Just a correction: You mention sauna, which is a Finnish word. The Swedish word for sauna is bastu which comes from badstuga. Bad and stuga (bath and cottage).
Boy you really wanna piss off Scandinavians don't you. We live here, what we say goes. Scandinavia is named for the mountain range separating Sweden and Norway. Linguistically Swedish, Danish and Norwegian are highly highly similar and we can understand each-other more or less without issue in both speech and text (barring some difficult dialects). Finnish on the other hand is of an entirely different language branch altogether, the Finno-Ugric one. Ours is Northern Germanic. Finland is highly influenced by Sweden due to our historic relationship - we literally owned the bulk of what is modern day Finland for 400 years - but language-wise and culturally they are separate. The western parts of Finland are closer to Sweden both in language and culture, but they are not us. TLDR: Scandinavian Countries: Sweden, Norway, Denmark Nordic Countries: Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland If you want to you can include the Faroe Islands in the Nordic category, though they are an autonomous territory belonging to Denmark
Fun fact: 'Du' is often pronounced 'Ru' inside sentences in many Swedish dialects because it gets mashed up with the other words. "What are you doing" in written form would be "Vad gör du?", but often a Swede would say, "Va gö ru?" instead. Tbh, we'd probably need a new reform of how we spell things because written Swedish is nothing like it is spoken 90% of the time.
No, that's completely bullshit, maybe in your specific dialect. "Va gö du" is a common pronunciations in many of the Swedish dialects, when the "r" specifically gets dropped, not the other waya roudn
@@johan13135 Bro, did you even read my comment? No. It is apparent you didn't. What part of "'Du' is often pronounced 'Ru' inside sentences in many Swedish dialects" said "All dialects" or "Most dialects"? Dropped the contact lenses?
That Sweden, Norway, and Denmark are viewed to be mostly Scandinavian, is because they are the *ONLY* Scandinavian countries. Many people confuse Scandinavia with the Nordic countries, which besides The 3 Scandinavian countries also include their territories such as Greenland and the Faroe Islands, plus Finland and Iceland. So Finland is not a Scandinavian country and the Scandinavian peninsula is only Sweden and Norway, however, for traditional reasons, Denmark is also included (southern Sweden used to belong to Denmark, but also because the languages are so similar). Also, Sauna is a Finnish word, not Swedish. A lot of English words also come from the old Norse language, and many of those words are still used in Scandinavia, such as Sky, Husband (from Husbonde), Window (not used in Swedish anymore but still used in Norway and it comes from the word Vindöga = Wind Eye), berserk, blend (from blanda = to mix), blunder (from "blunda" = Cloese ones eyes) and many many more, but not all of them has survived into today's Scandinavian languages.
So you have to distinguish if you mean the Scandinavian countries - with "country" in its political sense, thus sort of including Greenland because it is part of the kingdom, or you are talking about geography, where, at best some of the Danish islands would be part of it, but non all of Denmark.
The Danes actually ruled most part of England so it’s a lot of words from the Nordic countries. Norway, Sweden and Denmark we all understand each other. Finish is a completely different language family.
"Ni" is not just formal/polite. It is also "dominance" speak. Insulting and used to create distance. Sometimes young people say "Ni" to older people in an attempt to show respect, like a formal second person pronoun is used in other languages. But this may be recognized as being intentionally patronizing and insulting. Also we almost always use first names. Not titles or last names. The only exception I know of is when talking to the king. Then the formal title "Kungen" is often used. Not Carl or Kalle. "Hej, Kungen!"
It's more common using "du" has dominated for the last 40 years or so (no matter the age you are talking too). I rarely hear "ni" . But you are correct we are using the first name if we know the person's name. If strangers often we just say "hej" (hi) and if it starts with a conversation we often start with telling our name and the other person should then say his first name. It also depending how formal the current gradering is, we shake hands at same time we telling our name and the other person straight after.
@@herrbonk3635 you need to check out the comment of krilleshorna below. Although a mishap on when the du-reform was initiated, he's spot on concerning the bs delusion to be respectful imagined revival (not a revival, new invention) of "ni". The use of "ni" is just another example of how conceited uneducated people make fools out of themselves while thinking they're being enlightened and esoteric even.
@@adoby83Exactly what you wrote is an old myth, i.e. the idea that "ni" was used for suppression more than for respect and politness. A myth created by people that really wanted to use "kamrat"... but as that word would have been a little to much even for conformist swedes, they had to settle for the slightly less revolutionary "du" instead.
Sauna is called Bastu in Swedish, it is short for "badstuga". Bath in a smal house is what the name bastu comes from. Sauna is what the Finnish people say. I have heard an old story from Finland where the name SA U NA means SA= get and U= old (ancient) and NA= knowledge. According to this information, people sat in the sauna and taught each other about their history orally. Often this happened with different rhyming verses, because then it is easier to remember and preserve. When you sit in a bastu you do not have any clothes on you, everyone is the same. Whether you are a king or a peasant. Everyone is equal, and that is what we all are! We are people, high as the low.
It's better to call people "du" not "ni". No one (except possibly the king?) gets offended by being called du, but many get offended by being called ni. Some young Swedes have started to address older people ni lately in the belief that it should show some kind of respect (like in the old days) and received a scolding. Older people are the ones who pushed through the du reform. You can read about it on Wikipedia. If you call me ni, I would confused answer: "who are we?" because I see it as plural. Also sauna is a Finnish word, not Swedish. In Swedish it is called bastu
I wa worked as a shunter on the swedish railway company SJ, and at one occasion had to instruct the crew on a locomotive that he had to reverse a couple of meters to make possible for me to change a switch. I thought I saw two guys on the loco in the darkness, and therefore used the word "ni" (pluralis = two or more). I was wrong, it was just one driver, and he went really angry: "Young man, here on SJ AB we are all comrades, and we are titulated "du"!
"Ni" was used to address people of lower status, like servants, store attendants etc. The formal polite way to address others was to use titles and last names, omitting the names if unknown. For people of higher education or social status, this would be reflected in the way they were addressed. "Vill magister Andersson göra mig sällskap på en promenad?" ("Does School Teacher Andersson want to accompany me for a walk?") "Får jag fresta prostinnan med en karamell?" ("May I tempt the Provost's wife to try a piece of candy?") For other people, one would use descriptive titles relating to gender and marital status, still often with the last name included. If one didn't know a persons proper title, one might also need to fall back on these, and thereby taking risk of offending the person. "Unge herrn får gärna låna min jacka." ("The young gentleman may very well borrow my jacket.") "Tack, fru Larsson." ("Thank you, Mrs. Larsson.") So, when young people try to be polite by reintroducing "ni", they tend to do it in a way that would have been impolite back in the days. (I think that there are days even farther back when it would've been polite, but they won't meet anyone with personal memories of it.) My parents never said "du" to my grandparents, but they most certainly didn't say "ni" either." Adressing the king with "ni" definitely wouldn't be correct.
Neoclassicism is not Russian style. It was en vogue back then, so Helsinki looks like St Petersburg, but only the "monumental" centre. There are hardly any buildings standing from the Swedish era, mostly churches and of course Sveaborg, the mighty sea fortress known today as Suomenlinna.
About 5.2% of the Finnish population have Swedish as their native language. More of them however know Swedish even though they do not consider it as their native language.
@@Octopussyist Studying German at school is quite rare nowadays in Finland, whereas everybody has mandatory Swedish at school from 6th to 9th grade. Most students continue to gymnasium (senior secondary school) where Swedish is again a mandatory subject for a couple of years, and again in the college. So every Finnish student has mandatory Swedish lessons for about 5-7 years. Still many people are not willing to speak it, but that's another story :) Most Finland-Swedish people switch to Finnish and the Swedes switch to English when you try to discuss in Swedish with them, so learning the language may not feel very useful.
Your english is really good! I couldn't pinpoint where you're from before you told me. The german accent is usually quite brutal. Just a little correction from a friendly swede. You should never use "Ni", always use "du". I don't really think anyone would be offended, especially not from a German who we know are really strict with such etiquette, but it is wrong. Swedes are usually happy when somebody bothers to learn our language and usually understand even though the person is struggling with words or grammar. I understand why you want to play it safe considering that your whole language is built around hierarchy and making misunderstandings impossible through strict grammar. My favorite example of this is: "Ich komme in die Uni" vs. "Ich komme in Der Uni". About the "singing", that's how we put emphases in sentences. You do it by word order and we "sing". I hope this helps! Good luck with your studies!
@@LuckyAmazon-xz1ge hej there friendly Swede! Born and raised in Switzerland here, hence my German is brutal, haha. I would really love to go to Sweden for a longer period of time to just spend some time with some swedes and get to know your country better. Greetings, Alex
@The german accent is usually quite brutal. ... except whan you cant pinpoint that either. Especially not when you have stupid Hollywood-made German accents in mind that usually don't sound like German accents at all.
We call everyone by the informal "you" or "yours", except the king, queen, and other high royalty. We also call everyone by first name, including teachers, bosses, other people's parents, etc. We even use nicknames for work. Of course you can still use the formal words because we know them, but people would think it's a little weird
Swedish in Finland is mostly spoken at the west coast, in the area that’s called Österbotten. It’s its own dialect too; österbottniska. Swedish is also spolen in the Åland Islands, which is an autonomous part of Finland.
Defining all those dialects as "österbottniska" gives a bit of a wrong impression though. There are hundreds if not thousands of them and some of them are very distinct from the others. Usually the differences are more minor but the dialect they speak 5km away from where I grew up is already slightly different than the one spoken where I grew up myself. Sometimes the differences even with such a small geographical distance can be quite noticeable, for example using different genders for different objects or using only 1 gender or no gender at all.
