Distribution

DENMARK, NORWAY, SWEDEN, FINLAND (Swedish), Germany (Danish).

Introduction

The Scandinavian languages are Indo-European languages belonging, like English, to the Germanic branch. Considerable contact in past and present between the English and Scandinavian languages, as well as common outside influences, have served to keep up and reinforce the close relationship between the languages. English is therefore relatively easy for Scandinavians to learn.

For the sake of simplicity, the following description concentrates on the major problems which Danish, Norwegian and Swedish learners of English have in common. Less attention has been paid to issues which require cross-Scandinavian comparisons (though it has been necessary to deal with some points of this kind in the sections on phonology). And, for reasons of space, it has not been possible to include the difficulties of Icelandic and Faroese learners.

Phonology

General

All three Scandinavian languages are phonologically broadly similar to English, and most features of English pronunciation do not present serious difficulty to speakers of these languages. The phonological systems of Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are characterised by considerable similarity, both with respect to sound segments (for example the rounded front vowels) and to prosody, and, as will appear below, there are many common Scandinavian errors in English. Nevertheless, several pronunciation features do exist which separate the Scandinavian languages from each other, and it is therefore only from a bird's-eye view that it makes sense to speak about English pronounced with a ‘Scandinavian accent’.