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Languages

I've came across quite a dilemma while thinking about universities.

I will definitely study French, but as an aside, I'd like to take an ab initio course in a new language. The ones I've narrowed it down to are Italian, Swedish/Icelandic, Ancient Greek, Modern Greek or just Linguistics. I'm not really going for utility, more just... Interest, since languages are just.. My favourite things.

I'm a bit concerned Italian may be too similar to French, but it does appear to be a really beautiful language, and... Yeah. Swedish because I've always loved the sound and feel of the Scandinavian languages, and Swedish seems to be the nicest, and Icelandic the most... Well, for (huge) want of a better word, the most 'cool'. Greek because I once taught myself a little bit and have since forgotten most of it, but it'd be nice to pick it up again; also it just has this nice sort of archaeic feel about it. As for Linguistics, well, you know. It's interesting!

Any input as to which language would be most interesting would be appreciated...!
 
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I, personally, wouldn't take Italian because it's too similar to French and I've sort of had it with Romance languages. I'm studying Swedish now. Icelandic is also cool but harder and you'll probably get less use for it. If you learn Swedish you'll also be able to understand Danish and Norwegian pretty well (or at least it'll be easier to learn them). If you're interested in Old English, Icelandic could come in helpful as it's kind of similar.

I would actually like you to learn Greek because I remember you once tried teaching yourself Greek and that was really cool and most people don't bother learning Greek. :c

If you like languages, then it might be worth taking linguistics - it's is very interesting, to me at least.
 
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(At fear of going off-topic,) How so?

Also how exciting! Cambridge offers a course of two major languages with a more minorly-focused-upon one, two of which can be ab initio. French and ai Italian with ai Greek, I'm thinking? However it's highly unlikely I'd have the capability (or, more to the point, funds) to get into Cambridge. Sadly.
 
Well it's full of bugs. Admittedly it's better now, they've been patching it a lot. Single player works pretty well, but multiplayer's still got plenty of annoying crashes and stuff. Still, if you speak Swedish, it's worth it just for the fake language they speak. It's absolutely hilarious.
 
Ah yes - I'd noticed that in the playthrough I watched; does it actually say anything real at all or is it entirely nonsense?
 
Half of it is butchered Swedish, the other half is gibberish. Very often they say things you can actually understand. (The best line by far is "Vid Balders balle, ett skogsjäder!")
 
i know this is hypocritical since English is very guilty of this, but the flexibility of Swedish's prepositions confounds me.
 
Wow, some of you people are really studying some interesting languages.

In my case, I can speak a perfect Spanish and perfect Catalan, plus a quite good English. I can understand French more or less, and I studied a little bit of Japanese, so I can translate texts with a dictionary since I know the grammar.

Unluckily, sometimes using a foreign language plays dirty tricks on you, because you are wanting to translate something into -for example- English and then you find out you used some false friends that made your sentence become stupid xD
Furthermore, Spanish (from Spain) is a language full of proverbs and set phrases, and they're actually pretty hard to translate to be correctly understood. Not to mention the presence of the typical Spanish sarcasm!
 
You're doing fairly well considering you're not taking classes or anything, Zuu. (Or are you?)

Swedish is a language with CP-V2 word order; you're going to have to change the word order in several of your sentences and I'm not going to do a good job of explaining why. After all, I'm not a Swedish teacher; I just happen to speak the language. Very often, you don't stop to think about how your native language works, since it all comes naturally, so I can't always give you proper explanations as to why things are the way they are, but I'll do my best.

Spanska är ett skitig språk.
As you seem to be aware, språk is a neuter noun (ett språk rather than en språk), so skitig should be skitigt:

Spanska är ett skitigt språk.

However, the word skitig/skitigt does not have quite the same meaning as "shitty"; it rather means that something is grimy or dirty. So I suggest using a different adjective.

ni skulle studer Svenska!
Firstly, there is no such thing as studer; what you're looking for is studera. (Maybe that was just a typo.)