@@jrautanen It's quite close. Those who live in Uusimaa are generally bilingual so you'd never know when meeting them. Pohjanmaa is majority Swedish speaking (90,000 speakers) and many of them are not good at Finnish. In Uusimaa it's only 7% that are registered as native Swedish speakers but as the population as a whole is larger, that's 120,000 total. Then there's Åland with 30,000 and Varsinais-Suomi with another 35,000.
@@jm-holm It's true that in Nyland many who identify themselves as Finland-Swedish are practically bilingual, which is not the case in Österbotten. And in Nyland there are only two municipalities with Swedish-speaking majority (Raseborg and Ingå) whereas Österbotten has many more.
Edit: A lot of hilarious autocorrect rubbish, replaced with the words I actually tried to swipe in the first place. Ending a sentence in a higher pitch is not true for the whole Sweden. We do it in Göteborg but they don't in northern Sweden or Stockholm. I think we vary the pitch a lot in Swedish, but in different ways depending on our dialect. For instance, I lived in Sandviken, about 500 km north-east from Göteborg, and they say →Sand↑vik↓en, while I, growing up just slightly north of Göteborg, say →Sand↓vik↑en. And, as already pointed out: Scandinavia is only Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The Nordic countries are Scandinavia plus Iceland, Finland and a few more. And sauna is Finnish, we say bastu in Sweden. We learnt in school that about 7 percent of the Finnish people speak Swedish, but that was in the late 1970's, I think it's more like 5 % now, maybe even less.
I think it is fair to say that it is common in most of Sweden (including Stockholm where I’m from) to use a higher end-pitch when a question is asked, but not so frequently in other sentences. A higher, or lower, pitch may sometimes be used to put emphasis in a phrase, or stress some fact, but it is not a general rule to go up in pitch at the end of most sentences… At least not here but maybe in Gothenburg (where things often are a bit awkward 😉).
As a Swedish speaking Finn with a Swedish dialect as my first language, we don't have that much of a variation in the way we speak when it comes to pitch (both in dialects and standard Swedish). The typical example is that we would pronounce the words "anden" (the spirit) and "anden" (the mallard) the same, while they are generally pronounced differently in Sweden. Statistically we are about 5 % of the population now, but to be clear, that's how many people have Swedish registered as their first language and the statistics don't allow for people to bilingual, neither do they include people with Finnish as their first language that speak fluent or Swedish, some who might be married to a Swedish speaking person and live most of their day to day life speaking that language. Swedish speakers live almost entirely in the coastal areas of Southern Finland and Ostrobothnia (and of course Åland). Ostrobothnia as a whole does in fact still have a Swedish-speaking majority (well it's about 50 %, but the Finnish speaking population is about 40 %). We would have also been a lot more if it weren't for the fact that many migrated to Sweden for work in the 60s and 70s (along with many Finnish speakers). I think there are almost as many "finlandssvenskar" (including descendants) living in Sweden today as there are in Finland, but naturally they are quite invisible in society.
It's mostly Bokmål that end with a high note which Swedish people interpret at somewhat humorus because it sounds like surprise. Swedish is also singsongish but rarely end on a higher note. I blame some of the singsong stuff of the tonal difference of some words. We're a strange language that has tonal accents which isn't normal for Germanic languages. Look into the tonal stuff and be surprised, because it is so weird. One of the accents make words stay tonally high, which is odd. Even odder compound words where the tonal accents change.
The further west you come in Sweden, the more high note endings you'll find. And as we pass into central and south Norway it's all ending on the highs. Not sure how it works in the easternmost parts of Norway, closer to Russia, if it's the same way, not as happy sounding.
if you live in Europe these days you must learn English if you want to travel abroad and communicate with other people or communicate with people who visit your country. English is the language of business and travel. In the same way, 300 years ago, you needed to speak Swedish in Finland to communicate with anyone other than your neighbours. Finnish may have been the language of most people at home but that was not good enough to deal with the government, church, army etc... Swedish was needed. Only in the mid 1800s, ironically under Russian rule, did that start to change. The awakening of Finnish nationalism caused a linguistic revolution. When Finland declared independence a decision had to be made about the status of Swedish language. It was decided to keep Swedish as an official language but Russian was not, despite the intention of Russia to Russify Finland in the 19th Century.
In my experiance, older people will usually take a ni worse than a du. I have been told multiple times during my life that they do not appreciate being spoken to as ni
As a boomer, being addressed "ni" feels really weird, bordering to insulting. It definitely makes me at least angry and also a tad sad. I don't care to explain, but whenever it happens I find it simply s t u p i d.
@@herrbonk3635 well, I'm 60 and thus a boomer. You gen-x young'uns may fancy seemingly coming of age, but us experienced geezers know bs when we see it.
This is something I've noticed alot with Americans, Sauna is not a Swedish word, it's actually the Finnish word. If you are ever in Sweden and want to ask for a Sauna, the word we use is Bastu. I can understand that the regions gets mixed up since Sweden and Finland has a lot of history together, but you have to give the Sauna to the Finns, it's their idea, we just "borrowed" it. And Swedish-speaking Finns live mostly on the west side of Finland, and they speak with a very interesting dialect "Finlands-Svenska". It's not its own language (technically), but they have their own words, in Sweden some say it sounds like Moomins, because in the animated Moomin show they speak Finlands-Svenska. And speaking Swedish has actually become a problem in Finland over the past few years, there's a political party that's very much against learning/talking Swedish (Perussuomalaiset).
I am not fond of nationalistic and right wing political parties, myself leaning to the left, but I must admit I give the finnish party Sannfinländarna right when they are critising the mandatory education of swedish in finnish-speaking schools. It would be better to use that time at school to learn more english instead.
Finlandssvenska - Östsvenska. Högsvenska, Åländska, Åboländska, Nyländska och Österbottniska ( Nord, mellan o syd ) är några varianter. Lite krångligt att alltid förstå kan det vara mellan vissa då de skiljer sig ibland mer, ibland mindre. Men vilken normal svensk från Småland och uppöver förstår en skåning från Ystad?
Here in Sweden it is mostly people from the west coast around Gothenburg that end in a higher pitch. Norway, especially "Bokmål" does it to a higher degree. Danish doesn't do it at all, either atonal or goes down in pitch toward the end for the danish. Swedes from the northern part of Sweden, "Norrland", tend to go down or speak with less pitch changes. "Dalkarlian" (Dalmål) and "Värmländska" are probably the most sing-songy. They go up and down all over the place... The person who the Swedish chef in the muppets show was modeled after was from Dalarna and spoke "Dalekarlian"/Dalmål.
The everyday purpose between addressing someone in German by "Duzen" and "Siezen" is of course formal and informal addressing but the more interesting part of siezen and duzen is: duzen is 2nd person singular and siezen is actually 3rd person plural. Yeah you read it right, it's PLURAL. The addressing of an individual and a group of individuals is excactly the same when using siezen. That means, with siezen, you talk to someone and address him or her like this person would be a group of people. That's fascinating and strange, isn't it? Also other languages are doing it like that. The funny thing in America is: there is a lot of debate of using them/they pronouns for unknown people you don't know their gender, but Germans and other languages are addressing unknown people in plural form (siezen) for CENTURIES and nobody cares because they're used to it, to such an extend that most people don't know that they are actually adressing an individual as a group.
Funny and interesting thing here is that seeing you and hearing you introduce this video I was almost 100% certain that you were Swedish. You really have the Swedish melody and energy that’s very common in Sweden. It’s very interesting. ☺️
Towns in Finland are classified as either Swedish-speaking or Finnish-speaking, depending on the relative nmber of speakers of either language (I don't know what the different classes are). Before Finland ceded parts of its eastern territory to the USSR after World War II, the city of Vyborg was regarded as Swedish-speaking, meaning signage was in Swedish etc. Even as late as 1989, when I travelled by bus as a tourist around the Baltic Sea counter-clockwise, via Ystad, Warszaw, Brest, Minsk, Vilnius, Riga, Tallinn, Leningrad (as the name of present S:t Petersburg still was back in 1989), Vyborg, and Helsinki, in Vyborg where we stopped briefly while our swedish tour guide had some paperwork to hand in to the Soviet authorities before we were to leave USSR territory and enter Finland that same afternoon, he pointed out the local bus terminal and asked us to read the sign on its roof. it said "Busstation" and our guide remarked that most foreign tourists believed that to be an attempt by the Russian bus operator to put up a sign in English to aid foreigners but accidentally dropping the space in "Bus Station". No, it was actually the Swedish compound word buss-station as it's normally written without hyphenation, with three consecutive letters "s" merged into two. For some reason the authorities for nearly 50 years hadn't bothered to replace the Swedish sign with its Russian equivalent. They eventually did so at some time between 1989 and 2016 (after which a Kentucky Fried Chicken fast food restaurant opened in the building), as can be seen in this Google Streetview photo where it reads АВТОВОКЗАЛ instead. i think you can find earlier photos showing the Swedish sign if you google for it. www.google.com/maps/@60.7143911,28.7495508,3a,75y,341.35h,91.3t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1seWWBuV-eTsnqTrPt9UMWAw!2e0!5s20160901T000000!7i13312!8i6656?coh=205409&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTAwMi4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
I don't think there are any purely "Swedish-speaking towns" in Finland, except for Mariehamn (but that's in Åland where Swedish is the only official language). We do have some towns that are bilingual with a Swedish-speaking majority. And even more bilingual towns with Finnish-speaking majority (like the capital area, for instance). All the bilingual towns and municipalities have signage in Finnish+Swedish (or Swedish+Finnish depending on the majority language). Before the war Vyborg was probably the most international city in Finland, it was practically trilingual. In addition to Finnish there was a large Swedish- and Russian-speaking population and also at least German and Polish minorities.
The Vikings that went to the British Isles were mainly from today 's Denmark and Norway, while the Swedish Vikings went to the east and founded Kievan Rus, which today corresponds to Ukraine and Belarus. Swedish and Norwegian are perceived as though the speakers sing. This is due to the tonal accent which has to do with timing in the pitch top in words that are in fokal position. In Danish this feature has evolved into stød which has to do with voice quality. Sometimes this is pronounced as a glottal stop between the syllables. So Danes don't sing when they speak. The East Swedish dialects spoken in Finland generally lack the tonal accent as well.
