I was going to separate these two, but after thinking about it, I decided against it. There are wayyyyyyyyy too many similarities to be able to have two informative entries without them looking like identical twins.
Instead, what I'm going to do is explain both, and show you the minute differences that I've found.
First off, Norsk=Norwegian and is spoken in Norway. Svenska=Swedish and of course is spoken in Sweden.
The two languages remind me a lot of German, and here's why. When you're making a statement, such as "you understand...", you say,
German: Sie verstehen
Swedish: Du förstår
Norwegian: Du forstår
But when you want to turn "You understand" into "Do you understand?" you switch the subject and the verb, so (leaving out German this time):
Swedish: Förstår du...?
Norwegian: Forstår du...?
Sidenote..Just because the Swedish version of the word "understand" has an extra sign doesn't necessarily mean there is a different pronunciation than its Norwegian counterpart. They sound identical. Jeg and Jag sound similar too. Jeg sounds like "Yai", and Jag sounds like "Yahg" with the g not as strong and glottal.
Because these languages have a lot of other similarities that I won't get into right now, I think the main thing for me right now (especially since I just started), is the fact that for Norwegian, language names end in 'sk', such as Engelsk, Spansk, or Portugisisk. In Swedish, they end in 'ska', so Engelska, Spanska, or Portugisiska.
They really aren't that difficult, and are actually quite beautiful. I've seen the writings of both of these and had no idea how to pronounce them, but now that I'm learning, I think these will be two more that I fall in love with. I'm betting Danish and Finnish sound pretty similar to these two also, but I don't have any resources for them yet :(.
As always, constructive tips, comments, and questions are welcomed!
See you later,
Your Favorite Polyglot
Twitter: @mistercapoeira
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