Area 51 » Culture

followers

Follow It!

Announcements

	OK, now my idea (discuss.area51.stackexchange.com/questions/4612/…) put into action ! Thanks – pmod Aug 9 '12 at 9:36
	<comments removed> If you have any questions or comments for this proposal, please use 'create new discussion' below. – Robert Cartaino♦ Aug 13 '12 at 14:43

34 Example Questions

active oldest votes

up vote 14 down vote

added by Ben Jul 30 '12 at 15:53

up vote 11 down vote

added by gerrit Nov 18 '12 at 14:44

up vote 10 down vote

added by ExpectoPatronum Sep 11 '12 at 21:23

This question as it stands would be too general, but more specific questions that is about this topic is relevant. – awe Oct 3 '12 at 6:40

up vote 10 down vote

added by kimspindel Oct 3 '12 at 10:37

	I'm confused, what does your question target at? Using "En" and then "Ett" or the missing word in sentence 2? – ExpectoPatronum Feb 27 at 20:05
	@ExpectoPatronum it's essentially this question spraknamnden.se/sprakladan/… – Ben Apr 24 at 0:51

up vote 10 down vote

added by pmod Oct 24 '12 at 11:14

up vote 10 down vote

added by pmod Oct 24 '12 at 11:20

Good question, may include jänte – gerrit Nov 18 '12 at 14:43

up vote 10 down vote

added by pmod Oct 24 '12 at 11:22

up vote 10 down vote

added by Martin Tapankov Dec 12 '12 at 14:37

up vote 9 down vote

added by awe Jul 24 '12 at 10:42

	Are you asking about differences in pronunciation or something else, like meaning, usage etc.? – Anju Fabulina Aug 5 '12 at 11:43
	I'm asking about meaning and usage. They are usually pronounced the same, but the meaning is different, which is why it is often used wrong in writing. – awe Aug 28 '12 at 13:12
	You put 'å' in front of verbs in the infinitive state, it is equivalent to 'to'. 'Og' is the same as 'and'. – Hans Groeffen Apr 4 at 12:56

up vote 9 down vote

added by Robin Aug 30 '12 at 13:48

up vote 9 down vote

added by ExpectoPatronum Sep 26 '12 at 19:11

I would say it definitely helps. If you don't know how to say something in Norwegian, say it in Danish/Swedish, and there's a good chance you'll hit the nail on head. That's what Scandinavians do all the time when they're trying to communicate with each other. Mixing those languages is not as "terrible" as, say, mixing English with German. – stillenat Feb 25 at 7:48

up vote 9 down vote

added by pmod Oct 24 '12 at 11:15

up vote 7 down vote

added by Deco Feb 9 at 7:01

The reflexive forms in s- refer back to the subject of the same clause. If it doesn't refer back to the subject, use hans/hennes. Ex. "Han tog sin hatt" (He took his (own) hat), where "sin" refers back to the subject. "Han tog hans hatt" (He took his (someone else's) hat), where "hans" doesn't refer back to the subject. – Sverre May 2 at 19:16

up vote 6 down vote

added by legoscia Aug 15 '12 at 18:16

up vote 3 down vote

added by Katten Nov 28 '12 at 4:34

As in ........? – Sverre May 2 at 19:17

up vote 3 down vote

added by igelkott Feb 14 at 22:17

	The non-Germanic languages in (not "around") Scandinavia are not any more "indigenous" than are the Germanic languages. And the answer is "yes". – Sverre May 2 at 19:13
	@Sverre: Thanks, but these are just sample questions for the group. Very nice of you to answer but not really meant to do so before this goes beta. – igelkott May 2 at 19:59
	Oh .... oops ... :P – Sverre May 2 at 21:05

up vote 3 down vote

added by igelkott Feb 14 at 22:21

See here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… – Sverre May 2 at 19:11

up vote 2 down vote

added by Chris Travers Oct 7 '12 at 5:33

(As an explanation I am fond of this question because it looks like Swedish is reverting to the Animate/Inanimate genders found in the earliest Indo-European langauge family, namely the Anatolian group) – Chris Travers Oct 7 '12 at 5:41

up vote 2 down vote

added by martin Dec 19 '12 at 10:37

up vote 2 down vote

added by igelkott Feb 14 at 22:45

	I don't think it's very complicated to the Danes. – Sverre May 2 at 19:10
	Were this a real question, I would give evidence to support the assertion of complexity. This would be from a bit more general perspective than that of a native speaker, who might at least admit that it's hard to explain to an outsider. – igelkott May 2 at 20:26
	Maybe I've misunderstood, but aren't these example questions supposed to be examples of what real questions would be like? Btw, native speakers typically find it hard to explain anything about their own language to a foreign learner. This is because they themselves never learned their own language in that fashion. – Sverre May 2 at 21:05

up vote 1 down vote

added by Chris Travers Oct 7 '12 at 5:30

Actually, no. Scandinavia is generally taken as Norway/Denmark/Sweden. Finland is part of the Nordic superset. – Robin Oct 8 '12 at 9:30

The question is, whether this is a good sample question for which to discuss Scandinavian language characteristics. I was always taught Finland was geographically part of Scandinavia, and I would point out there are significant parts of the country where people speak Swedish ;-) – Chris Travers Oct 8 '12 at 10:38

(Just as most of Northern Finland is on the Scandinavian penninsula... But Estonia is considered a Baltic state too even though their language is not a Baltic language. But if you want to be overly strict, we could substitute Lappish and Lappland for Finnish and Finland if you'd like since they are more or less similar.) – Chris Travers Oct 8 '12 at 10:43

Scandinavia refers to those countries that are surrounded by the Scandinavian penninsula. Only Norway and Sweden are surrounded by that penninsula, so by strict definition, only Norway & Sweden are Scandinavian. However they include Denmark because the culture, look & languages are similar. Finnish is actually related to Hungarian & belongs to a family of languages called Uralic. Finland is however a Nordic country along with Iceland together with the three Scandinavian Countries mentioned. However it is a common misconception. – Simon Apr 4 at 9:05

To correlate with what C. Travers was saying. Approx. 300,000 people on the Western side of Finland originate from Sweden. Their first language is "their" version of Swedish. Their 2nd language will be Finnish. Finns will speak Finnish as 1st language & highly likely speak Swedish as 2nd language. – Simon Apr 4 at 9:11

up vote 1 down vote

added by gerrit Nov 18 '12 at 14:45

I think we need to use standard stackexchange language - English - in questions / answers, that way it will be useful for everybody. – pmod Nov 22 '12 at 21:20

Other "language X"-sites permit both questions in English and questions in the language that is discussed. – gerrit Jan 7 at 17:52

Questions shouldn't be restricted to English but this particular question doesn't really benefit from being asked in Swedish. In contrast, the word "skånska" should be kept since the English translation is probably less known. – igelkott Feb 14 at 22:42

up vote 1 down vote

added by igelkott Feb 14 at 22:36

up vote 1 down vote

added by igelkott Feb 14 at 22:46

	The question is too broad and general, and is more or less unanswerable, since it's not possible to quantify language change overall (that hasn't stopped people from trying, though). – Sverre May 2 at 19:10
	The fact that some people try gives this at least some credibility. Of course, it still might not be a "good" question for this group but it's not too far off topic. – igelkott May 2 at 20:11
	It's not off-topic, but the question is essentially not possible to answer. It's like asking a biologist "How difficult is it to run 100m in 10,7 seconds?" Sure, muscular effort can in principle be quantified, but there is no way to answer that question in a satisfying manner. Same with answering "how much has language X changed over centuries?". – Sverre May 2 at 21:02