Thanks for a great upload! I think it's great to learn new languages, and always funny that so many are interested in Swedish. Thoughts: Some young people say "ni" to older people, which often is a mistake. The older generation today are the ones that got rid of "niandet" in the end of the 60s. Personally, I don't really care if someone says "ni", there are things that are worse (🤦♂️), however "ni" can sometimes feel a bit patronizing. As a Swede in my late 40s, my advice is: never use "ni" to address one person, no need, and you want insult anyone. I've never heard anyone complain about people that don't use "ni" to one person. Extra: I know that some sources include Finland in Scandinavia, but c'mon! Fennoscandia would be the correct thing if you want to include Finland. And sauna is Finnish. We say "bastu" which comes from the words "bad" och "stuga". Keep up the good work!
The "du" reform happened in the 1950s. Before that, the formal address was not actually "ni" (otherwise we would have changed it to "ecki-ecki-ecki-ta-pang"), either profession/title (and in the case of women, often their husband's profession/title in the feminine form unless they actually had their own job) or surname, or both. "Du" was reserved for BFFs, lovers or close family. And "ni" actually implied that they didn't have a title or were not worthy of one, and therefore quite insulting. You could also address waitstaff by given name. So you would have: * "Ers majestät" or "ers höghet/kunglig höghet" (still in use; if they allow you to be informal, you address them as "kungen" or "kronprinsessan") * "Överste Granlund", "översten" (still in use in the military) * "Överstinnan" for colonel Granlund's wife, or "fru Granlund" if you didn't know her husband was a colonel. * "Lärarinnan Andersson" for the female teacher Andersson (one of the few jobs open for women in the 19th century), or "lärarinnan". You could also use "fru Andersson" if you didn't know she was a teacher. * "Fröken Andersson" for miss Andersson's daughter. * "Herr Andersson" for miss Andersson's husband, if you didn't know his profession. * "Unge herr Andersson" for miss Andersson's son. * If there was a maid named Josefine Spjut in the Andersson household, the Anderssons would address her by her given name, like "Josefine" or "fröken Josefine", or just "fröken"; everyone else would address her as "fröken Spjut". * "Frun" (ma'am), "herrn" (sir) and "fröken" (miss) was acceptable if you didn't know their title or name. * And if the colonel Granlund was really upset with some civilian being uppity, he would address that person as "ni". For some reason, "ni" as formal address is actually pretty modern, a couple of decades after the "du" reform, and possibly inspired by French and German.
"Lärarinnan Andersson" would probably be "fröken Andersson", not "fru", because female teachers were not allowed to be married. (At least not until later.)
Some common English words of Swedish (or I would rather say Old Norse, the proto-language from which all the Scandinavian or North Germanic languages are derived): window: from vind-ue, wind-eye or "eye towards the wind/weather" husband: from hus-bonde, house farmer or "master of the house" these are both from the Viking era, when the Danes ruled Britain. The word "ombudsman" is a comparably recent loan, dating to the early 19th century in Sweden (I don't know when it was imported into English. same thing with "smorgasbord" (smörgåsbord) I believe.
Du and Ni is from my point of view connected to the law of Jante culturally. There may also be some Swedes that would frown upon being called Ni, in singular that is. The only ones that may be called Ni upon is the royals, in formal situations, but there mostly we use their titles when spoken to.
It’s funny because my grandma when she talks often go high and then low. She lives in what I think is called Gnällbältet which roughly translates to Grumpy belt. I found it funny when she said “mule” which translates to animal nose (of horses or cows). Tack för videon.
I do endorse that you study Swedish with all the means available and share your progress with others. Jag rekommenderar att du lär dig svenska, och försöker prata svenska från början, när du kommer i kontakt med någon som kan svenska. Hoppas du får många följare. Lycka till! Copy and paste to google-translate and listen to good pronunciation there.
@@DNA350ppm Hej hej, Tack så mycket för din stödja! Och jag försöker att prata bara svenska i min nästa video! (hope it's correct, if not let me know!)
@@philosophiahelvetica Ojdå, jag märkte inte att du hade svarat! Jag tycker inte att man ska rätta språket hela tiden när man kommunicerar, det stör flytet! 🙂 Men eftersom du ber om det så heter det "ditt stöd". När man lär sig ord i svenskan är det nyttigt att kolla på om substantiven är "en- eller ett-ord" - tyskan har der, die, das och svenskan har den och det, och i plural de, uttalas som "dom". Jag ska leta efter den videon där du bara pratar svenska!!! Försök tänka på svenska, sjunga på svenska, läsa på svenska, och lyssna på svenska. Det finns massor av hjälpmedel för den som vill lära sig svenska.
I'm a Swede and here's two things: 1. No Swede would ever say "ni" to someone (except maybe to the king). Just use "du" and save "ni" for plural like where the people you are talking to is more than one. For example if you want to ask one person if he/she want some coffee say "Vill du ha kaffe?" and if they are two or more say "Vill ni ha kaffe?". 2. When "FinlandsSwedes" from the south of Finland speak Swedish it's called "FinlandsSvenska" ("FinlandSwedish). It's is own language. Most Swede's doesn't know this, they just identifies it wrongly as the accent of a Fin who has learned Swedish and sounds Finish. I learned this embarrassingly late in life. Fins from the northern parts who learns Swedish has a completely different accent when speaking Swedish. So the "Swedish" that some southern Fins speak is not Swedish, it is it's own language. Ok, every word and grammar is exactly the same so it's practically the same with it's own accent. -Languages are weird...
I am Finlandssvensk. It is not an own laguage, it is Swedish. We learn swedish litterature and history in school. We have perhaps an other intonation, the language melody sounds mor like Finnish. The language that we speak in Finland is "östsvenska" or eastswedish it is a dialect like norrländska or skånska and so on. Finnish Swedish is not a separate language.
@@evahernberg2624 Ok, I stand corrected. My ex who thought me that was Finish and not FinlandsSvensk. Or maybe my memory is playing tricks on me. Thanks for correcting me on that. Interesting to hear that it's called Östsvenska. Makes sense. I guess it's different accents when learning Swedish in school than what it becomes when someone only speaking Finish and then moves to Sweden and learn Swedish.
You should absolutely not use the formal you in Swedish. Until the 60s we used titles or third person pronouns to address people. Unlike many other languages the formal you was and is considered rude and degrading. Especially older people would be upset if you use the formal you. The informal you will not upset anyone.
During the hansa trading period we all prakticly spoke the same language from russia throu slavic and europe then up north down to the brittish islands
Actually, most people will dislike it if you call them "ni" (formal you). In the 1960's there was a huge reform throughout all of society (du-reformen), which led to everyone starting to say "du" (informal you) to each other, with the deeper meaning that we are all equals. Using the formal you is considered by most people a way to point out we are not equals (which is not appreciated). Especially people over 60 will dislike or even feel offended if you use the formal you, but that really goes for everyone. We don't use it ever, not with teachers or politicians or grandparents or anyone (except possibly with the royal family, something I personally don't care for at all, as it demonstrates that they would be better than everyone else, which they are not).
I think you mistake the swedish influence with the danish, The danelaw as it was called controlled alot of what is now England and Scotland. of course at that time the language was more similar, it was old Norse. But most of it acctually comes from old Norse and mosly from the danes.
@@Wishfull-thinking Very thankful for your correction, you're totally right on that. Speaking of Denmark, I was just recently in Copenhagen and to be honest, the way they talk is very difficult to understand, despite having some Swedish knowledge. Now since I'm no excellent fluent Swedish speaker, I was just curious how similar the Danish and Swedish languages are? Because even though the written form is understandable as a Swedish speaking person, the speaking is really incomprehensible in my opinion. Even Norwegian was much more understandable than the Danish. Just curious if you know the background or reasoning behind it!
The Swedish vikings raided Britain too, I don't know what year exactly, but I think it was around the year 700-750 or somewhere around there. But yes, they did speak Old Norse in most parts (if not all) of Scandinavia back then.
indeed but it was the danes the swedes focused more on the riverways of continental Europe and founded Kyiv in Ukraine. It was the family of Rus and in the end one of the brothers killed the other two and the relatives became known as the Kyievan rus
"Ni" has never been the formal "You" in Swedish. Before the "du reform" the formal way to address some one was with title and surname. If that was not known you resorted to "Herr(-n)" (~Mister) or "Frun/Fröken"" (~Missis/Miss). "Ni" is a plural "you" and was also the way upper classes addressed individuals from the lower classes. That´s one of the reasons many old people don´t like it when younger people address them as "Ni". Young people often think they are extra polite when they use "Ni". But to many elderly it sounds very condescending.
4:42 -- I stopped here! You have way to many facts wrong for me to continue watching this. Sauna is from Finland and we say Bastu in Sweden. Finland is not part of Scandinavia (that's Only Sweden, Denmark and Norway). "Norden" ("The North") is an extension of Scandinavia (but is NOT "Scandinavia") which also includes Aland, Fareoislands, Greenland (kind of, though it belongs to Denmark), Iceland and Finland. The Vikings were first and foremost traders, farmers and fishermen! A very few percentage were raiders! -- Very few! Another point you bring up about pitch while speaking, is not Swedish! It's Norweigian; since their language is basically Danish, they added pitch to seem different and "special". (No, this is not a joke; they did it for this reason!) This is like an -E presentation.
Swedish is the only Scandinavian language that has pitch accent officially. So, kind of a tonal language. This is why some Asian language speakers has easier to learn Swedish than most, except for the rolling R (or semi-rolling R)
In Norway and Sweden they "sing", in Denmark not. The swedish use to say that we talk with a potato in the mouth, to which i agree. That is the reason why it is so defficult for swedens to understand danish.