Secondly, skulle means would, but I assume what you mean is "you should study Swedish", not "you would study Swedish". Replace skulle with borde (which means "should").

Lastly, Svenska should be svenska, without the capital S. We Swedes don't capitalize languages/nationalities. We also don't capitalize days/months. "Monday" is måndag, "January" is januari, "Englishman" is engelsman etc. This holds true for many more languages than just Swedish, actually.

Ni borde studera svenska!

är ett riktigt bra och intressant språk,
There's no subject in this sentence; it just reads "is a really good and interesting language". You need to put a (pro)noun, presumably either det or svenska, before är, so it becomes "It is a really good and interesting language" or "Swedish is a really good and interesting language":

Det är ett riktigt bra och intressant språk. (Svenska är ett riktigt bra och intressant språk.)

mer intressant än Spanska jag tror!
Apart from the capital S, you've made two tiny errors that are going to require lengthy explanations...

Firstly, you shouldn't be using the verb tror here. See, the English verb "to think" has three counterparts in the Swedish language, depending on what you mean by it:

Att tänka means "to think" as in "to use your brain, to have thoughts". Example: Jag tänker på dig hela tiden means "I think about you all the time".

Att tro means "to think" as in "to believe something is the case but not be entirely sure". Example: Jag tror att det kommer regna imorgon means "I think it's going to rain tomorrow".

Att tycka means "to think" as in "to be of the opinion". Example: Jag tycker att han är tråkig means "I think he's boring".

In your sentence, you'll want to replace tror with tycker, because you're expressing an opinion, not an uncertain belief. Or so I assume.

So that leaves us with this:

Mer intressant än spanska, jag tycker!

Unfortunately, there's still something wrong with this sentence; namely, jag tycker should be tycker jag. In English, you can just tack "I think" onto the end of a sentence; you go from the usual "I think [something]" to "[something], I think" (in other words, from subject-verb-object to object-subject-verb). In Swedish, however, we go from "I think [something]" to "[something] think I" (in other words, from subject-verb-object to object-verb-subject).

So the standard word order is Jag tycker (att) det är mer intressant än spanska ("I think (that) it is more interesting than Spanish"), and then when you reverse the word order, you get Det är mer intressant än spanska, tycker jag ("It is more interesting than Spanish, I think").

So the proper sentence is:

Mer intressant än spanska, tycker jag!

This goes for most similar constructions. If you want sentences along the lines of "[something], I think" or "[something], they said" or "[something], he wrote", remember that the order is object-verb-subject in Swedish ([something], tror jag or [something], sade de or [something], skrev han). Example: "Murder, she wrote" becomes Mord, skrev hon.

alla skulle studer Svenska. alla.
Same errors as above, with Ni borde studera svenska. The correct sentence is:

Alla borde studera svenska.

lol va

svenska är inte användbar????
Firstly, användbar should be användbart. While svenska isn't a neuter noun, it is an uncountable noun (you can't say "a Swedish, many Swedish" when referring to the language, right?). Uncountable nouns always use the neuter form of the adjective - hence användbart instead of användbar.

Secondly, when you turn a statement into a question, you usually have to reverse the word order. Svenska är inte användbart is a statement, while Är inte svenska användbart? or Är svenska inte användbart? is a question.

In this case, you're quoting something that someone else said, so keeping the original word order intact is possible. But it'd sound extremely awkward, so I wouldn't recommend it unless you absolutely have to repeat someone's exact words.

The correct sentence is:

Är svenska inte användbart? / Är inte svenska användbart?

också lol
Också doesn't work quite the same way "also" does. If you say "also lol, [something]", it's kinda like you're saying "and by the way, lol, [something]". But the Swedish word också can only be used in the sense "this is x and that is also x". So it's really more like the word "too", as in "this is x and that is x too".

For example, you can use också if you want to say "He's stupid and she's stupid too" (Han är dum och hon är också dum), or "Red is my favourite colour, but blue is also nice" (Rött är min favoritfärg, men blått är också trevligt).

