Diskussionstråd / Discussion and Minor Questions

[Linguist]

Hello,

I don’t know in which thread to post this, I guess it’s okay to post it here.

I really want to learn a Scandinavian language, but I fail badly at pronouncing ALL of the words I see written the first time, which is extremely frustrating. First I picked Norwegian, which is absolutely not spelt as pronouned, than I tried Danish -> same thing in general, even though it’s not as horrible. Still it’s hard to find out how those words have to be pronouned. Now I wonder if Swedish has the same, illogical pronounciation. Please tell me that there’s a Scandinavian language which is easy to write, read and pronounce!.

[hashi]

Hello,

I don’t know in which thread to post this, I guess it’s okay to post it here.

I really want to learn a Scandinavian language, but I fail badly at pronouncing ALL of the words I see written the first time, which is extremely frustrating. First I picked Norwegian, which is absolutely not spelt as pronouned, than I tried Danish -> same thing in general, even though it’s not as horrible. Still it’s hard to find out how those words have to be pronouned. Now I wonder if Swedish has the same, illogical pronounciation. Please tell me that there’s a Scandinavian language which is easy to write, read and pronounce!.

Short answer is that there are no Scandinavian languages that are "easy" to pronounce based on the spelling. I would have guessed - from my experience delving into Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian - that Norwegian is the most logically spelt relative to the pronunciation, and Danish definitely the least logical. There are "rules" in Swedish to determine how things are pronounced, but they're not always on par, or as intuitive as native speakers like to think Swedish is also the only of the three that pronounces "de" as "dom", so if that gives you any idea...

[TeneReef]

I think Norwegian is more difficult to pronounce when spelling-to-sound system is observed.

Compare landet as pronounced in Swedish and Norwegian,
in SVT accent it's [¹landet], in NRK accent it's [¹lan:e],
so Swedish is more spelling pronunciation influenced than Norwegian.

(Dialects complicate it in both language, land is pronounced [land] in Sogn dialect,
and landet is [lande] in some central Swedish dialects)

Both languages are terrible when it comes to non-indication of tonemes in writing (unlike in Vietnamese),
but in Swedish there are only 300 toneme pairs, in Norwegian there are 4000 of them (because the older A got the E spelling in Bokmaal and created many minimal pairs). Even close-minimal pairs are more difficult to predict in Norwegian,
in Swedish uttal and samtal have the same toneme, in Norwegian uttale and samtale have different tonemes.

Non-consistent marking of long vs short vowels in Swedish and in Norwegian is about the same.

Swedish is also the only of the three that pronounces "de" as "dom", so if that gives you any idea...

De is still [di:] among older dialect speakers in Southern Sweden,
and de is pronounced as döm or däm by many eastern Norwegians.

It's weirder to see Bokmaal users in Western Norway who pronounce dere as dokkar.

[Tenebrarum]

If a man is described as a "pekfingerviftande typ", how should I understand this? Is he a bossy type because he wags his index finger all the time?

[Johanna]

I'm not entirely sure actually, we wag our index finger at children to tell them they're doing something naughty or wrong, so my first interpretation would be more like negative and condescending.

[Tenebrarum]

Many thanks Johanna!

[Asema]

finlandssvenska is easy

[lähettiläs]

finlandssvenska is easy

Du har fullständigt rätt! Alla finländska barn måste lära svenska i skolan och många tycker som det är ett dåligt påverkan för dem, men hur är det dåligt att lära sig en annan språk? Hur olyckligt för dem då Svenska är härligt!

[Johanna]

This is an answer to this post from another thread.

So can I think of -or as the common gender plural ending for two-syllable words ending in -a only? (with a few exceptions Are there such rules as of when to use -er and -ar? (There are no more endings, are there?)

Yep. Also add those ending in the suffix -ska to this group: en sjuksköterska - sjuksköterskan - sjuksköterskor - sjuksköterskorna.

And well, there is a rule for two-syllable common gender nouns ending in -e, but most that get -ar don't belong to this group. -ar is by far the most common plural suffix though, so when you don't know it's the safest bet

All common gender nouns that have an umlaut in plural get -er, for example tand - tänder, hand - händer, and - änder... But then again, they're not the only ones, there's also katt - katter and some more.

Common gender nouns that end in -are get no indefinite plural ending, but gets that -are turned into -arna in the definite: en lärare - läraren - lärare - lärarna.

