Which is easier swedish or norwegian

OK, maybe not so simple. I will describe. I am interested in nordic languages plus many others, but As you can see, I am learning danish primarily, but I am still interested in all others, including norwegian, swedish and a bit of finnich too. Danish is OK, pretty easy grammar, hard pronounciation. But what about swedish and norwegian? They have both the same system of pronounciation, almost "what you see is what you get" compared to danish.

But what about grammar? I tried to look at first lessons of both languages and swedish looks harder for me. Am I right? Or basic norwegian looks more familiar to me, because of my knowledge of english? Yes, I am not an english native, but What is your opinion? Re: Is swedish harder than norwegian? Post by Johanna » Tue , I think they are about the same.

What might make learners think Swedish is more difficult is probably that we have a couple more plural endings, and one more for present tense, due to them having e in many cases where we have a, and in some cases where we have another vowel. On the other hand, most Norwegian dialects have three genders while most Swedes today only use two.

But I think you should keep to Danish until you know it very well, mixing in the other standards of the Scandinavian language before that isn't a very good idea, it will only end with you speaking and writing a mix of them. Last edited by Johanna on Tue , , edited 1 time in total. Post by kotrcka » Tue , Thanks for reply. Or better - Tack I am not going to learn any of them, I will stay at danish, which is very nice language for me.

I was just curious. Therefore I consider Swedish to be slightly easier, as you know at least what language you are learning when you are learning it. Post by Jurgen Wullenwever » Tue , Plusquamperfekt wrote: Therefore I consider Swedish to be slightly easier, as you know at least what language you are learning when you are learning it. 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. Really, Norwegian is the easiest of them all, Swedish has plurals in -ar, -er and -e and -a maybe? I think it would be better to learn Norwegian first, as you can see from my flags I started learning both. Both languages actually follow the same sentence structure in English which is subject-verb-object.

I have also read that Norwegian is the easiest language for English speakers to learn. I could attest that it's easy to learn don't know if it's the easiest though, lol. Also Norwegian, personally, seems to be less complicated for me. So maybe, after you've mastered Norwegian, you can learn Swedish. I think Norwegian is also easier. Even though i started swedish, I just don't like it anymore and I think norwegian is better.

I speak Norwegian, and I have no trouble understanding Swedes, and very little trouble understanding Danes. I hear most Swedish speakers have a lot of trouble understanding Danes, however. I'm Swedish and had no trouble understanding either Norwegian or Danish even before I found duolingo a few days ago, I also understand some Faroese and Icelandic.

I can confirm that many Swedes claim to not understand Danish, but that is mostly because they don't want to understand, which is a problem.

The reason there is more Swedish stuff on the internet is most likely because Sweden has a much bigger population. If you PolishMathU want to learn one nordic language that will help you understand the others, then yes, I would go for norwegian. If you think you will meet lots of Swedes or Danes in the future I would recomend swedish or danish instead. Grammar is essentially the same in all three languages.

I've heard that most of the trouble in understanding between these languages is because of simple sound changes, probably like a lot of the Norwegian dialects differ in certain sounds. Danes can understand the Norwegians, and the Swedes to a pretty decent extent Swedes can understand the Norwegians, but they struggle to understand the Danes. Norwegians can understand both the Swedish and Danish.

I recommend you look for native materials you like and go with the language you want to learn more. I think especially since the languages are so similar, motivation is more important than which language is "easier. I had the same problem you did. However, I ended up going with Norwegian because I had already studied it previously.

I think there are generational differences and what you describe is generally more true for younger people while older people will generally be less comfortable in English and more likely to keep speaking Scandinavian. I have been learning Norwegian for 3 years now and I personally think it's easier to listen and pronounce Norwegian than Swedish or Danish. Go for Norwegian! I decided to pick Norwegian because I'm a literature nerd and Norwegian literature interests me more than Swedish or Danish literature, after all, there's Hamsun "Mysterier" is without a doubt one of the greatest novels ever written and Ibsen and many others.

And as it seems to be the case that knowing Norwegian will enable me to read Swedish and Danish literature as well I won't miss out on Strindberg, Andersen and Kierkegaard. In that case the obvious answer is to just learn all three I am too 15 years old, and i am from Slovakia, so i am too from a Slavic land : I think that you should learn first Norwegian, than Swedish.

But Norwegian is better than Swedish, when you learn German, because it is more similar, than Swedish. I hope, that I colud you help.

I must learn German at school and because of our teacher I don't like that language, I just learn it to write a test, pass it and forget about it. I came here looking for the same advice, but I have to say, PolishMathU, that you're English is perfect.

You write like a native speaker. The only mistake I saw was in the last sentence: "15 year boy" should be "a year-old boy". I hope someday my Polish is as good as your English. I would recommend Norwegian. I tried learning French and Italian, but for some reason, I find Norwegian much easier to understand and learn. You may notice similarities between English and Norwegian words as well.

I am currently learning French, but when I went back to refresh my mind on Norwegian, I found it easier! I have also read that Norwegian might be the easiest language English speakers can learn.

English has multiple past tenses? If it really does, maybe the only reason I don't know that is because it's my native language and wasn't explicitly taught to me, and is nothing I even think about. I can understand a litter Swedish, because i've learnt it lately.

I come from Viet Nam and i'm just 14 years old. Get started. Norwegian or Swedish - Which one should I take? And a few weeks ago I read a great book written by a Norwegian writer Jostein Gaarder - "Appelsinpiken" I've read it in my native language - Polish, not English , and now I would like to read all his books but in original language - Norwegian So can you help me decide?

I'm Polish but you can refer to English language Which one has easier grammar? I would really appreciate if there was only one past tense, not like in English, Past Simple, Past Perfect, Present Perfect, etc, because in Polish we don't have that kind of stuff Thanks in advance ; And please forgive me all my English mistakes - I'm just 15 year boy from Poland :D. May 26, Contrary to popular belief, Finnish Finland is not a Nordic language.

Yes, many of the Scandinavian Nordic languages are mutually ineligible. This is thanks to the shared history and common vocabulary Nordic languages have. They should be dialects of a common Scandinavian language. Nordic languages are very similar to each other. Over 20 million people speaker Nordic languages. Out of all the Nordic languages, most speak Swedish with 10 million Swedish speakers worldwide. There are 6 million Danish speakers, 4. Of course, many Scandinavian residents speak more than one Nordic language.

This is a government-defined rating of how easy or hard foreign languages are. If you want to determine how long it will take an English native speaker to learn a foreign language, this chart is quoted. According to the FSI ranking, most of the Nordic languages are very easy to learn for native English speakers.

Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are all Category I languages. This means you can reach complete fluency in them in hours or weeks. Icelandic on the other hand is a little bit more complicated. This raises the difficulty level and the amount of time estimated to learn it. You may need up to 44 weeks or hours of study to master Icelandic. So, we can definitely rule Icelandic out as the easiest Nordic language.

When it comes to Norwegian and Danish, they are similar in vocabulary. The difference comes in, in the sound as they differ. On the other hand, Swedish and Norwegian are similar when it comes to the pronunciation but their words used are different. To understand the relation these Nordic languages have to each other, we can look at them as Scandinavian siblings.

Norwegian is the eldest. Danish is the rebel sibling. Understanding Danish can require a lot of concentration from Norwegians and Swedes alike. Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian are all very beautiful, but choosing which Scandinavian language to study can be hard.