In your sentence, I think it would be most appropriate to simply say "and lol" instead (och lol).

jag haft missförstod vad du sade
Haft is the supine form of att ha, "to have". You can't use haft here, because, well, it doesn't make any sense. You're using att ha as an auxiliary verb attached to missförstod, but as an auxiliary verb, att ha can only occur in the present tense and the past tense (forming the perfect and the pluperfect, respectively).

This may sound confusing, but it's exactly the same thing in English. You can say "I have misunderstood" (the perfect, formed by using the present tense of the auxiliary verb "to have") or "I had misunderstood" (the pluperfect, formed by using the past tense of "to have"), but you can't say "I have had misunderstood". Your sentence currently reads something along the lines of "I have had misunderstood what you said".

Jag har missförstått = "I have misunderstood".
Jag hade missförstått = "I had misunderstood".
Jag haft missförstod = "I have had misunderstood"?

What you really want to use is the past tense, as in "I misunderstood what you said", and that doesn't require any auxiliary verb whatsoever. So just scratch haft and you're good to go:

Jag missförstod vad du sade.

jag trodde att du sade "svenskar talar inte svenska", vilket var roligt, och jag var på väg att saga "men alla har dåliga brytningar om språk på engelska".
I don't know what you're trying to say here. The first part is completely correct (except that saga should be säga, but that's probably just a typo or something), but I don't understand what you mean by alla har dåliga brytningar om språk på engelska. It translates into "Everyone has bad accents about languages in English".

vilket är också sant.
In English, you say "which is also true". In Swedish, you say "which also is true". I don't think there's any particular reason for this, it's just how we do it. So the correct sentence is:

vilket också är sant.

men jo, jag gissar att bara svenskar talar svenska.
The verb att gissa doesn't work quite the same way as the English equivalent "to guess". According to Merriam-Webster, "to guess" can have three possible meanings:

  1. to form an opinion of from little or no evidence
  2. believe, suppose: I guess you're right.
  3. to arrive at a correct conclusion about by conjecture, chance, or intuition: guess the answer.

Only the first and third definitions of "to guess" are the same for att gissa. So if you say Jag gissar att bara svenskar talar svenska, then it literally means that you're making a guess: "I'm guessing that only Swedish people speak Swedish".

If you want to say "I guess" as in "I believe, I suppose", which is what I assume you mean, then you need to use a different verb, such as att anta (which means "to suppose"). So the correct sentence is:

Jag antar att bara svenskar talar svenska.

ändå jag studerar svenska.
This should be ändå studerar jag svenska.

In Swedish, there are lots of situations in which the normal subject-verb-object word order is changed. This is one of them: you've moved the adverb.

Normally, you place adverbs after the verb. However, in both English and Swedish, it is possible - though a bit unusual - to place the adverb elsewhere:

Han sprang snabbt = "He ran quickly".
Snabbt sprang han = "Quickly he ran".

As you can see, the latter case puts more emphasis on the adverb. This is exactly what you're doing in your sentence; you want to emphasise the fact that you study Swedish in spite of something that's been mentioned earlier, so you put ändå in the beginning of the sentence rather than after the verb.

As you can also see, however, doing this in Swedish means that you have to reverse the word order; instead of han sprang, you now have sprang han. Similarly, in your sentence, jag studerar becomes studerar jag:

Ändå studerar jag svenska.

fan, blir mitt svenska bättre?
Remember when I said that svenska was an uncountable noun, so you treat it as if the gender was neuter? Well, it's no longer an uncountable noun because you applied a determiner to it (a possessive determiner), so its real gender now applies! Since svenska is common gender, you should be saying min svenska instead of mitt svenska:

Fan, blir min svenska bättre?

naturligtvis, jag är säker att mitt grammatik är mycket dåligt.
Naturligtvis is an adverb just like ändå, so the same rule applies: if you move it to the front of the sentence, you have to reverse the word order (jag är naturligtvis säker [...] becomes naturligtvis är jag säker [...]).

