Swedish is my fifth language and now I am studying German (which would be my 11th) and Old Norse, that's why it is easy for me to understand faroese although I am not too much acquainted with the pronounciation, nor anybody that speaks Swedish as a mother tongue. Although Kurdish and Northern Germanic languaghes are quite different from each they still have many common words and grammatical forms, such as horse (häst in Swedish, hestr in Old Norse and hesp in Kurdish), fox (räv in Swedish and rêvî in Kurdish) lake (göl in old Swedish and gol in Kurdish) , ant (myra Swedish, Myro Kurdish) brother (broder Swedish, brader Kurdish) although both languages have two different writing systems the prononuciation is almost alike.
Thank you heimspekingur. I finally get to visit the Faroe Islands this year (after waiting so long!), and it was great to have a first lesson. For an English speaker, the language is quite hard, and I'm sure you (the Faroese) will laugh when I try, but that's okay. It was perfect that you pronounced the phrases both in normal speed and slowed down. That helps A LOT. Thank you.
Faroese is a Norse / Scandinavian / Nordic language, so it is very similar to Norwegian! I highly recommend learning all the Norse languages and Norse-influenced languages 2gether, including Norse / Gothic / Icelandic / Faroese / Dutch / Norwegian / Forn Svenska / Danish / Welsh / Breton / Cornish as they are the prettiest languages ever that are as pretty as English, definitely a must-know for every learner! I love these languages, and am beginner level in Faroese at the moment, but I can actually understand almost every word in most videos, because I am advanced level in Icelandic and Norwegian and upper advanced level in Norse and upper advanced level in Dutch!
Im Norwegian and was expecting to understand almost nothing, but this was really similar to Norwegian and i would probably be able to go about my day in the Faroe Islands without any big problems.
The pronunciation is very different in Faroese, and they are not 100% mutually intelligible, but most words are cognates tho, so it’s usually easy to understand the written language! I am advanced level in both Icelandic and Norwegian and close to advanced level in Norse at the moment, and also, am upper advanced level in Dutch, beginner level in Faroese and Gothic and Danish tho I can understand almost every new word I see in Faroese, mid intermediate level in Welsh and Swedish and a few other languages, and in most newer languages I am beginner level! By the way, I highly recommend learning the prettiest languages ever created Norse / Gothic / Icelandic / Faroese / English / Dutch / Norwegian / Danish / Welsh / Breton / Cornish together, as they are way too pretty not to know!
Faroese is a Norse / Germanic language like Norse and Icelandic and Norwegian etc, and even English is mostly a Norse language, and all Germanic languages are super easy category 1 languages and the easiest languages to learn, even though any language is going to seem harder in the beginning, but the beginning is always the hardest, and after learning the first thousands of words automatically and all the sounds etc and getting used to the new patterns, one can see how easy it is to learn Norse-based words, Norse languages being the prettiest and most refined and most modern and most poetic and coolest languages ever created, with the most gorgeous words, which are naturally easy to memorize and learn, as one’s hern naturally learns the prettier and more distinctive words faster, plus super pretty and heavenly languages such as the Norse languages are naturally motivating, so one naturally wants to keep learning them, as their words are so pretty and so cool and so poetic! I am advanced level in both Icelandic and Norwegian and close to advanced level in Norse at the moment, and also, am upper advanced level in Dutch, beginner level in Faroese and Gothic and Danish tho I can understand almost every new word I see in Faroese, mid intermediate level in Welsh and Swedish and a few other languages, and in most newer languages I am beginner level! By the way, I highly recommend learning the prettiest languages ever created Norse / Gothic / Icelandic / Faroese / English / Dutch / Norwegian / Danish / Welsh / Breton / Cornish together, as they are way too pretty not to know!
I visited the Faroe Islands in 1972. Took a ferry from Esbjerg to Thorshavn. Stayed in a cabin about a mile and a half from a small town with the rest of the class.