You're not quite right about Swedish influencing English, we do share a lot of words between our languages thanks to the vikings but it was mainly danish vikings (not swedish vikings) and the language spoken by vikings was Norse, thankfully the Danes had yet to create the abomination of a language the currently speak. As for our use of the formal "ni" it's very much not required, there has been a trend to use it more in service jobs and some bosses may tell the staff to use the word "ni" when talking to customers but it's more that they want to give the appearance of respect for the customer rather than it being something that customers expects them to say. Overall I'd say you're always safe to use the word "du" in Sweden and you're never expected to use the word "ni" when formally adressing a person. You might even be seen as odd if you use the formal "ni" so there's simply no need to even consider it. As far as I know the only time you're expected to use the formal "ni" is when adressing the king, but I don't think he personally cares about that so you're probably fine to say "du" to him as well.
Thank you.. its this about our sing-song melody.. or rather where to put the pitch in a sentens/or word that make a differens! And Norweigans and Danes altso have there own "melody"! And it wasnt the swedish vikings that forced the britts to speak in a proper way, it was danes and norweigans.. IE they spoke Old Norse! In anyway I prefere to speak swedish to my scandinavian neighbours, its in the moste cases easyer then speaking English, thats hove close our language is! And scandinavians is realy good att speaking English. Its more like a dialect, some times they use different words.. often words that I understand, but not that comon used anymore in my own language! And there is altso "false friends", words that have different meaning in our languages.. there its perfect to put in a English word! However.. English altso have a melody/pitches/droping out letters/bad spellings.. its this I dont need to read about it.. its easyer to listen and copy it.. its hove one become more fluent in another language! "Du" is the moste comon form for "you".. there have been a resurection of "Ni".. to be a litle more polite.. its kinda You but we are not friends/dont know each others/kinda more formal! Another thing, we dont use "Sir" or titles.. if its not in a ceremony speach! Soo.. on swedish TV.. in programs with for example our king that got intervjuved (its popular on TV, the year in the royal family) the reporter often used "kungen" or "drottningen" intsted of "du" and it translates to "the king and the queen", its probably less formal then the english words? In anyway if one stumble on any royals in a bar.. one can use "Du" or Ni".. if they dont is there for an offical duty!
To say Ni to anyone especially to elderly people that lived be fore the Du-reform (1960th) would be concidered as highly offensiv. It is a marker to show that the one person your talking to that you are not equal. Mostly it was said down in the hirarky. We dont tile, a professor, judge or doktor isnt nore worth than anyone ells. We will never state our stues, Im not Mrs or Miss Eriksson because Im my one person not my huspans wife. We only du or name eachoder with first name.
Finland is not a Scandinavian country. The Scandinavian countries are 3: Denmark, Sweden and Norway. The Nordic countries are 5: Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway.
I do agree that most Swedes end their sentences in a hig pitch when they speak English, but not all. Some of us do know how to speak English properly. 😉 Also, Finland is not a Scandinavian country. Yes part of Finland is on the Scandinavian peninsula, but only Sweden, Norway and Denmark are the Scandinavian countries. The Finnish culture and language is too different from the other three. Sauna is a Finnish word. In Sweden we say bastu. The Swedish Vikings mostly went east and south-east. It was the Danish Vikings that raided England and therefor Danish influenced English. Not so much Swedish. The Norwegian Vikings went to Iceland and Scotland. About 290,000 people, or 5.2% of Finns, speak Swedish as their first language in Finland. You are correct. The formal ni for singular you has almost completely been replaced by the informal du. Nowadays ni is almost only used for the plural you.
If you end a sentence with a high note its considered a question, that has nothing to do with sing song. I also dislike your inflationary use of superlatives e.g. "always". It might surprise you, that superlatives almost never exist or are wrong in reality, especially when talking about behavior of certain groups of people ("the swedish, etc."). The vast use of superlatives makes this video less believable for me.
Sauna is not a Swedish word, its Finnish. Bastu is the swedish word for sauna. The word window comes from the old norse word vindauga, in mordern swedish vind öga or in english wind eye.
I appreciate the video, but just fyi, Finland is not, and has never been, part of Scandinavia. The Scandinavian countries are Sweden, Denmark and Norway.
For me, I like the sounds of many languages, but that doesn't mean that I necessarily find them beautiful sounding. Bulgarian for example sounds almost weird, but it definitely has it's charm. And the r-sond of Albanian is to my ears comedic even, but it sure makes the language stand out, and not in a negative way at all.
"Ni" in Swedish has some similarities with the German "Sie". Both are intended to signal a difference in hierarchical position. The difference is that the German "Sie" is used to be polite, while the Swedish "Ni" historically was used when talking down to someone. After the "du-reform" in the 60's, "Ni" was forgotten and rarely used. Later in time, it made a comeback but with a twist. Instead of talking down to someone, using "ni", people began to use it like the German "Sie" is used. Older people, who still remembered the original way to use it, often found it offensive and impolite to be called "ni". I don't think any swedes would ever expect to be called "Ni". So unlike in Germany, my suggestion would be to always use "du" in every situation, regardless of hierarchical position, age or anything else. When someone calls me "Ni", I tend to correct them and say "I'm only one person. You can call me 'du'", because most people who use "ni" are immigrants who doesn't have Swedish as their mother tounge.
Actually that is interesting that ni was to lower respect not increasing respect which is the case in German. Lemme tell you something you might find interesting as well... No matter if you use siezen or the commonly unknown ihrzen it's increasing the status of the person you're talking to by addressing him or her in PLURAL. So in German no downgrade at all. German knows 4 ways of adressing, not just two. If you want to downgrade someone (to a maximum) when speaking, there's erzen for. The hierarchy of respect goes as from hightest to lowest respect: Siezen (3rd p(erson) plural) => Ihrzen (2nd p. Plural) => Duzen (2nd p. singular) => Erzen (3rd p. singular). Ihrzen nowadays is almost extinct and WOULD only be used in a highly aristocratic environment IF AT ALL. Highly doubt that. Erzen is very seldomly used but still exists in nowadays language as a strong downgrade of the person you talk to. You should not do that, it's considered shameful to speak like that.
Du and Ni is from my point of view connected to the law of Jante culturally. There may also be some Swedes that would frown upon being called Ni, in singular that is. The only ones that may be called Ni upon is the royals, in formal situations, but there mostly we use their titles when spoken to.
Swedish is the only Scandinavian language that has pitch accent officially. So, kind of a tonal language. This is why some Asian language speakers has easier to learn Swedish than most, except for the rolling R (or semi-rolling R)
Just a correction: You mention sauna, which is a Finnish word. The Swedish word for sauna is bastu which comes from badstuga. Bad and stuga (bath and cottage).
Was about to comment the same thing. We kind of stand out since we call it bastu.
@@Templarofsteel88 Sorry, but we are not that speciell. Bastu in Russian and surrounding languages is "banja".
@@gregoryistavros7585He is talking about the swedish word, not who invented the sauna. People have done that all over the world. What's your point?
@@gregoryistavros7585Shhh! We are special!
@@gregoryistavros7585 Think the Russian word comes from French for 'bath' - bain.
Finland is NOT a Scandinavian country. It is a Nordic country.
Came here to say that.
worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/scandinavian-countries
@@philosophiahelveticaThat is not a good source. There is no such thing as "some times Scandinavia".
Boy you really wanna piss off Scandinavians don't you.
We live here, what we say goes.
Scandinavia is named for the mountain range separating Sweden and Norway. Linguistically Swedish, Danish and Norwegian are highly highly similar and we can understand each-other more or less without issue in both speech and text (barring some difficult dialects). Finnish on the other hand is of an entirely different language branch altogether, the Finno-Ugric one. Ours is Northern Germanic.
Finland is highly influenced by Sweden due to our historic relationship - we literally owned the bulk of what is modern day Finland for 400 years - but language-wise and culturally they are separate. The western parts of Finland are closer to Sweden both in language and culture, but they are not us.
TLDR:
Scandinavian Countries: Sweden, Norway, Denmark
Nordic Countries: Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland
If you want to you can include the Faroe Islands in the Nordic category, though they are an autonomous territory belonging to Denmark
@@philosophiahelvetica Doesn't matter what any source says. Finland is not a Scandinavian country, and never was. Ask a Finn.
Fun fact:
'Du' is often pronounced 'Ru' inside sentences in many Swedish dialects because it gets mashed up with the other words.
"What are you doing" in written form would be "Vad gör du?", but often a Swede would say, "Va gö ru?" instead.
Tbh, we'd probably need a new reform of how we spell things because written Swedish is nothing like it is spoken 90% of the time.
No, that's completely bullshit, maybe in your specific dialect. "Va gö du" is a common pronunciations in many of the Swedish dialects, when the "r" specifically gets dropped, not the other waya roudn
@@johan13135 Bro, did you even read my comment? No.
It is apparent you didn't.
What part of "'Du' is often pronounced 'Ru' inside sentences in many Swedish dialects" said "All dialects" or "Most dialects"?
Dropped the contact lenses?
That Sweden, Norway, and Denmark are viewed to be mostly Scandinavian, is because they are the *ONLY* Scandinavian countries. Many people confuse Scandinavia with the Nordic countries, which besides The 3 Scandinavian countries also include their territories such as Greenland and the Faroe Islands, plus Finland and Iceland. So Finland is not a Scandinavian country and the Scandinavian peninsula is only Sweden and Norway, however, for traditional reasons, Denmark is also included (southern Sweden used to belong to Denmark, but also because the languages are so similar).
Also, Sauna is a Finnish word, not Swedish. A lot of English words also come from the old Norse language, and many of those words are still used in Scandinavia, such as Sky, Husband (from Husbonde), Window (not used in Swedish anymore but still used in Norway and it comes from the word Vindöga = Wind Eye), berserk, blend (from blanda = to mix), blunder (from "blunda" = Cloese ones eyes) and many many more, but not all of them has survived into today's Scandinavian languages.
