Language Relationships | Golden Skate

Language Relationships

CaroLiza_fan

EZETTIE LATUASV IVAKMHA
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As requested by surimi, the OP of the Retirements thread, the posts about languages have now been moved / copied into this new thread.

I am really sorry for de-railing the Retirements thread. I honestly didn't expect it to become a full-blown conversation!

CaroLiza_fan
 

CaroLiza_fan

EZETTIE LATUASV IVAKMHA
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I think Camilla Gjersem has just posted she was retiring? I can't speak Norwegian though, just guessing.

I don't speak Norwegian either, and Google Translate hasn't been playing ball for the past week or so (has anybody else been having this problem?)

But, the post you are referring to certainly looks like it could be a retirement announcement:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BxZiDhpoKD2/

CaroLiza_fan
 

pohatta

On the Ice
Joined
Mar 15, 2005
Yes Camilla is retiring. I know Swedish well enough to understand most of her post, but not well enough to translate.
 

CaroLiza_fan

EZETTIE LATUASV IVAKMHA
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Oct 25, 2012
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Northern-Ireland
Yes Camilla is retiring. I know Swedish well enough to understand most of her post, but not well enough to translate.

Thank you for the confirmation that she is retiring. I'll miss seeing the twins. :cry:

And thank you for confirming something else I have often wondered too.

Over the years, I have seen many Norwegians and Swedes having full-blown conversations to each other after ski sport competitions, but not in one of the usual languages I would recognise. And this made me wonder if Norwegian and Swedish were similar enough to each other that it was easy for a speaker of one to understand somebody speaking the other.

Of course, there could have been the simpler explanation of there being bi-lingual people in there and they were all speaking the same language. But I was still curious.

:thank:

CaroLiza_fan
 
Joined
Mar 21, 2018
Country
Norway
Thank you for the confirmation that she is retiring. I'll miss seeing the twins. :cry:

And thank you for confirming something else I have often wondered too.

Over the years, I have seen many Norwegians and Swedes having full-blown conversations to each other after ski sport competitions, but not in one of the usual languages I would recognise. And this made me wonder if Norwegian and Swedish were similar enough to each other that it was easy for a speaker of one to understand somebody speaking the other.

Of course, there could have been the simpler explanation of there being bi-lingual people in there and they were all speaking the same language. But I was still curious.

:thank:

CaroLiza_fan

As for the bi-lingual thing, mostly norwegians and swedes understand each other, both spoken and writing, but as far as I understand the youngest one (norwegians) have some problems understanding it, because they have started dubbing a lot of the swedish and danish televisionprograms :( I have no problem understanding both danish and swedish language, I but I know a lot of norwegians have a little trouble with the danish, particularly the spoken one. Mostly norwegians find the swedish language easier then the danish one, at least the spoken one. I don´t know about the swedes though, if this language thing is the same way for them. I´m not sure if swedes understand danish as good as us or even find norwegian spoken/written easy? If you have questions about the language I will be more then happy to tell :)
 

maggieanne

Rinkside
Joined
May 25, 2018
Country
United-States
As for the bi-lingual thing, mostly norwegians and swedes understand each other, both spoken and writing, but as far as I understand the youngest one (norwegians) have some problems understanding it, because they have started dubbing a lot of the swedish and danish televisionprograms :( I have no problem understanding both danish and swedish language, I but I know a lot of norwegians have a little trouble with the danish, particularly the spoken one. Mostly norwegians find the swedish language easier then the danish one, at least the spoken one. I don´t know about the swedes though, if this language thing is the same way for them. I´m not sure if swedes understand danish as good as us or even find norwegian spoken/written easy? If you have questions about the language I will be more then happy to tell :)

Wow! This is super interesting! I can’t even imagine just being able to understand another language due similarity and exposure. I took French for five years and I still have so much trouble understanding it spoken.
I love learning random info about the world on here.
 

Icebethy

Rinkside
Joined
May 29, 2014
Country
Wales
As for the bi-lingual thing, mostly norwegians and swedes understand each other, both spoken and writing, but as far as I understand the youngest one (norwegians) have some problems understanding it, because they have started dubbing a lot of the swedish and danish televisionprograms :( I have no problem understanding both danish and swedish language, I but I know a lot of norwegians have a little trouble with the danish, particularly the spoken one. Mostly norwegians find the swedish language easier then the danish one, at least the spoken one. I don´t know about the swedes though, if this language thing is the same way for them. I´m not sure if swedes understand danish as good as us or even find norwegian spoken/written easy? If you have questions about the language I will be more then happy to tell :)