As a rule of thumb, if there are two or more consonants after a vowel (with no vowel in between), the vowel is short, and if there's only one consonant following a vowel, it is long. Example: "ráð" (advice) has a long vowel, whereas "rátt" (raw) has a short one. There's an exception that comes to mind though: if an "a" is the last letter of a word as in "ráða" (to give advice), it is short. The same goes for "i". There are probably other exceptions that don't come to mind at the moment.
I think this is because the double consonant is an indication of thorough pronunciation of the consonant and so the requirement of another blow of air, this is common from English, to Italian. I am fascinated how it seems to be so natural for me the understanding of this language.
this language is so fascinating to me it's like a danish person trying to talk in norwegian but writes in icelandic?? I can understand faroese a 100% omfg
Firestar_16 if there by any chance could be any books you could by about the faroese language that would be good- the german and the faroese language are quite similar, so it should be a little easier for you than others(:
Im from Sweden and I can understand Norwegian/Faroese/Danish never heard Icelandic tho, but its pretty cool that you can have conversations with people all over Scandinavia just by knowing 1 of these languages :)
Hey.. Great little tutorial! It helps me out a lot in trying to understand the language. Im happy to finally learn a little faroese, before my next visit to the Islands.. Tusund Takk!!
I find the language extremely interesting, especially how the pronunciation has developed. It makes it so much harder to learn, but also more interesting!
That's a bit of a misconception. People who live in western Norway also speak Norwegian, just a different group og dialects. There are many dialects in Norway, but they are all considered to be Norwegian. The difference is that there are officially two ways of writing the language. Bokmål is the most common written form of Norwegian and is used in most parts of the country, but a minority of Norwegians use Nynorsk, which is extremely common in western Norway.
Holy shit! It's freaking me out because of how similar it is to my dialect (Northern-Norwegian) !! The actual words and the sentences! :O For example: Dæven han steike...It's...MY GOD...I have no words, much easier to understand than Icelandic :P
Am trying to learn the Faroe language ,these video help me learn some basic in the language thank you ,Am from Nigeria but i lived here in the Faroe island ,the language is beautiful but difficult to learn please make more videos thank you 😊
This is surprisingly similar to the Norwegian they spoke when I lived in Elnesvågen (Møre og Romsdal). The 'Hv' occasionally/often being pronounced with a 'K' sound, for example (Hvorfor = Kohfor), and a double 'K' being pronounced in that throaty way/etc. My ex girlfriend was from there, and her dialect was practically unintelligible to Norwegians in places like Oslo.
I have been to Møre og Romsdal and yeah, the people there speak Nynorsk which only SOUNDS like Faroese. Even though I grew up with Bokmål, I still understood them a little bit.
It would be so interesting being there as an English speaker with no translator. Sometimes they would say things I out of nowhere understand completely. Like "come in" I'd be like "wtf I understand you" haha
K and (hard) G are pronounced in the back of the mouth, and the vowels I and E are pronounced in the front of the mouth. So the combination clashes and in many languages K and G turn into something like CH (or S) and J respectively. Latin K (spelled C) turned into an S-like sound in French, Italian, Spanish, etc., that's why C before E and I sounds like S. Some Scandinavian languages have seen the same development but the modified K-sound is spelled K there, not C.
As a Sweden I understand quite a lot of what Faroese People say (of course, I speak Danish when there, but when eavesdropping on locals I get quite a lot)
I am an avid learner of the Scandinavian languages but the difference in pronunciation between Faroese and Icelandic is blowing my mind! O_O There are some clusters native to Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, and others which are unique, all at the same time! This language is intense! :)
I speak romanian and imagine how different is this to pronounce. Romanian words are quite sharp as you pronounce just as they are written (except for example, which is exemplu and exam, which is examen). I really stsrted to li!e scandinavian languages.
Faroese is really similar to Icelandic but the pronunciation is not. It's also pretty hilarious that we share some words but they don't mean the same thing. Like somebody told me that "afgangar" (which means leftovers of food or something in Icelandic) means cum in faroese... (hahah) that can be kinda confusing.