Scandinavia is named after the mountain chain "the scandes". The mountain chain starts allready under Denmark.
So you have to distinguish if you mean the Scandinavian countries - with "country" in its political sense, thus sort of including Greenland because it is part of the kingdom, or you are talking about geography, where, at best some of the Danish islands would be part of it, but non all of Denmark.
@@1-3645
But there are no mountains in Denmark. The continuation of the Scandes is found in Scotland and the Appalaches in the east of US.
The Danes actually ruled most part of England so it’s a lot of words from the Nordic countries. Norway, Sweden and Denmark we all understand each other. Finish is a completely different language family.
"Ni" is not just formal/polite. It is also "dominance" speak. Insulting and used to create distance. Sometimes young people say "Ni" to older people in an attempt to show respect, like a formal second person pronoun is used in other languages. But this may be recognized as being intentionally patronizing and insulting. Also we almost always use first names. Not titles or last names.
The only exception I know of is when talking to the king. Then the formal title "Kungen" is often used. Not Carl or Kalle.
"Hej, Kungen!"
It's more common using "du" has dominated for the last 40 years or so (no matter the age you are talking too). I rarely hear "ni" .
But you are correct we are using the first name if we know the person's name. If strangers often we just say "hej" (hi) and if it starts with a conversation we often start with telling our name and the other person should then say his first name.
It also depending how formal the current gradering is, we shake hands at same time we telling our name and the other person straight after.
You are spreading 1970s myths.
@@herrbonk3635 you need to check out the comment of krilleshorna below. Although a mishap on when the du-reform was initiated, he's spot on concerning the bs delusion to be respectful imagined revival (not a revival, new invention) of "ni". The use of "ni" is just another example of how conceited uneducated people make fools out of themselves while thinking they're being enlightened and esoteric even.
@@herrbonk3635 What myths is that?
@@adoby83Exactly what you wrote is an old myth, i.e. the idea that "ni" was used for suppression more than for respect and politness. A myth created by people that really wanted to use "kamrat"... but as that word would have been a little to much even for conformist swedes, they had to settle for the slightly less revolutionary "du" instead.
Sauna is called Bastu in Swedish, it is short for "badstuga". Bath in a smal house is what the name bastu comes from. Sauna is what the Finnish people say.
I have heard an old story from Finland where the name SA U NA means SA= get and U= old (ancient) and NA= knowledge.
According to this information, people sat in the sauna and taught each other about their history orally. Often this happened with different rhyming verses, because then it is easier to remember and preserve.
When you sit in a bastu you do not have any clothes on you, everyone is the same. Whether you are a king or a peasant. Everyone is equal, and that is what we all are! We are people, high as the low.
It's better to call people "du" not "ni". No one (except possibly the king?) gets offended by being called du, but many get offended by being called ni. Some young Swedes have started to address older people ni lately in the belief that it should show some kind of respect (like in the old days) and received a scolding. Older people are the ones who pushed through the du reform. You can read about it on Wikipedia. If you call me ni, I would confused answer: "who are we?" because I see it as plural.
Also sauna is a Finnish word, not Swedish. In Swedish it is called bastu
I wa worked as a shunter on the swedish railway company SJ, and at one occasion had to instruct the crew on a locomotive that he had to reverse a couple of meters to make possible for me to change a switch. I thought I saw two guys on the loco in the darkness, and therefore used the word "ni" (pluralis = two or more). I was wrong, it was just one driver, and he went really angry: "Young man, here on SJ AB we are all comrades, and we are titulated "du"!
Sauna is not a swedish word, its finnish. In sweden we say "bastu", which is a shortening for "badstuga" = bathing cottage".
"Ni" was used to address people of lower status, like servants, store attendants etc. The formal polite way to address others was to use titles and last names, omitting the names if unknown.
For people of higher education or social status, this would be reflected in the way they were addressed.
"Vill magister Andersson göra mig sällskap på en promenad?" ("Does School Teacher Andersson want to accompany me for a walk?")
"Får jag fresta prostinnan med en karamell?" ("May I tempt the Provost's wife to try a piece of candy?")
For other people, one would use descriptive titles relating to gender and marital status, still often with the last name included. If one didn't know a persons proper title, one might also need to fall back on these, and thereby taking risk of offending the person.
"Unge herrn får gärna låna min jacka." ("The young gentleman may very well borrow my jacket.")
"Tack, fru Larsson." ("Thank you, Mrs. Larsson.")
So, when young people try to be polite by reintroducing "ni", they tend to do it in a way that would have been impolite back in the days. (I think that there are days even farther back when it would've been polite, but they won't meet anyone with personal memories of it.) My parents never said "du" to my grandparents, but they most certainly didn't say "ni" either." Adressing the king with "ni" definitely wouldn't be correct.
"The Knights who say NI" would disagree! ;)
@@PastorCastor Note that I didn't say the king should be addressed as "ni", just that he's probably the only one who would be offended by a "du".
I don't think anyone from Finland would agree upon that Russia had any influece on them, nor linguistically or cultural during that era
Except maybe for the russian type architecture in Helsinki though.
@@Zakarias89Russian? It looks 100% like any other Swedish city as it should. Helsinki was built during the Swedish kingdom Era.
@@johnnorthtribe Except for that which was built between 1809-1917, like the senate square and the cathedral. So not 100% swedish
Neoclassicism is not Russian style. It was en vogue back then, so Helsinki looks like St Petersburg, but only the "monumental" centre. There are hardly any buildings standing from the Swedish era, mostly churches and of course Sveaborg, the mighty sea fortress known today as Suomenlinna.
Toveri and remontti are examples of the few Russian loan words in the Finnish language.
About 5.2% of the Finnish population have Swedish as their native language. More of them however know Swedish even though they do not consider it as their native language.
However, most Finns I have met spoke German better than Swedish.
The Swedish spoken in Finland sounds flat compared to rikssvenska. In Åland it sounds like "real" Swedish.
@@Octopussyist Studying German at school is quite rare nowadays in Finland, whereas everybody has mandatory Swedish at school from 6th to 9th grade. Most students continue to gymnasium (senior secondary school) where Swedish is again a mandatory subject for a couple of years, and again in the college. So every Finnish student has mandatory Swedish lessons for about 5-7 years. Still many people are not willing to speak it, but that's another story :) Most Finland-Swedish people switch to Finnish and the Swedes switch to English when you try to discuss in Swedish with them, so learning the language may not feel very useful.
Your english is really good! I couldn't pinpoint where you're from before you told me. The german accent is usually quite brutal.
Just a little correction from a friendly swede. You should never use "Ni", always use "du". I don't really think anyone would be offended, especially not from a German who we know are really strict with such etiquette, but it is wrong. Swedes are usually happy when somebody bothers to learn our language and usually understand even though the person is struggling with words or grammar.
I understand why you want to play it safe considering that your whole language is built around hierarchy and making misunderstandings impossible through strict grammar. My favorite example of this is: "Ich komme in die Uni" vs. "Ich komme in Der Uni".
About the "singing", that's how we put emphases in sentences. You do it by word order and we "sing".
I hope this helps!
Good luck with your studies!
@@LuckyAmazon-xz1ge hej there friendly Swede! Born and raised in Switzerland here, hence my German is brutal, haha.
I would really love to go to Sweden for a longer period of time to just spend some time with some swedes and get to know your country better.
Greetings, Alex
@The german accent is usually quite brutal.
... except whan you cant pinpoint that either. Especially not when you have stupid Hollywood-made German accents in mind that usually don't sound like German accents at all.
Except in Finland-Swedish it's quite normal to say "ni" if you talk to an elder person in a formal situation.
Du-reform started 1967. Search Bror Rexed.
Yes, you are quite right about that. Se this article in Wikipedia:
sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du-reformen
We call everyone by the informal "you" or "yours", except the king, queen, and other high royalty. We also call everyone by first name, including teachers, bosses, other people's parents, etc. We even use nicknames for work. Of course you can still use the formal words because we know them, but people would think it's a little weird
Sauna is actually Finnish language, wich by the way is not even related to the other scandinavian languages,
the Swedish word for it is bastu.
Swedish in Finland is mostly spoken at the west coast, in the area that’s called Österbotten. It’s its own dialect too; österbottniska. Swedish is also spolen in the Åland Islands, which is an autonomous part of Finland.
Defining all those dialects as "österbottniska" gives a bit of a wrong impression though. There are hundreds if not thousands of them and some of them are very distinct from the others. Usually the differences are more minor but the dialect they speak 5km away from where I grew up is already slightly different than the one spoken where I grew up myself. Sometimes the differences even with such a small geographical distance can be quite noticeable, for example using different genders for different objects or using only 1 gender or no gender at all.
I think there are more Finland-Swedish people living in the South coast (Nyland) than in Österbotten.
@@jrautanen It's quite close. Those who live in Uusimaa are generally bilingual so you'd never know when meeting them.
Pohjanmaa is majority Swedish speaking (90,000 speakers) and many of them are not good at Finnish.
In Uusimaa it's only 7% that are registered as native Swedish speakers but as the population as a whole is larger, that's 120,000 total.
Then there's Åland with 30,000 and Varsinais-Suomi with another 35,000.
@@jm-holm It's true that in Nyland many who identify themselves as Finland-Swedish are practically bilingual, which is not the case in Österbotten.
And in Nyland there are only two municipalities with Swedish-speaking majority (Raseborg and Ingå) whereas Österbotten has many more.
First thing: check out language groups, English is in the Germanic language group just as Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, Dutch and German.
And Faeroeic.
... and a lot of central European subvariants.
Edit: A lot of hilarious autocorrect rubbish, replaced with the words I actually tried to swipe in the first place.