:eek:topic: It depends where the Swedish grew up, I know some from south Sweden who study in Denmark. Plus the southern Swedish dialects is closer to Danish but those living closer to Norway find Norwegian easier. As someone who is learning Swedish I can make out some words in both Danish and Norwegian to get the basic topic spoken but not the full story written/spoken about
 

CaroLiza_fan

EZETTIE LATUASV IVAKMHA
Record Breaker
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Oct 25, 2012
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Northern-Ireland
As for the bi-lingual thing, mostly norwegians and swedes understand each other, both spoken and writing, but as far as I understand the youngest one (norwegians) have some problems understanding it, because they have started dubbing a lot of the swedish and danish televisionprograms :( I have no problem understanding both danish and swedish language, I but I know a lot of norwegians have a little trouble with the danish, particularly the spoken one. Mostly norwegians find the swedish language easier then the danish one, at least the spoken one. I don´t know about the swedes though, if this language thing is the same way for them. I´m not sure if swedes understand danish as good as us or even find norwegian spoken/written easy? If you have questions about the language I will be more then happy to tell :)

Ach, that's not right. I have never been a fan of television programmes being dubbed. I much prefer translations to be provided as subtitles (provided they stay on screen long enough for you to read them! :rolleye: ), because it means that people that do speak the language can get to hear the actual person speaking, and pick up extra little things that get lost when somebody else is speaking it in a different language. Plus, having translated subtitles in conjunction with hearing the original can actually help you to learn the language, whereas dubbing actively prevents you from doing so.

That is such a pity about the kids today. There is so many advantages of being able to understand other languages, especially if the language is that of a neighbouring country.

There aren't too many Danes in the sports I follow, so I haven't actually noticed them talking with the Norwegians and Swedes. But, I have been looking at a lot of Danish websites recently (I was trying to find a good on-ice picture of a certain skater I have adopted who will be competing in the Second Semi Final of the Eurovision Song Contest on Thursday), and even I could see how similar it looked to Norwegian.

Wow! This is super interesting! I can’t even imagine just being able to understand another language due similarity and exposure. I took French for five years and I still have so much trouble understanding it spoken.
I love learning random info about the world on here.

It doesn't happen too often, and largely arises due to countries having a shared history. In the case of Norway, they were in union with Denmark for quite a few centuries. And then when this got broken up, they went into union with Sweden.

Another example is Finnish and Estonian. For a lot of their history they were ruled together, albeit under the control of neighbouring empires (Sweden, Russia). I am not too familiar with either language, but that Eurosport Suomi is the version broadcast in both countries probably says it all.

An example I am more familiar with seeing, though, is Czech and Slovak. In many cases, there are only minor spelling differences in words. Of course, they were one country for most of the 20[SUP]th[/SUP] Century. Admittedly before that, the Czech lands were part of Austria, while Slovakia was part of Hungary. But, they were still under the same overall rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

As for your quip about your own experience, I can totally relate! I learnt French for 5 years too, and German for 3 years. And whilst I wasn't too bad at reading and writing French, I never mastered the art of understanding people speaking it. I think they were just talking too fast for my brain to process what was being said.

The less said about the German the better! I always wanted to learn it, and did really well at it in my first year. But then we had a change of teacher, from a woman who had been teaching languages for years, to a guy who was straight out of Uni. Really nice guy (and great taste in music!), but just not enough experience at teaching. And I really struggled as a result.

CaroLiza_fan
 

deneuved

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 1, 2013
Wow! This is super interesting! I can’t even imagine just being able to understand another language due similarity and exposure. I took French for five years and I still have so much trouble understanding it spoken.
I love learning random info about the world on here.

There is a similar thing here with German and Dutch. I live near the Dutch border and I have no problems understanding Dutch as it is very similar to our local German dialect. I'd say I'd even understand 99% of it. Speaking it is a little more complicated but usually German and Dutch people who live near both sides of the border speak their own language and the other has no problem understanding it. I think for example Swiss-German (which is supposed to be the same language, albeit in dialect) is WAY harder for me to understand than Dutch :)
 

Anni234

Ina Bauer
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Joined
Jan 29, 2015
Country
Estonia
Another example is Finnish and Estonian. For a lot of their history they were ruled together, albeit under the control of neighbouring empires (Sweden, Russia). I am not too familiar with either language, but that Eurosport Suomi is the version broadcast in both countries probably says it all.