I'm from Germany and I learn my 6. foreign language: Swedish. Swedish and Faroese seem to be similar! I'd like to learn Faroese and was contacting someone. Maybe there is a position learning a small language online. Small languages are pretty interesting. Also Gaelic, Icelandic Letzeburgisch etc. Ich liebe Sprachen 💙 und Reisen 🧡🌍
Yes, it's almost like the Norwegian language, but not quite, but some of the Norwegian words and Faroes is the same such as Ja and Nei and other words too :) I'm from Aalesund, located on the west coast of Norway on Sunnmøre in Møre og Romsdal and now and then some ships from Nor-Cargo named Nordkinn, Nordvær and Summøre from Fareoe Islands is visiting my dear hometown to unload their cargoes or upload with cargoes to their ships :)
As a Norwegian it was super easy for me to pronounce most of these words as both the accent and pronounciations are extremely similar to the Norwegian one. Faroese is basicly Norwegian mixed with Icelandic. In fact, most of these words and expressions were nearly the same as, or very similar to Norwegian ones. Especially the swear words, it almost sounded like they took our swear words and altered them a little bit. Like for real XD Anyways, well done. I am very curious about the Faroese language and eager to learn a thing or two about it :)
The pronunciation sounds nothing like I'd expect for almost every word! The vowels are all over the place to my ears and wow, when you speak quickly?? :-O It sounds completely different from when spoken slowly, seems like entire chunks of works get completely dropped! "Yeh dooverah sindura foroyskum" but when done slowly it sounds like "Yeh doo-uh bar uh eye hh t sindur av foroyskum".
+VikingsRBloodyAwsome I really don’t get how you can understand almost all of that I’m half Norwegian half Swedish and I still have a bit of trouble understanding a medium sized handful of words, I really don’t get how you can understand it... Understanding it when spoken is definitely understandable, its pronunciation has a lot in common with Danish (shortening a lot of words’ pronunciation like Danish does) but still, even reading it I have trouble... It can’t be THAT easy...
Hi! Is there any easy way to determine if the long or short version of a vowel is being used in a given word? Also, can you(or anyone here) recommend a good computer and/or book course for Faroese? Thanks in advance.
In my perception, the T letters are completely unheard (Gott Kvold - Go-Kvold) or turn into D sounds. Takk fyri at tit komu --- "Takk fyri -Edd- komu". The D in Godan - Is a faint german W turning the whole thing into -Go i am dyin-. Fani - Ferne. I learnt german, english first so my brain turns all sounds into actual german or english words when possible to get the pronunciation. :) Its a challenging language!
ther are menny gaelic -celtic words in faroe island the first viking here was grímur kamban kamban are celtic and some place names and islands have celtic names
Im from north west Norway and understood most of this. Its not like icelandic, where long sentences may be understandable, but then other long sentences may be just partially understandable or totally inunderstandible. All these words are germanic/scandinavian, while icelandic is spiked with words of gaelic origin.
You can hear some similarities between Faroese and the Swedish dialect Gotlandish(gotländska) spoken on the island of Gotland. Especially with the 'R'.
I thank you for making this video. However, the sound of your voice is so feint here that it's hard to hear. Is there any way that you could amplify your voice?
I love how this is almost like icelandic! I'm so going to learn this language. everything you say just sounds fun :D and why do we not have the word vælgagnist in icelandic ?! it makes so much sens (although it would be written velgagnist here haha)
Wow, 1st video after 2 years! That's nice... So, "lack of copyrights" you say? Interesting...
10 лет назад
Fascinating! This is possibly very close to langugage that was brought by vikings to british islands? As I can some swedish and some more english I can make sense out of it... but no, I can't say I understand it. Some!
Being an Icelandic speaker, this sounds like a danish person trying to learn Icelandic to me. The danish influence is very strong in Faroe language I think.
It’s actually Norwegian influence on the pronunciation. If you listen to Western Norwegian dialects you’ll definitely hear similarities. Like the one in Myre. Faroese is usually described as a mix between Norwegian and Icelandic.
my boyfriend is from Iceland, lives in Norway, he speaks Norwegian perfectly, and I understand Icelandic, but I found Faroese alot more easier, at least for beginners, bc it's right in the middle of Norwegian and Icelandic...at least that's what it says about the Faroese language that The Faroese came from Norway, and got influences from Gaelic, since not far from Scotland, and some Danish...also They don't use dottir or son as their last names, but same as in Norway...at least what I've seen.