Ending a sentence in a higher pitch is not true for the whole Sweden. We do it in Göteborg but they don't in northern Sweden or Stockholm. I think we vary the pitch a lot in Swedish, but in different ways depending on our dialect.
For instance, I lived in Sandviken, about 500 km north-east from Göteborg, and they say →Sand↑vik↓en, while I, growing up just slightly north of Göteborg, say →Sand↓vik↑en.
And, as already pointed out: Scandinavia is only Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The Nordic countries are Scandinavia plus Iceland, Finland and a few more.
And sauna is Finnish, we say bastu in Sweden.
We learnt in school that about 7 percent of the Finnish people speak Swedish, but that was in the late 1970's, I think it's more like 5 % now, maybe even less.
I think it is fair to say that it is common in most of Sweden (including Stockholm where I’m from) to use a higher end-pitch when a question is asked, but not so frequently in other sentences. A higher, or lower, pitch may sometimes be used to put emphasis in a phrase, or stress some fact, but it is not a general rule to go up in pitch at the end of most sentences… At least not here but maybe in Gothenburg (where things often are a bit awkward 😉).
@@peterliljeholmen5703 Absolutely. I tried to simplify it a bit to make it short…
As a Swedish speaking Finn with a Swedish dialect as my first language, we don't have that much of a variation in the way we speak when it comes to pitch (both in dialects and standard Swedish). The typical example is that we would pronounce the words "anden" (the spirit) and "anden" (the mallard) the same, while they are generally pronounced differently in Sweden.
Statistically we are about 5 % of the population now, but to be clear, that's how many people have Swedish registered as their first language and the statistics don't allow for people to bilingual, neither do they include people with Finnish as their first language that speak fluent or Swedish, some who might be married to a Swedish speaking person and live most of their day to day life speaking that language. Swedish speakers live almost entirely in the coastal areas of Southern Finland and Ostrobothnia (and of course Åland). Ostrobothnia as a whole does in fact still have a Swedish-speaking majority (well it's about 50 %, but the Finnish speaking population is about 40 %).
We would have also been a lot more if it weren't for the fact that many migrated to Sweden for work in the 60s and 70s (along with many Finnish speakers). I think there are almost as many "finlandssvenskar" (including descendants) living in Sweden today as there are in Finland, but naturally they are quite invisible in society.
It's mostly Bokmål that end with a high note which Swedish people interpret at somewhat humorus because it sounds like surprise. Swedish is also singsongish but rarely end on a higher note. I blame some of the singsong stuff of the tonal difference of some words. We're a strange language that has tonal accents which isn't normal for Germanic languages. Look into the tonal stuff and be surprised, because it is so weird. One of the accents make words stay tonally high, which is odd. Even odder compound words where the tonal accents change.
The further west you come in Sweden, the more high note endings you'll find. And as we pass into central and south Norway it's all ending on the highs. Not sure how it works in the easternmost parts of Norway, closer to Russia, if it's the same way, not as happy sounding.
if you live in Europe these days you must learn English if you want to travel abroad and communicate with other people or communicate with people who visit your country. English is the language of business and travel. In the same way, 300 years ago, you needed to speak Swedish in Finland to communicate with anyone other than your neighbours. Finnish may have been the language of most people at home but that was not good enough to deal with the government, church, army etc... Swedish was needed. Only in the mid 1800s, ironically under Russian rule, did that start to change. The awakening of Finnish nationalism caused a linguistic revolution. When Finland declared independence a decision had to be made about the status of Swedish language. It was decided to keep Swedish as an official language but Russian was not, despite the intention of Russia to Russify Finland in the 19th Century.
In my experiance, older people will usually take a ni worse than a du. I have been told multiple times during my life that they do not appreciate being spoken to as ni
As a boomer, being addressed "ni" feels really weird, bordering to insulting. It definitely makes me at least angry and also a tad sad. I don't care to explain, but whenever it happens I find it simply s t u p i d.
@@beorlingo I love it, and I'm 59. Back to civilization.
@@herrbonk3635 well, I'm 60 and thus a boomer. You gen-x young'uns may fancy seemingly coming of age, but us experienced geezers know bs when we see it.
@@beorlingo Why so much hate?
@@herrbonk3635 not the hate card also? Shame in you. I said this bs really makes me angry, didn't I!?
A good way to learn a language is to solve crossword puzzles. Start with children's crosswords.
This is something I've noticed alot with Americans, Sauna is not a Swedish word, it's actually the Finnish word. If you are ever in Sweden and want to ask for a Sauna, the word we use is Bastu. I can understand that the regions gets mixed up since Sweden and Finland has a lot of history together, but you have to give the Sauna to the Finns, it's their idea, we just "borrowed" it. And Swedish-speaking Finns live mostly on the west side of Finland, and they speak with a very interesting dialect "Finlands-Svenska". It's not its own language (technically), but they have their own words, in Sweden some say it sounds like Moomins, because in the animated Moomin show they speak Finlands-Svenska. And speaking Swedish has actually become a problem in Finland over the past few years, there's a political party that's very much against learning/talking Swedish (Perussuomalaiset).
I am not fond of nationalistic and right wing political parties, myself leaning to the left, but I must admit I give the finnish party Sannfinländarna right when they are critising the mandatory education of swedish in finnish-speaking schools. It would be better to use that time at school to learn more english instead.
Finlandssvenska - Östsvenska. Högsvenska, Åländska, Åboländska, Nyländska och Österbottniska ( Nord, mellan o syd ) är några varianter. Lite krångligt att alltid förstå kan det vara mellan vissa då de skiljer sig ibland mer, ibland mindre. Men vilken normal svensk från Småland och uppöver förstår en skåning från Ystad?
Here in Sweden it is mostly people from the west coast around Gothenburg that end in a higher pitch. Norway, especially "Bokmål" does it to a higher degree. Danish doesn't do it at all, either atonal or goes down in pitch toward the end for the danish. Swedes from the northern part of Sweden, "Norrland", tend to go down or speak with less pitch changes. "Dalkarlian" (Dalmål) and "Värmländska" are probably the most sing-songy. They go up and down all over the place... The person who the Swedish chef in the muppets show was modeled after was from Dalarna and spoke "Dalekarlian"/Dalmål.
The everyday purpose between addressing someone in German by "Duzen" and "Siezen" is of course formal and informal addressing but the more interesting part of siezen and duzen is: duzen is 2nd person singular and siezen is actually 3rd person plural. Yeah you read it right, it's PLURAL. The addressing of an individual and a group of individuals is excactly the same when using siezen. That means, with siezen, you talk to someone and address him or her like this person would be a group of people. That's fascinating and strange, isn't it? Also other languages are doing it like that. The funny thing in America is: there is a lot of debate of using them/they pronouns for unknown people you don't know their gender, but Germans and other languages are addressing unknown people in plural form (siezen) for CENTURIES and nobody cares because they're used to it, to such an extend that most people don't know that they are actually adressing an individual as a group.
Funny and interesting thing here is that seeing you and hearing you introduce this video I was almost 100% certain that you were Swedish. You really have the Swedish melody and energy that’s very common in Sweden. It’s very interesting. ☺️
Towns in Finland are classified as either Swedish-speaking or Finnish-speaking, depending on the relative nmber of speakers of either language (I don't know what the different classes are). Before Finland ceded parts of its eastern territory to the USSR after World War II, the city of Vyborg was regarded as Swedish-speaking, meaning signage was in Swedish etc. Even as late as 1989, when I travelled by bus as a tourist around the Baltic Sea counter-clockwise, via Ystad, Warszaw, Brest, Minsk, Vilnius, Riga, Tallinn, Leningrad (as the name of present S:t Petersburg still was back in 1989), Vyborg, and Helsinki, in Vyborg where we stopped briefly while our swedish tour guide had some paperwork to hand in to the Soviet authorities before we were to leave USSR territory and enter Finland that same afternoon, he pointed out the local bus terminal and asked us to read the sign on its roof. it said "Busstation" and our guide remarked that most foreign tourists believed that to be an attempt by the Russian bus operator to put up a sign in English to aid foreigners but accidentally dropping the space in "Bus Station". No, it was actually the Swedish compound word buss-station as it's normally written without hyphenation, with three consecutive letters "s" merged into two. For some reason the authorities for nearly 50 years hadn't bothered to replace the Swedish sign with its Russian equivalent. They eventually did so at some time between 1989 and 2016 (after which a Kentucky Fried Chicken fast food restaurant opened in the building), as can be seen in this Google Streetview photo where it reads АВТОВОКЗАЛ instead. i think you can find earlier photos showing the Swedish sign if you google for it.
www.google.com/maps/@60.7143911,28.7495508,3a,75y,341.35h,91.3t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1seWWBuV-eTsnqTrPt9UMWAw!2e0!5s20160901T000000!7i13312!8i6656?coh=205409&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTAwMi4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
I don't think there are any purely "Swedish-speaking towns" in Finland, except for Mariehamn (but that's in Åland where Swedish is the only official language).
We do have some towns that are bilingual with a Swedish-speaking majority. And even more bilingual towns with Finnish-speaking majority (like the capital area, for instance).
All the bilingual towns and municipalities have signage in Finnish+Swedish (or Swedish+Finnish depending on the majority language).
Before the war Vyborg was probably the most international city in Finland, it was practically trilingual. In addition to Finnish there was a large Swedish- and Russian-speaking population and also at least German and Polish minorities.
The Vikings that went to the British Isles were mainly from today 's Denmark and Norway, while the Swedish Vikings went to the east and founded Kievan Rus, which today corresponds to Ukraine and Belarus.
Swedish and Norwegian are perceived as though the speakers sing. This is due to the tonal accent which has to do with timing in the pitch top in words that are in fokal position. In Danish this feature has evolved into stød which has to do with voice quality. Sometimes this is pronounced as a glottal stop between the syllables. So Danes don't sing when they speak. The East Swedish dialects spoken in Finland generally lack the tonal accent as well.