CaroLiza_fan

Sorry to continue with the OT. As a native speaker of Estonian I confirm that Finnish and Estonian do sound similar, but if I hear or read Finnish, I can understand no more than a few words, never the context. I think Scandinavian languages are more close in this regard. [emoji5]

As for Eurosport, I have only ever seen UK Eurosport being broadcasted (unless you also order Finnish channels of course).
 

pohatta

On the Ice
Joined
Mar 15, 2005
Sorry to continue with the OT. As a native speaker of Estonian I confirm that Finnish and Estonian do sound similar, but if I hear or read Finnish, I can understand no more than a few words, never the context. I think Scandinavian languages are more close in this regard. [emoji5]

In the Soviet era Estonians (especially in Tallinn) watched a lot of Finnish tv, it was "a window to the west". There's a great documentary about it.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1421032/
 

CaroLiza_fan

EZETTIE LATUASV IVAKMHA
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Joined
Oct 25, 2012
Country
Northern-Ireland
Sorry to continue with the OT. As a native speaker of Estonian I confirm that Finnish and Estonian do sound similar, but if I hear or read Finnish, I can understand no more than a few words, never the context. I think Scandinavian languages are more close in this regard. [emoji5]

As for Eurosport, I have only ever seen UK Eurosport being broadcasted (unless you also order Finnish channels of course).

Thank you so much for that information (I was actually hoping you would reply! :) )

That is interesting that you are getting the English language version of Eurosport. How long has that been the case? Because back in the days when the Eurosport website had a decent TV listings page, there was a menu where you could select which country you were in. And if you selected Estonia, it took you to the Eurosport Suomi listings.

It was that menu that the first table I use in my TV listings post is based on. So, it looks like I'm going to have to make changes to my post for next season, seeing as I now know the information is out of date.

Thank you for letting me know, as I would have been none the wiser.

In the Soviet era Estonians (especially in Tallinn) watched a lot of Finnish tv, it was "a window to the west". There's a great documentary about it.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1421032/

Ah, never thought of it like that!

Yes, having knowledge of Finnish would have been a major advantage for Estonians getting a rounder view of what is going on in the world.

I like stories like this. So, thank you for telling us that.

CaroLiza_fan
 

LRK

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 13, 2012
As for the bi-lingual thing, mostly norwegians and swedes understand each other, both spoken and writing, but as far as I understand the youngest one (norwegians) have some problems understanding it, because they have started dubbing a lot of the swedish and danish televisionprograms :( I have no problem understanding both danish and swedish language, I but I know a lot of norwegians have a little trouble with the danish, particularly the spoken one. Mostly norwegians find the swedish language easier then the danish one, at least the spoken one. I don´t know about the swedes though, if this language thing is the same way for them. I´m not sure if swedes understand danish as good as us or even find norwegian spoken/written easy? If you have questions about the language I will be more then happy to tell :)

As someone whose first language is Swedish - from around the Stockholm area - I can say that I find Norwegian far easier to understand than spoken Danish, which I find pretty much incomprehensible. Written Danish I can understand quite well, though - it is quite similar to 19th century Swedish in spelling. (Swedish spelling was modernised during, I believe, the early 20th century.) The thing about Danish is that they swallow quite a lot of the word when speaking, which I think is why it is difficult for many of us non-Danes to understand the pronunciation, rather than the words themselves being too different.
 

amanuenssi

Rinkside
Joined
Dec 20, 2014
It was quite funny that in the famous fictive criminal tv-series "the Bridge" the Swedish and the Danish police officers understood each other fluently while the one was speaking Swedish and the other was speaking Danish. And the tv-spectators even in Finland knew it couldn't be true.
 

skylark

Gazing at a Glorious Great Lakes sunset
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Aug 12, 2014
Country
United-States
An example I am more familiar with seeing, though, is Czech and Slovak. In many cases, there are only minor spelling differences in words. Of course, they were one country for most of the 20[SUP]th[/SUP] Century. Admittedly before that, the Czech lands were part of Austria, while Slovakia was part of Hungary. But, they were still under the same overall rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

I did a double-take when I saw this, very belatedly. My one and only discussion of the Czech and Slovak languages came at a Wedding Rehearsal dinner when I sat beside the bride's mother, who was 90-something. The bride was 72, and her mother planned the whole kit and caboodle! This was maybe 1999. The woman was Slovakian; she'd emigrated as a child before World War I; the family had continued to speak Slovakian in their neighborhood-church-community. Finally, after 1989 she took her grown children to visit "the old country." They found they couldn't understand some, even a lot of the Slovakian spoken in their home country, because according to her, the Czech influence had dominated in the intervening years, which was most of the 20th century.