The adjective "sure" does translate into säker, but when you want to say that you are sure of something, then you have to add the preposition :

Jag är säker = "I am sure".
Jag är säker det = "I am sure of it".

You're not just saying that you're sure; you're saying you're sure of a specific thing (namely, that your grammar is poor); therefore, you have to say jag är säker på att...

Lastly, grammatik is common gender, not neuter; therefore, mitt grammatik är mycket dåligt should be min grammatik är mycket dålig. Do note, however, that grammatik is usually an uncountable noun; it's not now, however, because you added a determiner to it.

The correct sentence is:

Naturligtvis är jag säker på att min grammatik är mycket dålig.

jag tror ändå att spanska är skitigt
As explained earlier, you should use jag tycker instead of jag tror, because you're expressing an opinion as opposed to an uncertain belief (right?); also, skitigt means "grimy, dirty" and is an inappropriate adjective.

åh, tack! tycker jag, haha.
Here, you want to use tror jag instead of tycker jag, because now you're expressing uncertainty as opposed to an opinion.

Google Translate är inte väldigt bra ... men det är bra för mig, jag gissar.
Det är bra för mig means "it's good for me". I'm not sure what you intended this to mean, so I can't correct this sentence for you, but I don't think you wanted to say that Google Translate is healthy/beneficial for you.

As explained earlier, jag gissar should be antar jag; you need to reverse the word order, and here gissa doesn't mean the same thing as "guess".

Google Translate är inte väldigt bra... men det är bra för mig, antar jag.

och jo, jag visste om engelskan tinget, men jag pratar inte mycket med svenskar. :(
While ting does mean "thing", it's a very rare word; the most commonly used word is sak, and grej in informal settings. Here, grej is the only alternative that really fits, because you're being quite informal ("I knew about the English thing").

As you probably know, we use compound nouns a lot in Swedish; while you say "the English thing", we say "the Englishthing". In fact, splitting compounds when you're not supposed to is one of the most common (and annoying!) errors people make around here. So engelskan tinget is definitely out of the question.

The correct way of phrasing it would be either jag visste om engelskgrejen or jag visste om engelskagrejen or jag visste om engelska-grejen.

When you form a compound and one of the words ends with -a, the -a ending typically disappears (assuming it's not the last word, of course). For example:

flicka = "girl".
kläder = "clothes".
flickkläder = "girls' clothing".

But for some reason, when it comes to the names of languages (engelska, svenska, franska etc), people tend to overlook this rule. In fact, we can't even agree on how to say "English teacher"; should it be engelsklärare or engelskalärare? The general consensus is that engelsklärare is better because it follows the established rule, but languages evolve over time, as you know...

Then there's also the option of hyphenating. Normally we don't use hyphens when we compound, but there are a few exceptions where it's needed for clarity. I'm sceptical as to whether this is one of those cases, but my gut tells me it looks good with a hyphen.

So yes, I'd say all three of engelskgrejen, engelskagrejen and engelska-grejen would be acceptable under ordinary circumstances (a linguist or Swedish teacher would probably be of a different opinion; sorry I can't be of much help here).

So that leaves us with something along these lines:

Och jo, jag visste om engelska-grejen, men jag pratar inte mycket med svenskar.

VPLJ, jo, svenska är ganska lätt. är lättare än Ryska, naturligtvis.
There's no subject in the second sentence; add det and you're done. Oh, and no capital R.

Det är lättare än ryska, naturligtvis.

kanske MD eller jag kunde lära dig några.
Några vad? The word några means "some, a few", but you're referring to the Swedish language; you can't teach someone "a few Swedish". You can, however, teach someone "a little Swedish", so you need to use lite, which means "a little".

Kanske MD eller jag kunde lära dig lite.

jag är inte valdig bra på att prata svenska men ... jag vet inte.
Valdig isn't a word; you're thinking of väldigt.

Jag är inte väldigt bra på att prata svenska men...

p.s. använda Google Translate
Använda is the infinitive, but you should be using the imperative, which is använd.

