Are Icelandic and Faroese mutually intelligible?

i'm not an icelandic speaker, but i am still studying the language academically, so my answer may only be so-so...

if you are fluent in icelandic, faroese should be intelligible, but you'd have to tune your ear to a few different words and sounds, even where words are spelled similarly or the same. i have heard that faroese to icelandic speakers sounds like icelandic with a funny accent.

with the written language, however, if you know icelandic, you should be able to read faroese with little difficulty. faroese pronunciation varies more from the written than icelandic, because a written norm for faroese had to be reconstructed sometime in the 18th century, while written icelandic was never interrupted. and the faroese reconstruction was based more on a historical link to old norse than current faroese pronunciation. also remember that faroese came under more forceful influences from danish dominance than icelandic. i find it interesting to listen to icelandic and faroese webcasts, and you might find it interesting as well.

faroese and swedish, on the other hand, have very little in common, except for being ultimately related to a common nordic language way back in the past. faroese and icelandic have not evolved much in 1000 years, while swedish has evolved greatly. the written language of swedish is enough for you to be able to read without difficulty written danish and norwegian, while you might have a bit of difficulty speaking with a danish person, but much less so with a norwegian person. both swedish and norwegian have a sing-song quality to them, while danish sounds flat. if you wanted to study any of the languages you mentioned, then i'd probably go with icelandic, to study the original old norse forms, and then swedish, for a modern form of a nordic language on the scandinavian mainland.

Faroese Pronunciation

I would learn icelandic first :P

faroese people can understand prettu much icelandic if they speak slowly. so.. i think it would be to more use to know icelandic.. also, there are more learning facilities for icelandic than faroese ;)