:hijacked:
 

CaroLiza_fan

EZETTIE LATUASV IVAKMHA
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Joined
Oct 25, 2012
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Northern-Ireland
I did a double-take when I saw this, very belatedly. My one and only discussion of the Czech and Slovak languages came at a Wedding Rehearsal dinner when I sat beside the bride's mother, who was 90-something. The bride was 72, and her mother planned the whole kit and caboodle! This was maybe 1999. The woman was Slovakian; she'd emigrated as a child before World War I; the family had continued to speak Slovakian in their neighborhood-church-community. Finally, after 1989 she took her grown children to visit "the old country." They found they couldn't understand some, even a lot of the Slovakian spoken in their home country, because according to her, the Czech influence had dominated in the intervening years, which was most of the 20th century.


:hijacked:

Aha! Thank you so much for your reply, skylark. Because that is something that has been puzzling me for years, ever since I first noticed the similarities in the two languages.

As I said towards the end of the bit you quoted, what became Czechoslovakia had been part of Austria-Hungary. But, the Dual Monarchy had only actually been in place for about 60 years before the war. The Czech lands had been ruled by Austria for centuries, while Slovakia had been ruled by Hungary for centuries. And during the period of the Dual Monarchy, they continued to be ruled separately. So, I couldn't quite work out how the languages had managed to develop together.

So, from your story, it appears that it was only during the period that Czechoslovakia existed that the languages became so, well, identical. Wow! Of course, it makes things easier if everybody in what was now a single country could understand each other. But it is amazing that a language can change so fundamentally in such a short time. Like, Czechoslovakia only existed for 80 years - that is only a couple of generations!

Thinking of English, it took nearly a millennium to get from something that is pretty-much incomprehensible to modern-day speakers to what we have today. Yet with Slovakian, it took less than a century.

That is just mind-boggling.

Thank you so much for telling us that story. :thank:

And can I just say, the context of the story is inspiring too. Fair play to both the bride and her mother! The bride for getting married in her 70's, and the mother for organising a wedding in her 90's!

:bow: :bow: :bow:

CaroLiza_fan
 

flanker

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 10, 2018
Country
Czech-Republic
I did a double-take when I saw this, very belatedly. My one and only discussion of the Czech and Slovak languages came at a Wedding Rehearsal dinner when I sat beside the bride's mother, who was 90-something. The bride was 72, and her mother planned the whole kit and caboodle! This was maybe 1999. The woman was Slovakian; she'd emigrated as a child before World War I; the family had continued to speak Slovakian in their neighborhood-church-community. Finally, after 1989 she took her grown children to visit "the old country." They found they couldn't understand some, even a lot of the Slovakian spoken in their home country, because according to her, the Czech influence had dominated in the intervening years, which was most of the 20th century.


:hijacked:

As a Czech, I don't think this has something to do with "Czech influence", that "dominated in the intervening years". I bet that many Czech people with the similar story would have hard times to understand the language now even when they kept speaking czech within their community abroad. E. g. there is Volhynian Czechs community in Ukraine who has of course difficulties to understand people in the Czech Republic (and vice versa) - more than Czechs and Slovaks has to understand each other :)
 

CaroLiza_fan

EZETTIE LATUASV IVAKMHA
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Oct 25, 2012
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Northern-Ireland
As a Czech, I don't think this has something to do with "Czech influence", that "dominated in the intervening years". I bet that many Czech people with the similar story would have hard times to understand the language now even when they kept speaking czech within their community abroad. E. g. there is Volhynian Czechs community in Ukraine who has of course difficulties to understand people in the Czech Republic (and vice versa) - more than Czechs and Slovaks has to understand each other :)

Very interesting. So the Czech language has evolved as well.

You know, after reading your reply, I wish peg was still here. It would have been interesting to hear whether she had noticed or even experienced something similar, being a Czech who has lived in Canada for many, many years.

CaroLiza_fan
 

flanker

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 10, 2018
Country
Czech-Republic
Very interesting. So the Czech language has evolved as well.

You know, after reading your reply, I wish peg was still here. It would have been interesting to hear whether she had noticed or even experienced something similar, being a Czech who has lived in Canada for many, many years.

CaroLiza_fan

Generally there is a difference between two groups of Czechs who live abroad - esp. in US or Canada:
- people who left country during times of Austro-Hungarian rule, between wars and soon after the WWII/1948 - those people mostly kept their cultural heritage and were proud of it, lived in communities of people talking the same language etc.
- people who left after 1968 and later - those people mostly subsumed into the foreign environment and their ability to speak czech has weakened pretty soon (esp. among athletes like tennis player Ivan Lendl - he soon gained very strong american-english accent taht it was funny to hear him speaking czech, it was like listening a foreigner who gained some ability to speak czech :) ).
 
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