Currently using Busuu for Spanish, German, French, and Russian and would like advice on other languages to take up learning whether Busuu has them or if not I’ll then use Tandem.
Currently using Busuu for Spanish, German, French, and Russian and would like advice on other languages to take up learning whether Busuu has them or if not I’ll then use Tandem.
I’ve been learning Norwegian on and off for some time now. What I always found interesting is how much I can understand from written Swedish and Danish (+ Nynorsk) while still having difficulty with even basic spoken Norwegian if it isn’t the most common Oslo accent.
I think that’s probably also due to the fact that the most dominant dialect in Norwegian media seems to be the one from Bergen, somehow half of the country’s actors, comedians and other celebrities are from there, so there is a way above average online presence there. And Bergans is the hardest Norwegian accent to understand (the Ylvis brothers for example speak Bergans). It’s closer related to Danish than any other Norwegian dialect.
On the other side, Norway has some 500 local dialects that differ slightly from one another, when I was living there people always tried to guess which region I was from, and nobody actually thought I’m not Norwegian at all, so that was fun.
If you want to practice your listening skills a bit, I’d really recommend watching Kongen Befaler (the Norwegian version of the Taskmaster comedy franchise). The Taskmaster subreddit has direct downloads in their wiki, also for the Swedish version (Bäst i Test) and Denmark (Stormester). Unfortunately there isn’t a community on Lemmy and I’m lacking the time and commitment to start one myself.
That’s some perfect timing as I came across Kongen Befaler like three days ago. It seems the reddit links also have subtitles which is really useful, thanks. And yeah I’ve also noticed a lot of actors and singers seem to have a more western accent. Duolingo definitely doesn’t prepare you for that.