

Honestly, you shouldn't have to learn the spelling rules of German, French and English just to be able to spell our most common loans. Not to mention, how are students of Swedish to know that in this system with strictly etymological spelling, race is from French and pronounced /rɑːs/, instead of from English and pronounced /rɛjs/?

Heck, in Danish, they had no idea how to actually pronounce it, so the -e isn't silent unlike in French.

I'm talking about the noun that has to do with phenotype, which in Swedish applies to breeds of domesticated animals first and foremost. The noun that is about who traverses a certain distance in the least amount of time is still spelled like in its source language English, and pronounced accordingly.
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Re: Why is Swedish so messy and complicated

Postby Jurgen Wullenwever » 2020-10-28, 20:59

Johanna wrote:My take on this discussion is that we should respell things so that they fit Swedish phonology.

Honestly, you shouldn't have to learn the spelling rules of German, French and English just to be able to spell our most common loans. Not to mention, how are students of Swedish to know that in this system with strictly etymological spelling, race is from French and pronounced /rɑːs/, instead of from English and pronounced /rɛjs/?

Heck, in Danish, they had no idea how to actually pronounce it, so the -e isn't silent unlike in French.

I'm talking about the noun that has to do with phenotype, which in Swedish applies to breeds of domesticated animals first and foremost. The noun that is about who traverses a certain distance in the least amount of time is still spelled like in its source language English, and pronounced accordingly.

That word might have come into Danish when the French ending was still pronounced, and it is Rasse in German.
Chekhov wrote:I don't know about naive worldviews, but Jurgen Wullenwhatever pisses me off to no end because of his extreme pessimism and cynicism. You'd think the world was going to end imminently when talking to that guy.

Jag är rebell: jag sockrar teet, saltar maten, cyklar utan hjälm, och tänder glödlampor.
(Ovanstående var förut, nu försöker jag minska sockret och saltet, och har gett upp mejeriprodukter.)

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Re: Why is Swedish so messy and complicated

Postby awrui » 2020-10-28, 22:31

Woods wrote:
awrui wrote:They believe the reason Finnish pupils are better at reading than Norwegian pupils is the phonetical writing.

I'm not sure I understand you - "they" (some unknown to all of us set of people) believe Norwegian children to be less capable of reading than Finnish ones, whatever that means? It sounds like total nonsense, but I guess we would have to agree with it since "they" have said so!

Researchers interpreting international tests. The finns do much better at PISA than norwegians, that's no secret.


cause when you don't question things and want to get the whole picture about any area of knowledge or expertise you come in contact with (either languages such as English or Latin that you will use in your practice or the particular area in which you specialise or the whole anatomy of the human body for example)

Do you speak latin? I do. And trust me, the names of some weird little foot bones have NOTHING to do with latin as a language. They're just words. You can as well use the swedish, aymara or chinese word for it, it really doesn't matter. Latin anatomy words are just a relict of time, preserved to make the profession feel special- there are similar phenomenons in any profession, really.

And can you point me to a single person in Europe who wouldn't like to learn more languages?
Quite a few, actually. (if I was the boss, everyone would learn an non-indoeurpean language from grade 5, and another one from grade 8)

If you, like me, want to learn all of Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and German, wouldn't you prefer them to all be aligned with the most etymologically correct set of rules?

I speak three germanic languages fluently, and have looked into some more. Trust me, the different spelling of some foreign words doesn't make any any difference. Things like grammar and pronounciation are much more important. Words that are very similar in those languages, especially foreign words, are often false friends. So maybe they share the same source, but they have changed their meaning over time. So you might as well write them in a different way.

How difficult is it to explain to them? "We write ph, my dear, because a lot of the words in our language come from Ancient Greek, which had a culture which has contributed a lot to our knowledge and understanding of the world. Whenever you see ph, just remember - it's word that has its origins in Ancient Greek." - Boom! We have a child that's now more intellingent and understands things. What a pity!


I see you don't work with children- I wish it would work like that :lol: There is a reason they go to school for 13 years...

Well, I think it's also a good idea to know as much about which word comes originally from one's own native language, or its language family, and which one was borrowed, from where and for what purpose.

I agree. There is a time and a place for that- which is university, for people with special interest.

English is the one that does it right - the grammar is simple, modern and as simple to handle as possible, while words keep their original spelling!

Have you seen native speakers of english write in english? It makes my eyes bleed. :( And I'm not thinking of well educated people or people who use some kind of spellcheck.


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