@GeologyRocks101 The reason I could guess is the following. If you say Havn to Faroese people, they will immediately know that you are talking about Tórshavn. For foreigners (non-Faroese people) that is not clear, so @heimspekingur may have given the full name in the English translation.
When they say good morning, good afternoon, and good night, it just sounds like they're saying good morning, good day, and good night with a really heavy accent
I'll travel to Foroyar for my second time this summer, i'm from Italy. Just a question for you.....Talking between faroese people you call your capital city Havn instead of Torshavn.....is that right? Thank you
In Sunn-Hordaland, a part of Hordaland in western Norway, the say itkje, so I guess its just a normal progression of the language. However, the "kje" sound came after the settlements of Førøyane and Iceland, so its kinda strange, the same as the "kv" sound. Where i live, we say "ikkje". Other dialects say: ikkji, ikkjæ, ikke, itte,ette, itt, ækje, ækji, ække aso.
Im Icelandic and I understood everything but especially when it was slow because Icelandic and Faroese is basically the same but it was harder understanding it fast
The funny thing w Faroese is that most Icelanders find it pretty amusing. It may look and sound almost similar, but pretty much a total different meaning. At least that's what my boyfriend says who is Icelandic...I understand Icelandic, being Norwegian, and having Icelandic ''inlaws'', but Feroese was much easier, bc of the closer resemblence to todays Norwegian bc of the influense of Danish and Norwegian...
Partially Faroese is very similar to the Swedish spoken in Ostrobothnia, Finland. I also see major similarities between Faroese and "proper" Swedish and Norwegian.
This is very incorrect information. I speak 'proper' Swedish and also 'proper' Faroese and they are completely different. Not sure where you obtained this misinformation...
+Geffe Loke Skan Actually they are very similar. Words like ty, gingo and fingo for example are part of the Swedish dictionary. I'm a native Swedish speaker who speak both languages.
_Vælgagnist_ is interesting. Væl = well. Gagn = To be of use or gain. Ist = is. Having _-ist_ as a suffix is probably more akin to German etymological heritage. Norwegians don't really use this word a lot, but it's found in Swedish, _Väl begagnad,_ which means "well used." In Danish that would would rather be _Godt brugt,_ and Norwegian _Godt brukt._ It's mostly used for second hand items. The phrase could even have a double meaning, since the Norwegian word _Velbrukt_ can both mean "worn out" and "used with loving care."
I've known of Faroese but this is the first time I've heard it spoken. I know some Norwegian and do understand a lot of it. Interesting orthography. I wonder why "ikke" sounds like "Itche"!
Thank you so much for these lessons :) Faroese is a really amazing language :) I've got a degree in Linguistic and I think it's wonderful to realize how many languages can be related ..i hope the course will go on, in order to get a first approach with Faroese before the University Summer course starts next year..:)
Think i have been listening to too much Eivör because this came up on my recommended xD Thinking of what the language sounds like it's like norwegian but the icelandic put their letters in ^^ pretty easy to understand in text voice might be a bit harder depending on how fast a person speak tho. To add.. I Swedish so might help a little.
For a Venezuelan that knows English and can produce German utterances this is easy, I think I might learn this language along with Shetlandic to improve my English.
Although, the "d" that seems like a "t", is it pronounced like a "d" but with an incomplete pronunciation? like the non-rothic "r" in European English? Because in Venezuela we have a similar sound for the "d" we kind of drop it producing kind of a "schwa".
english, German, Faroese and the other Scandinavian languages are related, but mostly quite different. Faroese is just spoken by 60-70.000 people I guess, and other scandinavians can maybe understand 50% of it, while someone in England maybe understand 5-10% (?) It's for sure a beautiful language, but I think it is too different from English, to improve your english. But it's always interesting to study and learn something new.
