Faroese-English Dictionary (Orðabók)

The online, searchable Faroese-English and English-Faroese dictionaries are now accessible for free at Sprotin. Sprotin discontinued publishing the Føroysk-Ensk/English-Faroese dictionaries and previously offered a subscription service to access an online version of them, making ongoing study of the Faroese language costly. Now, with over 140,000 entries combined, studying Faroese has never been easier. The searchable dictionary does not recognize the inflections of nouns and verbs, so some understanding of Faroese grammar is still required. Twelve other dictionaries are also available for students who speak German, Danish, Spanish, and a dictionary for translating Russian into Faroese.

Children's Books and Apple Pie

This photo was taken in Hjá Jórun, Klaksvík, just outside the entrance to the subsea tunnel that leads back to Eysturoy and onwards to the capital on Streymoy, and yes... we ate the whole pie that same day. The apple crumble and I are reading Faroese: A language course for beginners, while Jane documents and enjoys the rolling fog and sea outside the window. On the table sits 'Myndaorðabók' for reference, otherwise known as the picture dictionary for the language learning challenged or umm, children. Now, as it turns out, this book is not just great bedtime reading for your child, and as most learners of multiple languages can tell you, children's books are one of the best sources of material to learn from. They're often targeted to an age group, so us beginners can start with the littlest ones and gradually move up through the years as we, and they, progress, gradually reading and comprehending more complex sentence structures and words, and sadly, gradually relying less on pictures. But these books have the advantage of providing us with a true test of our comprehension without supplying the answers, something that I find can put a stick in the spokes of any new learner who often relies on the answers in the back of their textbook.

When visiting the bookstores in Faroe, I'm surprised by the amount of authors and books that have been published, especially considering the population of the island's and how long the Faroese language has been in its written form. Within just over a century, the Faroese have made a remarkable literary history and the current scene is, for what would otherwise be a small town anywhere in Canada or any other country, quite staggering. As far as the children's books go... well, keep an eye on your bank account -- there are a lot. So to start, consider the Myndaorðabók. It'll give you all the basic terms for a whole range of daily activities, providing both the English and the Faroese. This book is particularly suited for English readers as well since all words have both English and Faroese, and not just pictures and the equivalent English word, as some other myndaorðabøkur published in the Faroes provide. And since it is kinda-technically a dictionary, it doesn't give you details on sentence structure, but we all know that learning to name objects and activities around us is where we all need to start. After that, it's just a matter of putting the words together. Well, maybe there's more to it than that. For now, we can sit and enjoy the illustrations and learn a few Faroese terms.

Myndaorðabók and other short stories are available online at both Rit og Rák and H.N. Jacobsens. You can find it by searching for the book directly, or use the side panel, under barnabøkur, to search the available children's books.

Faroese-English Dictionaries

For language learners looking for that all important resource, Sprotin is the publisher of the Faroese-English dictionary and it comes in two different sizes. One is similar in size to Oxfords Concise English Dictionary, bound in two books and boxed, and the other is a more modest version bound in one volume. There's a catch though, and unless you're able to search for or willing to pay for some rare specimens, you may have some trouble finding either of these.

We talked to Sprotin and they explained that their paper version will not be published anymore. Hmm, I'm really kicking myself for not buying one when I saw it in Tórshavn. I recall picking the book up and thinking, 'we've got one week of hiking in Iceland still and I'm living out of a backpack so I can't realistically carry this around with me!' I'm failing to mention that my bag was already filled with too many books that would, later on, be taken care of by the lovely people at the Reykjavík bus station as we set off to the interior of Iceland. Thankfully, those books are sitting comfortably beside me on my shelf now. As for that dictionary, where did I put it...Oh right, back on the shelf in the bookstore in Torshavn.