Thanks for a great upload! I think it's great to learn new languages, and always funny that so many are interested in Swedish.
Thoughts:
Some young people say "ni" to older people, which often is a mistake. The older generation today are the ones that got rid of "niandet" in the end of the 60s. Personally, I don't really care if someone says "ni", there are things that are worse (🤦♂️), however "ni" can sometimes feel a bit patronizing.
As a Swede in my late 40s, my advice is: never use "ni" to address one person, no need, and you want insult anyone. I've never heard anyone complain about people that don't use "ni" to one person.
Extra: I know that some sources include Finland in Scandinavia, but c'mon! Fennoscandia would be the correct thing if you want to include Finland. And sauna is Finnish. We say "bastu" which comes from the words "bad" och "stuga".
Keep up the good work!
The "du" reform happened in the 1950s. Before that, the formal address was not actually "ni" (otherwise we would have changed it to "ecki-ecki-ecki-ta-pang"), either profession/title (and in the case of women, often their husband's profession/title in the feminine form unless they actually had their own job) or surname, or both. "Du" was reserved for BFFs, lovers or close family. And "ni" actually implied that they didn't have a title or were not worthy of one, and therefore quite insulting. You could also address waitstaff by given name.
So you would have:
* "Ers majestät" or "ers höghet/kunglig höghet" (still in use; if they allow you to be informal, you address them as "kungen" or "kronprinsessan")
* "Överste Granlund", "översten" (still in use in the military)
* "Överstinnan" for colonel Granlund's wife, or "fru Granlund" if you didn't know her husband was a colonel.
* "Lärarinnan Andersson" for the female teacher Andersson (one of the few jobs open for women in the 19th century), or "lärarinnan". You could also use "fru Andersson" if you didn't know she was a teacher.
* "Fröken Andersson" for miss Andersson's daughter.
* "Herr Andersson" for miss Andersson's husband, if you didn't know his profession.
* "Unge herr Andersson" for miss Andersson's son.
* If there was a maid named Josefine Spjut in the Andersson household, the Anderssons would address her by her given name, like "Josefine" or "fröken Josefine", or just "fröken"; everyone else would address her as "fröken Spjut".
* "Frun" (ma'am), "herrn" (sir) and "fröken" (miss) was acceptable if you didn't know their title or name.
* And if the colonel Granlund was really upset with some civilian being uppity, he would address that person as "ni".
For some reason, "ni" as formal address is actually pretty modern, a couple of decades after the "du" reform, and possibly inspired by French and German.
Du-reform started 1967. Search Bror Rexed.
Other than that, good comment. 👍
Ni was used a lot... Don't propagate those 1970s lies!
"Lärarinnan Andersson" would probably be "fröken Andersson", not "fru", because female teachers were not allowed to be married. (At least not until later.)
Some common English words of Swedish (or I would rather say Old Norse, the proto-language from which all the Scandinavian or North Germanic languages are derived):
window: from vind-ue, wind-eye or "eye towards the wind/weather"
husband: from hus-bonde, house farmer or "master of the house"
these are both from the Viking era, when the Danes ruled Britain. The word "ombudsman" is a comparably recent loan, dating to the early 19th century in Sweden (I don't know when it was imported into English. same thing with "smorgasbord" (smörgåsbord) I believe.
You'll hear people in Cork, in Ireland, finish a statement on a rising inflection.
Cork City was founded by the Vikings .
Du is singular, ni is plural. It would be strange and confusing to use ni for a single person.
Du and Ni is from my point of view connected to the law of Jante culturally.
There may also be some Swedes that would frown upon being called Ni, in singular that is.
The only ones that may be called Ni upon is the royals, in formal situations, but there mostly we use their titles when spoken to.
It’s funny because my grandma when she talks often go high and then low. She lives in what I think is called Gnällbältet which roughly translates to Grumpy belt.
I found it funny when she said “mule” which translates to animal nose (of horses or cows).
Tack för videon.
"Gnällbätet" = "the whiny belt". The whininess isn't just in the dialect, but in the attitude. "Nice weather today!" "Yes, for today."
I do endorse that you study Swedish with all the means available and share your progress with others. Jag rekommenderar att du lär dig svenska, och försöker prata svenska från början, när du kommer i kontakt med någon som kan svenska. Hoppas du får många följare. Lycka till!
Copy and paste to google-translate and listen to good pronunciation there.
@@DNA350ppm Hej hej, Tack så mycket för din stödja! Och jag försöker att prata bara svenska i min nästa video! (hope it's correct, if not let me know!)
@@philosophiahelvetica Ojdå, jag märkte inte att du hade svarat! Jag tycker inte att man ska rätta språket hela tiden när man kommunicerar, det stör flytet! 🙂 Men eftersom du ber om det så heter det "ditt stöd". När man lär sig ord i svenskan är det nyttigt att kolla på om substantiven är "en- eller ett-ord" - tyskan har der, die, das och svenskan har den och det, och i plural de, uttalas som "dom". Jag ska leta efter den videon där du bara pratar svenska!!! Försök tänka på svenska, sjunga på svenska, läsa på svenska, och lyssna på svenska. Det finns massor av hjälpmedel för den som vill lära sig svenska.
"just recently in the sixties or seventies..." ah yeah like it was yesterday
I'm a Swede and here's two things:
1. No Swede would ever say "ni" to someone (except maybe to the king). Just use "du" and save "ni" for plural like where the people you are talking to is more than one. For example if you want to ask one person if he/she want some coffee say "Vill du ha kaffe?" and if they are two or more say "Vill ni ha kaffe?".
2. When "FinlandsSwedes" from the south of Finland speak Swedish it's called "FinlandsSvenska" ("FinlandSwedish). It's is own language. Most Swede's doesn't know this, they just identifies it wrongly as the accent of a Fin who has learned Swedish and sounds Finish. I learned this embarrassingly late in life. Fins from the northern parts who learns Swedish has a completely different accent when speaking Swedish. So the "Swedish" that some southern Fins speak is not Swedish, it is it's own language. Ok, every word and grammar is exactly the same so it's practically the same with it's own accent. -Languages are weird...
Finlandssvenska is a dialect.
I am Finlandssvensk. It is not an own laguage, it is Swedish. We learn swedish litterature and history in school. We have perhaps an other intonation, the language melody sounds mor like Finnish. The language that we speak in Finland is "östsvenska" or eastswedish it is a dialect like norrländska or skånska and so on. Finnish Swedish is not a separate language.
@@evahernberg2624 Ok, I stand corrected. My ex who thought me that was Finish and not FinlandsSvensk. Or maybe my memory is playing tricks on me. Thanks for correcting me on that. Interesting to hear that it's called Östsvenska. Makes sense. I guess it's different accents when learning Swedish in school than what it becomes when someone only speaking Finish and then moves to Sweden and learn Swedish.
You should absolutely not use the formal you in Swedish. Until the 60s we used titles or third person pronouns to address people. Unlike many other languages the formal you was and is considered rude and degrading. Especially older people would be upset if you use the formal you. The informal you will not upset anyone.
So, what about HM the king? Thanks.
During the hansa trading period we all prakticly spoke the same language from russia throu slavic and europe then up north down to the brittish islands
We should thank Norway for this kind of sing-song talking style.
Why?
We are the knights who says NI !
Actually, most people will dislike it if you call them "ni" (formal you). In the 1960's there was a huge reform throughout all of society (du-reformen), which led to everyone starting to say "du" (informal you) to each other, with the deeper meaning that we are all equals. Using the formal you is considered by most people a way to point out we are not equals (which is not appreciated). Especially people over 60 will dislike or even feel offended if you use the formal you, but that really goes for everyone. We don't use it ever, not with teachers or politicians or grandparents or anyone (except possibly with the royal family, something I personally don't care for at all, as it demonstrates that they would be better than everyone else, which they are not).
Everything is easier to learn in its context than separately.
I think you mistake the swedish influence with the danish, The danelaw as it was called controlled alot of what is now England and Scotland. of course at that time the language was more similar, it was old Norse. But most of it acctually comes from old Norse and mosly from the danes.
@@Wishfull-thinking Very thankful for your correction, you're totally right on that. Speaking of Denmark, I was just recently in Copenhagen and to be honest, the way they talk is very difficult to understand, despite having some Swedish knowledge. Now since I'm no excellent fluent Swedish speaker, I was just curious how similar the Danish and Swedish languages are? Because even though the written form is understandable as a Swedish speaking person, the speaking is really incomprehensible in my opinion. Even Norwegian was much more understandable than the Danish. Just curious if you know the background or reasoning behind it!
The Swedish vikings raided Britain too, I don't know what year exactly, but I think it was around the year 700-750 or somewhere around there. But yes, they did speak Old Norse in most parts (if not all) of Scandinavia back then.
It was the same language back then and people travelled and married all over.
indeed but it was the danes the swedes focused more on the riverways of continental Europe and founded Kyiv in Ukraine. It was the family of Rus and in the end one of the brothers killed the other two and the relatives became known as the Kyievan rus
so in extent the russia we know today is actually built by the swedish vikings it might explain russias fandom to alcohol
"Ni" has never been the formal "You" in Swedish. Before the "du reform" the formal way to address some one was with title and surname. If that was not known you resorted to "Herr(-n)" (~Mister) or "Frun/Fröken"" (~Missis/Miss).
"Ni" is a plural "you" and was also the way upper classes addressed individuals from the lower classes. That´s one of the reasons many old people don´t like it when younger people address them as "Ni". Young people often think they are extra polite when they use "Ni". But to many elderly it sounds very condescending.
You are right in that some things we just are born in to and ways to speak that have no rules but that you just know. Those things are hard to learn.
4:42 -- I stopped here! You have way to many facts wrong for me to continue watching this.
