ICELANDIC!!! Who's learning it? Who speaks it?

[kallikak]

Someone please tell me I'm not the only one inspired to learn a(nother) foreign language because of a "children's" show...

[Victoria]

You're the only one.

Icelandic is an incredibly useless language unless you actually live in Iceland. Only 300,000 people speak it, and media on the Internet is rather... limited. There also isn't great incentive to translate things into Icelandic since so few people speak it and 99% of Icelanders speak English with such good fluency.

So the only thing you have in Icelandic are things produced in Iceland, intended for Icelanders only. The selection is rather limited. Even LazyTown's not produced in Icelandic, having to be dubbed back into it. The only things you'll see in Icelandic not produced in Iceland are children's shows, and I imagine not even many of them dub into Icelandic.

Learning Icelandic for the stage plays? Ewww, the stage plays. They creep me out.

It doesn't help that Icelandic is one of the hardest languages in the world to learn, up there with Chinese and whatnot. So once you've spent all those years learning it, you don't have a lot of uses for it, unlike Chinese, which over a billion people speak and is gaining increased usage on the web and other places.

[kallikak]

Oh no doubt. I'm not learning it for utilitarian reasons. If that were the case, I'd be studying Spanish.

Actually, I remember wanting to learn it years ago, before I even heard of Lazytown, because I was told it was rather similar to Old English, plus I thought it sounded bloody awesome and looked so alien and cool-bizarre in print. Then, I took two years of Russian at the university and got side-tracked. So, now I'm learning two languages at once. Needless to say, at this point my Russian is much more advanced than my Icelandic, although I still far from fluent in Russian.

Chinese? Too cliche...

[CmdrLuke]

Don't worry kallikak, your not the only one, I'm learning it too. I'm not fluent yet though...

[Victoria]

Don't worry kallikak, your not the only one, I'm learning it too. I'm not fluent yet though...

It would seem that you're not yet fluent in English, either.

Hint: Your mistake involves your usage of the word "your."

That was also a run-on sentence.

[CmdrLuke]

Don't worry kallikak, your not the only one, I'm learning it too. I'm not fluent yet though...

It would seem that you're not yet fluent in English, either.

Hint: Your mistake involves your usage of the word "your."

That was also a run-on sentence.

Damn, someone is always getting a good joke in whenever my grammar fails.

[Ponycat]

I have to admit I've been looking up words, and have thought about learning it.

How are you studying it ?

I never did languages as a kid at school, and really regret the fact. As an adult I have developed a passion for languages. I've been learning Japanese, and a bit of Chinese.




[/b]

[AgentKJ]

I'm learning Icelandic although I haven't bothered for ages. [No, it's not cos of LazyTown. I've always loved Iceland & Italy and I have no idea why.]

[Numerius Plancus]

I've been wondering what they actually say in those stage shows, but I don't think I would take this enterprise of learning it just for that. It's a very complicated language. I like the sound of Icelandic, though :)
(refer to the Icelandic LazyTown soundtrack)

I can sing most parts of Cooking By The Book in Icelandic just because I learned the sounds.

[...] I've been learning Japanese, and a bit of Chinese. [/b]

日本語を勉強しますか？僕も！漢字と”中文”「中国語」はちょっと難しいですけど、すごいですね！漢字が好きです。　←分かった？

Hehe, sorry... I'm learning too. Chinese is definitely harder, though, because there's no hiragana or katakana.

(sorry for the slightly off-topic post)

[AgentKJ]

I've been wondering what they actually say in those stage shows, but I don't think I would take this enterprise of learning it just for that. It's a very complicated language. I like the sound of Icelandic, though :)
(refer to the Icelandic LazyTown soundtrack)

I can sing most parts of Cooking By The Book in Icelandic just because I learned the sounds.

From listening to the sounds, it's generally quite easy to learn the songs from Latibær.

[Numerius Plancus]

Indeed... they say stuff about "leika" and "leikur" very often. I have no idea what that means, but I suppose it might mean "fun" or something?

[AgentKJ]

Indeed... they say stuff about "leika" and "leikur" very often. I have no idea what that means, but I suppose it might mean "fun" or something?

Play, I think. On the Icelandic soundtrack, "Playtime" is called "Leika Leika"
They also use the word "saman" a lot, which means "together".

[kallikak]

Yep, leika means play (as a verb) and leikur means playing/game (as a noun).

Right now I'm using a combination of the program at http://icelandic.hi.is/ and the Teach Yourself Icelandic audiopack I bought from Amazon.com.

[AgentKJ]

Yep, leika means play (as a verb) and leikur means playing/game (as a noun).

Right now I'm using a combination of the program at http://icelandic.hi.is/ and the Teach Yourself Icelandic audiopack I bought from Amazon.com.

Cool. How easy/difficult/whatever are you finding it?

[Numerius Plancus]

Play, I think. On the Icelandic soundtrack, "Playtime" is called "Leika Leika"
They also use the word "saman" a lot, which means "together".

Saman! Yeah, this is another word I was going to mention, but ended up forgetting. Thanks for answering my question before I've asked it :)