@@Rimrock300 Linguistic groups... to understand how it transitions to Shetlandic and this to Scotch. The same happens with Spanish, knowing Portuguese and Gallego improve your understanding of the vocabulary and more if you know the Castillian romance, Basque or Romano, or the Andalucian dialect, or any South American dialect, they will help you understand how to transition from one to another and change your speech syntactically and lexically, even to create new vocabulary that is not loaned directly from another language. This happens more clearly with French, Standard Italian, north west Italic languages, dialects and Occitan, they benefit a lot if you learn them in group, helping you to pass from one language to the other or to one accent to another more properly, this is also very good if you have more poetic approach to the language, specially speaking about pronunciation, your perspective to learn the language is more based on a dialect perspective, as languages require this to sound genuine. An example of all this is my accent, I am Venezuelan but my Spanish is not stereotypical Venezuelan Spanish, I grew up with European descendants, specially Italians and Spaniards, yet I developed my own accent which sounds genuine, I sound native... there are native speakers that are 3rd generation Venezuelans that to this day speak heavily accented. In the case of English, I am heavily inclined to brogue and burr accents, thus being inclined to Dutch, Scotch, West Frisian, Flemish and Celtic languages like Welsh, it's more organic to learn it this way as there is less chance to commit an "utter" mistake, but to fall more into one thing or another, giving you more freedom to experiment, and classify your performance, and study it.
I even see some similairities with the Dutch language, my mother tongue.I could even guess the meaning of some of the phrases without looking at the English subtitles because it sounds similair in Dutch or in one case even exactly the same (but the spelling is different).That's probably because Dutch is also a germanic languae so I'm not that surprised. I often notice that the scandinavic languages sound much more like Dutch than German, while most people think German looks more like Dutch.
Oh, how I love such claims ("Dutch (or sometimes: English) is much more similar to Faroese etc. than German)! Why is there even a comparison with German here instead of just talking about Dutch and Faroese? What is the motivation behind this? But the truth is: 1) many parts of Germany did not undergo the High German sound shift at all (or only partially). - Many Germans speak dialects or understand dialects without this sound shift. 2) German has a grammar that is much more original than Dutch and has much more in common with languages like Icelandic or Faroese than Dutch or English. - German has a lot of inflection, case systems (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative), 3 genders (masculine, feminine, neuter). 3) In German there are plural forms on -er* (e.g. "Länder"), which also exist in the Scandinavian languages, but which do not exist in Dutch or English. *In some dialects even more such -er plurals than in Standard German. 4) In German, the vowel is changed between singular and plural in many words ("Buch"->"Bücher", compare Swedish: "bok"->"böcker" etc.). This (with exceptions, such as foot->feet) almost no longer exists in English or Dutch. 5) German and Dutch are very similar anyway, and Dutch is closer to German than to English, even if there are apparently still Dutch people who want to deny this out of resentment. You only have to find any longer text that is available in Dutch, German and English, and you can usually see how much German and Dutch are similar, and how much the English text differs, mainly, of course, because of the extremely high influence of French on English. But you are of course welcome to think that Dutch and Faroese are very similar (would you really understand any text, let alone spoken language?). But what's the point of your dig at German? By the way: I have nothing against Dutch people and Dutch - I am even learning your language, but I often have the impression that there is still spitefulness towards Germans (which can be heard or read again and again from some English people - unfortunately).
What immediately strikes me is that Faroese uses the English "r" sound, but otherwise it kind of sounds like a mixture between Danish and Icelandic, although there's much more Icelandic than Danish in there.
Føroykst er ein mer.... I'm an exchange student here in the Faroes. As an English speaker, Faroese grammar just makes me want to beat my head against the table. Besides that Faroese is just hard in general.
Norway has a lot of dialects that didn’t get affected by Danish. You should check out the second norwegian written language, Nynorsk. Very similar to Faroese in my opinion. This written language is not affected by Danish in any way.☺️
Well im half danish and half faroe, and I can't speak it, though i feel like i do speak it but dont know what im saying haha it was fun saying the words