Common gender nouns that end in a vowel other than any aforementioned usually just get -r: en video - videon - videor - videorna.

Neuter nouns that end in a consonant usually follow this pattern: ett hus - huset - hus - husen.

If that consonant is -r you modify it some: ett fönster - fönstret - fönster - fönstren.

Neuter nouns that end in a vowel usually follow this pattern: ett täcke - täcket - täcken - täckena.

And then you've got öga and öra which have their very own thing: ett öga - ögat - ögon - ögonen and ett öra - örat - öron - öronen respectively.

These are the general rules anyway, most of them have a few exceptions, and I might have forgotten one or two on top of that. But still, it's not impossible to learn, all it takes is practice Also, when studying vocabulary, make sure to learn both the gender and plural with the noun itself, it saves you a tremendous amount of effort later on.

[Agor1205]

What does the word 'smlua' mean? From swedish translation of leon uris' book mila 18

[Jurgen Wullenwever]

What does the word 'smlua' mean? From swedish translation of leon uris' book mila 18

There is no such word. Either it is smula 'breadcrumb', or it is some initials of something. Given that Mila 18 is about the Warsaw ghetto 1943, with the names unfortunately changed (if I remember it right, I read it in the 1990s) then breadcrumbs might seem in-topic. Smula can also be used figuratively in the sense en smula = 'a little'.

[razlem]

När använder man 'mer' och 'fler'?

[Allekanger]

'Mer' används för mängd, medan 'flera' används för antal. Det är iallafall min uppfattning.

mer guld - 'more gold' (uncountable)
fler hästar - 'more horses' (countable)

Jag tycker dock inte det låter inte jättekonstigt med mer hästar. Jag använder det nog själv också ibland..

[Järvi]

Är "flera hästar" också möjligt?

[Jurgen Wullenwever]

Är "flera hästar" också möjligt?

Det finns två varianter här. Vissa använder flera och mera, medan andra använder fler och mer. (Utom förrförre skribenten som tydligen blandar dem, men språket är ju diffust.)

Nu är det inte riktigt så enkelt heller, för fler/mer-talarna använder också flera, men i en annan betydelse, så då gäller att flera betyder 'några' medan fler betyder 'ytterligare några'.

[Aurinĭa]

Nu är det inte riktigt så enkelt heller, för fler/mer-talarna använder också flera, men i en annan betydelse, så då gäller att flera betyder 'några' medan fler betyder 'ytterligare några'.

Jag tror faktiskt det är så jag, som icke-modersmålstalare, tolkar det. Borde kolla vad mina nederländska-svenska ordböcker säger.

[JMT]

Är "flera hästar" också möjligt?

Jag skulle säga att:
flera=several
fler=more

Jag såg flera hästar. Flera hästar var vita.

Jag såg fler hästar än du. Vi behöver fler hästar för att dra släden.
(I de här fallet kan man nog även säga "Jag såg flera hästar än du" men det låter lite slarvigt i mina öron.

[Gavril]

Hi,

How would you understand the phrase erbjuda mottagning in a medical context? (For example, Våra sjuksköterskor erbjuder mottagning för gravida kvinnor.)

My guess is that mottagning in this context means "seeing (a patient for a medical appointment)" -- i.e. the service that a doctor/nurse normally provides -- and erbjuda mottagning means to offer this service. But I am not sure.

Thanks for any help

[Jurgen Wullenwever]

Hi,

How would you understand the phrase erbjuda mottagning in a medical context? (For example, Våra sjuksköterskor erbjuder mottagning för gravida kvinnor.)

My guess is that mottagning in this context means "seeing (a patient for a medical appointment)" -- i.e. the service that a doctor/nurse normally provides -- and erbjuda mottagning means to offer this service. But I am not sure.

Thanks for any help

I am not a medical person, so I am not aware of any nuances in their jargon. For me, as a layman, it should simply be another way of saying "tar emot", which also seems to be your opinion. If we are right, then it is a case of "substantivsjuka", where a verb is replaced by a noun and another verb, to make the expression more elaborate.

[Gavril]

Hi,

How should the following sentence be translated?

Ofta bjuder myndigheten in till chattar med experter i området

My best guess is "The agency often invites (people) to chats with experts in the field" or "...offers chats with experts in the field".

The verb bjuder seems to lack a direct object here, and I'm not sure how to interpret the sentence without one.

Thanks