The German and Swedish languages?

Question

I have a friend who is from Sweden and speaks fluent Swedish (her native language along with English). One day at school, I had opened someones history book to a page with some German on it and she could understand it. She was telling me how it looks like the Swedish word just a letter or two off. I was wondering if Swedes could understand a German if they were to come to Sweden or can they only read it? Is it possible that that word could have just happened to be a word almost the same because it was borrowed from German or something. I am aware that both languages are Germanic languages and some words do look really similar to me (for example Natt and Nacht, Bok and Buch, Tag and Dag). When I hear Swedish spoken, it just sounds like a softer version of german. Oh, I also wanted to know which Scandinavian language should I learn. I'm thinking of Norwegian but I'm not sure.

Answer 1

Swedish and german have lots of words in common it is a bit easy to understand written german,not spoken... after all swedish is a germanic language ,, swedish and norwegian are very similar as well they are closer thou as back in the old times nborway was invaded by sweden so they say here norwegian talk old swedish...I personally love swedish i think it sounds nicer than norwegian less gutural than danish and not so complicated like finnish....good luck!

BTW finnish has nothing in common with swe Nor or danish...it is another world!

Answer 2

I think that German and Swedish are sufficiently different, such that a Swede with no prior knowledge of German would have some (but not extensive) trouble understanding spoken German. Some words are indeed similar in written and spoken form, in the same way that some English words are similar to their German counterparts, but other words are totally different. Consonant pronunciations are also slightly different.

The similarity between Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish (not sure about Finnish as well) is very high. I've done a little self-study in Norwegian and can strike up a basic conversation in it, but had no trouble at all reading simple sentences in Danish. As for German, I couldn't really say, since I had taken a year of college German earlier, and therefore have prior knowledge of how it is spoken and written. Norwegian is a relatively easy language to learn (especially with prior German experience, and native English speaking skills), and it's always cool that I could understand most simple spoken Swedish, just from knowing Norwegian. :)

Answer 3

Nope that doesn't work for me, I'm Swedish and since I never took much German in school I can't understand that much of it at all. (well, probably more than e.g. Chinese but that wasn't the question) Written German is ok, because you might understand a few words and fill in the rest by good imagination.

Some words are borrowed from German, some words just have the same origin (if it's borrowed it was borrowed a very long time ago before German was the German spoken today) and some words the Swedish language and the German language respectively might have borrowed from french or some other Latin language.

What Scandinavian language to choose is hard to tell, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish is very much alike or share a lot of words (more than Swedish and German) and by learning one of those languages you might get understood in all three countries. (Though my recommendation is to focus on one of them, it can easily become a sort of mush more than a language if you try to learn more than one language at the same time, especially when they are so alike.)

Norwegian might be easier because more words is pronounced the way they are spelled. Swedish might be more useful since there are more Swedish-speakers in the world (including parts of Finland) and Danish have some similarities to German pronunciation (at least I recon so) and might therefor be the right way to go.

Answer 4

I moved to Sweden from Switzerland (the German speaking part) speaking no Swedish, and very little German. I could read German enough to navigate a grocery store, or a restaurant, but speaking it was very hard, especially with the swiss variations in vocabulary and accent. Most of my friends there were other expats, so I didn't really get enough exposure to German to learn it well, and whatGerman I already knew before moving there was high german, not swiss.

Interestingly as I learnt Swedish, my german improved markedly. The vocabulary is often quite alike, enough that I can read say, a trade journal about my industry in German..

As a note to the answerer before me, it's interesting to note that when Norwegian and Swedish differ in vocabulary, Norwegian is more likely to have a word that sounds like the English, and Swedish to have one that is like German. A good example of that is "Window" in English, "Vindu" in Norwegian, but "Fönster" and "Fenster" in Swedish and German respectively.

Anyway, Swedish and English and the fact half of Swedes do at least a year or two of German in high school, leads to not so much the ability to "read" (as in, read word for word) a page of German. Rather it gives you the tools to "be able to figure out what it's saying". Nearly, but not quite, the same thing, but often good enough.

Answer 5

Regarding your question about which one to chose...
I am currently learning Norwegian bokmål. Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are closely related. With my knowledge of Norwegian I can already understand some things in Danish and Swedish.
Joking, someone said that Norwegian is Danish spoken in Swedish.
Danish and Norwegian look very alike. But Swedish and Norwegian sound very alike.
Also, the Norwegian I am learning is not so different from the other Norwegian, nynorsk.
Regarding material available... Swedish has a LOT more. It is not so common to find Norwegian dictionaries. At least not where I live. and in my city there is a Swedish course, but not a Norwegian or Danish one.
I like Norwegian the most though.

Answer 6

This is completely true. I am a Norwegian and I can understand a whole lot of both Swedish, Danish, German and Dutch. I comes in really handy, seeing how German is a pretty important language and everything. I think you should definately learn Norwegian (of course I do, I'm Norwegian myself). It's a fascinating language, with so many different dialects to choose from. Well, good luck! :-)

Answer 7

Fascinating question! And I was wondering the same thing myself. Swedish characters and phonetics are a thing apart from high German. No question about it. It's probably the same root, but how close, is the real issue. All these peoples, I think, migranted westward over thousands of years to establish ultimately who they are today. I can't give you a definitive answer because I want to study German but haven't formally started yet. I can speak some French and Spanish and have heard blatant similarities of certain words ... in Russian! ( Of all things. )
Dobre noche. Buenas noches. Good night. Let's remember the same thing applies to english. The Angles were a German tribe ultimately settling on the British Isles severally. Ultimately, I think we all come from the same place so that helps explain the little mysteries of origin. Hope this helps even a little.

Answer 8

The same is true with Italian and Spanish, even though they sound a little different they are both rooted in Latin and when in text form they are easily read.