Använd Google Translate.

i know this is hypocritical since English is very guilty of this, but the flexibility of Swedish's prepositions confounds me.
How so?
 
Having read your post, MD, you're really selling Swedish to me, you know? It looks excellent.
 
I recognise half the Swedish things... We do them the same way here, haha... Pity I don't know the words.
 
Oh my god. I remember the French oral like it was yesterday. O.O
I remember picking, for reasons unknown even to myself, the topic of health to talk about, and I basically said that everything was "bon pour ma coer".

Oh god, me too... I have literally never been more nervous for anything else in my life. It wasn't even that important, I think I got a C overall for GCSE and never did any more, but it was so nerve-wracking.

We didn't get to pick our topics! We had to learn about six and then three would be chosen at random. So basically we needed to memorise double the amount of work required just in case it came up. :| I recall a lot about... going on holiday. And playing football last weekend with my imaginary brother.
 
första, jag riktigt gillade posten. it was well thought-out and very useful. tack så mycket. jag antar jag göra mer fel än jag borde, haha, men jag känner sig jag tala det mycket bättre nu, särskilt med din hjälp.

You're doing fairly well considering you're not taking classes or anything, Zuu. (Or are you?)

nej, inga klasser (kurser?). men tack, jag älskar absolut att prata på svenska och språket sig också.


i guess i don't have good reason for it. annoys me sometimes, and i have basically never seen vid, but aside from that it's not bad. idk :V
 
J'envisage d'aller etudier (ou, plus accuratement, re-etudier) francais, mais dans un niveau avancé.

Mais j'ai aussi l'idee d'apprendre une langue differente. J'ai pas fait mon choix.

Il y a une personne qui peut m'aider avec ça?
 
Swedish yay! Lemme dissect a post, too! Unlike MD, I actually can claim to be a Swedish teacher (well, I study to be one... I'm not quite there yet).

första, jag riktigt gillade posten.

First, you want to say först. Första is the definite article, litterally meaning the first.

This is generally not enough, however. We don't preface sentences with just först - you need an expression similar to first of all or to begin with. These translate to först av allt and till att börja med, respectively.

As for the second clause, really in this case translates to verkligen. The word riktigt is closer to real. Then, the adverb comes after the verb: jag gillade verkligen posten. Swedish word order gets wonky, but as this is a prototypical clause, you use the standard SVAO word order.

jag antar jag göra mer fel än jag borde, haha, men jag känner sig jag tala det mycket bättre nu, särskilt med din hjälp.

Here, it's "jag antar att jag gör fler fel än jag borde". Simply, att means that: I guess that I'm....

While you generally can use mer instead of fler (not the other way around, though), it could be good to note the difference between them. Fler is when it's about more of something countable, while mer is more of something uncountable. Both obviously translate to more.

Jag vill studera mer svenska.​
I want to study more Swedish.​

Vill du ha mer kaffe?​
Do you want more coffee?​

Swedish and coffee both being uncountables.

Jag vill studera fler ämnen.​
I want to study more subjects.​

Vill du ha fler kakor?
Do you want more cookies?

Subjects and cookies being countables. And let's add another example for good measure:

Vill du ha en kaka till?
Do you want one more cookie?

When it's about (number) more (countable), we don't use the word fler at all. We say (nummer) till which can only be translated as (number) more, while clearly literally meaning (number) to. It's probably derived from "do you want to add one cookie to the total?"

nej, inga klasser (kurser?). men tack, jag älskar absolut att prata på svenska och språket sig också.

The word you're looking for here would be lektioner - lessons. Klass only means group, as in the ones who go to a class, or year, as in which year they're in.

Klass 9 är trevliga på lektionerna!
(the pupils in) Year 9 are nice in class!

And kurs is still course. Attend a course - gå/läsa en kurs.

The rest is good until "språket sig". You either want to say själva språket (the language itself) or "språket i sig" (the language in itself).

Finally, you should begin every sentence with a capital letter :p
 
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