Sauna is from Finland and we say Bastu in Sweden. Finland is not part of Scandinavia (that's Only Sweden, Denmark and Norway). "Norden" ("The North") is an extension of Scandinavia (but is NOT "Scandinavia") which also includes Aland, Fareoislands, Greenland (kind of, though it belongs to Denmark), Iceland and Finland.
The Vikings were first and foremost traders, farmers and fishermen! A very few percentage were raiders! -- Very few!
Another point you bring up about pitch while speaking, is not Swedish! It's Norweigian; since their language is basically Danish, they added pitch to seem different and "special". (No, this is not a joke; they did it for this reason!)
This is like an -E presentation.
Swedish is the only Scandinavian language that has pitch accent officially. So, kind of a tonal language. This is why some Asian language speakers has easier to learn Swedish than most, except for the rolling R (or semi-rolling R)
Norwegian is a stress-accent language, but has elements of pitch accent, with two distinct pitch patterns.
The Sami people often end their sentences on a low note, which makes them sound chronically depressed.
Great video 😊
@@khrystynashevchenko Appreciate it very much, thank you!
Wow nice video
Thank you, appreciate it very much!
In Norway and Sweden they "sing", in Denmark not. The swedish use to say that we talk with a potato in the mouth, to which i agree. That is the reason why it is so defficult for swedens to understand danish.
You're not quite right about Swedish influencing English, we do share a lot of words between our languages thanks to the vikings but it was mainly danish vikings (not swedish vikings) and the language spoken by vikings was Norse, thankfully the Danes had yet to create the abomination of a language the currently speak.
As for our use of the formal "ni" it's very much not required, there has been a trend to use it more in service jobs and some bosses may tell the staff to use the word "ni" when talking to customers but it's more that they want to give the appearance of respect for the customer rather than it being something that customers expects them to say. Overall I'd say you're always safe to use the word "du" in Sweden and you're never expected to use the word "ni" when formally adressing a person. You might even be seen as odd if you use the formal "ni" so there's simply no need to even consider it. As far as I know the only time you're expected to use the formal "ni" is when adressing the king, but I don't think he personally cares about that so you're probably fine to say "du" to him as well.
some use Ni when they talk to older people but they usually don't appreciate that at all, they don't want to be treated separately
Are you saying Ni to that old woman?
@@tykobrising5339 no I don't say Ni to anyone anymore when I don't know if they like it or not
The word ”sauna” is as far as I know from our brothers and sisters in Finland!? Or wtf?😳♥️
I think the internet would appreciate your reaction video to Catherine Tate’s “Offensive Translator” 😉
Thanks and congratulations.
Thank you!
Thank you.. its this about our sing-song melody.. or rather where to put the pitch in a sentens/or word that make a differens!
And Norweigans and Danes altso have there own "melody"!
And it wasnt the swedish vikings that forced the britts to speak in a proper way, it was danes and norweigans.. IE they spoke Old Norse!
In anyway I prefere to speak swedish to my scandinavian neighbours, its in the moste cases easyer then speaking English, thats hove close our language is! And scandinavians is realy good att speaking English.
Its more like a dialect, some times they use different words.. often words that I understand, but not that comon used anymore in my own language! And there is altso "false friends", words that have different meaning in our languages.. there its perfect to put in a English word!
However.. English altso have a melody/pitches/droping out letters/bad spellings.. its this I dont need to read about it.. its easyer to listen and copy it.. its hove one become more fluent in another language!
"Du" is the moste comon form for "you".. there have been a resurection of "Ni".. to be a litle more polite.. its kinda You but we are not friends/dont know each others/kinda more formal!
Another thing, we dont use "Sir" or titles.. if its not in a ceremony speach!
Soo.. on swedish TV.. in programs with for example our king that got intervjuved (its popular on TV, the year in the royal family) the reporter often used "kungen" or "drottningen" intsted of "du" and it translates to "the king and the queen", its probably less formal then the english words?
In anyway if one stumble on any royals in a bar.. one can use "Du" or Ni".. if they dont is there for an offical duty!
To say Ni to anyone especially to elderly people that lived be fore the Du-reform (1960th) would be concidered as highly offensiv. It is a marker to show that the one person your talking to that you are not equal. Mostly it was said down in the hirarky. We dont tile, a professor, judge or doktor isnt nore worth than anyone ells. We will never state our stues, Im not Mrs or Miss Eriksson because Im my one person not my huspans wife. We only du or name eachoder with first name.
Finland is not Scandinavian. Only Sweden, Norway and Denmark are Sandinavian.
Finland is not a Scandinavian country. The Scandinavian countries are 3: Denmark, Sweden and Norway. The Nordic countries are 5: Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway.
I do agree that most Swedes end their sentences in a hig pitch when they speak English, but not all. Some of us do know how to speak English properly. 😉
Also, Finland is not a Scandinavian country. Yes part of Finland is on the Scandinavian peninsula, but only Sweden, Norway and Denmark are the Scandinavian countries. The Finnish culture and language is too different from the other three.
Sauna is a Finnish word. In Sweden we say bastu.
The Swedish Vikings mostly went east and south-east. It was the Danish Vikings that raided England and therefor Danish influenced English. Not so much Swedish. The Norwegian Vikings went to Iceland and Scotland.
About 290,000 people, or 5.2% of Finns, speak Swedish as their first language in Finland.
You are correct. The formal ni for singular you has almost completely been replaced by the informal du. Nowadays ni is almost only used for the plural you.
We do not end our Swedish sentences on a high pitch either...
That's Norwegian, and a few regional dialects close to the border, like Värmländska.
If you end a sentence with a high note its considered a question, that has nothing to do with sing song. I also dislike your inflationary use of superlatives e.g. "always". It might surprise you, that superlatives almost never exist or are wrong in reality, especially when talking about behavior of certain groups of people ("the swedish, etc."). The vast use of superlatives makes this video less believable for me.
Havent met a non-swede ever mastering our language lol.
Often it is the melody or the emphasis that everyone get wrong, or the pitch.
Sauna is not a Swedish word, its Finnish. Bastu is the swedish word for sauna. The word window comes from the old norse word vindauga, in mordern swedish vind öga or in english wind eye.
We only use informal you -Du. Nobody use Ni anymore.
I appreciate the video, but just fyi, Finland is not, and has never been, part of Scandinavia. The Scandinavian countries are Sweden, Denmark and Norway.
Scandinavia and the nordic countries are NOT the same. Calling the nordic countries Scandinavia is like calling Europe EU.
Nice concept, but several (severe) factual errors as people have pointed out. You need to do more research for videos like this.
Actually, if you are under 30 years old, none will ever correct or expect you to say "ni" insted of "du".
For my Danish ears, Norwegian is more beautiful than Swedish.
I guess you hear mostly "Skånska" and THAT is a ugly Swedish dialect.
Oh, get off it! -- You just want to conquer Norway again! haha XD
For me, I like the sounds of many languages, but that doesn't mean that I necessarily find them beautiful sounding. Bulgarian for example sounds almost weird, but it definitely has it's charm. And the r-sond of Albanian is to my ears comedic even, but it sure makes the language stand out, and not in a negative way at all.
@@beorlingoGo back under the stone frome witch you first emerged frome!
@@michaelhammar2778 Frome? That some supernatural entity, right?
"Sauna" is a Finish word.
Haha, yeah one reason why Finland is not Scandinavian is because the languages aren't even related.
Sauna is not swedish it is finnish. Sauna in swedish is bastu.
Sauna is not swedish. Bastu (badstuga) here.
You can't say "in Sweden they speak so and so". There is more than one language spoken in Sweden and Swedish is spoken outside Sweden as well.
You need to study ALOT more about,Norden.
Before making a video as this you better check first with a native Swede, preferable an older well educated person.
Care to recommend anyone?
"Ni" in Swedish has some similarities with the German "Sie". Both are intended to signal a difference in hierarchical position. The difference is that the German "Sie" is used to be polite, while the Swedish "Ni" historically was used when talking down to someone. After the "du-reform" in the 60's, "Ni" was forgotten and rarely used. Later in time, it made a comeback but with a twist. Instead of talking down to someone, using "ni", people began to use it like the German "Sie" is used. Older people, who still remembered the original way to use it, often found it offensive and impolite to be called "ni". I don't think any swedes would ever expect to be called "Ni". So unlike in Germany, my suggestion would be to always use "du" in every situation, regardless of hierarchical position, age or anything else. When someone calls me "Ni", I tend to correct them and say "I'm only one person. You can call me 'du'", because most people who use "ni" are immigrants who doesn't have Swedish as their mother tounge.
“Ni” wasn’t not necessary polite. To be polite you use a person’s title and ni was used about people without a title.
Actually that is interesting that ni was to lower respect not increasing respect which is the case in German.
Lemme tell you something you might find interesting as well...
No matter if you use siezen or the commonly unknown ihrzen it's increasing the status of the person you're talking to by addressing him or her in PLURAL. So in German no downgrade at all.
German knows 4 ways of adressing, not just two. If you want to downgrade someone (to a maximum) when speaking, there's erzen for.
The hierarchy of respect goes as from hightest to lowest respect:
Siezen (3rd p(erson) plural) => Ihrzen (2nd p. Plural) => Duzen (2nd p. singular) => Erzen (3rd p. singular).
Ihrzen nowadays is almost extinct and WOULD only be used in a highly aristocratic environment IF AT ALL. Highly doubt that.
Erzen is very seldomly used but still exists in nowadays language as a strong downgrade of the person you talk to. You should not do that, it's considered shameful to speak like that.
Du and Ni is from my point of view connected to the law of Jante culturally.
There may also be some Swedes that would frown upon being called Ni, in singular that is.
The only ones that may be called Ni upon is the royals, in formal situations, but there mostly we use their titles when spoken to.
Swedish is the only Scandinavian language that has pitch accent officially. So, kind of a tonal language. This is why some Asian language speakers has easier to learn Swedish than most, except for the rolling R (or semi-rolling R)
Nope! Norsk også!