I have worked with Finns, Norwegians and Danes and my experience is that we Scandinavians are very similar, but the Finns are tougher and more independent. But when alcohol comes into play, the Finns are World Champions. There are no better people to party with! And as said, Finland vs Sweden in hockey is something special!
i totally agree with ya, but as a swede from the northern part i feel we are much more similar than the danes, ppl from southern sweden and norway (cant tell how the ppl in the northern norway is though) when it comes to the the how we are on the social lvl we are famous for be more quiet and stick to ourself up here
Regarding the relationship between Finland and Sweden, I think ´Geography now said it best in their video about Finland "They have the biggest frenemy relationship, they'll share a beer or two but when hockey season comes, the bloodbath begins" 😅
Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark are all family. Historical we all been part of each others history and been part of each others country. So see us as brothers, always teasing and joking about each other but at the same time loving our neighbors and family. And hey, it’s always fun to crack jokes about someone you love and you know that it will come back at you with a big portion of love and irony. And if you ask me about the language, we all speak English with each other except when Finn’s and Danes get really drunk, then we don’t understand a shit of what they are saying 😂😂😂
the speaking English with each other thing must be the young generation if it's Swedes, Norwegians and Danes, where as with Finns that is a completely different language although they can speak Swedish they don't understand Danish and I don't think Norwegian either if their first language isn't Swedish, but the 3 Scandinavian languages are a branch of very similar germanic languages so speaking English that's lazy
@@veronicajensen7690 well I just think you take the easiest option when it’s needed. I live in the south of Sweden and I always speak English with my friends from Denmark and Norway.
Sweden is great example for political decisions both in good and bad. We try to avoid some things Sweden has done and try to adapt some things to our society. I use English daily both on live situations with different people or commenting on Facebook, here or somewhere. Swedish I use only in Sweden and in Åland.
Sweden and Finland was the same country for nearly 7 hundred years . Alot longer than the USA has been a nation. So educated swedes understand that we have a special relationship with the finns. We have the deepest military cooperation with Finland. When a new government is instalĺed the first they talk to is the finns. When Sweden was moving towards joining the EU the government was talking with the finnish government. When Sweden wanted to join NATO they talked with the finnish government about joining NATO together. The swedish primeminister have very close comunication with the finnish primeminister and president. Sweden does not have such relationship with any other nation.
We were under imperialistic rule. We never were the same nation nor will we never be. Some of the Norse gods are based on old pagan gods from Finland by the way. So you vikings were fanboying us which is cute 😂
You also left us for dead as a government during WW2 if you've forgotten. I salute the volunteers who came through but your country's not too great. Nothing against you as a person either so don't take it that way. Enjoy the summer my Nordic brother ❤
@@De_Lirium about the second world war like the swede above mentioned it’s important to be educated. First of all, it was the government of Sweden, who failed Finland not the people there were so many Swedish men who willingly volunteered to help Finland during the war. Second of all, it’s easy to say it was selfish but thinking about either letting the powerful enemy go through your country or letting them take your country. I’m guessing a lot of people would have let them go through because humans nature is selfish when it comes to survival. We do anything to survive. if Finland was the nation that Germany went through and tried to bomb Sweden, I think you might have done the same decision.
@@Frizzi04 I know there were many swedish men coming to help. Those being practically the only help we received other than the training from the monsterous Naziz. I hate the swedish government just like I hate my own.
As a Swede, we REALLY accknowlege the rivalry in Ice-Hockey. We might loose a championship, but if we beat Finalnd it's eases the blow, and I know the Finns feel the same way. Also we have the Swedish/Finnish games every summer and that is 100% about beating the Finns. That said, we REALLY rival with the Norwegians in cross country skiing competitions, and the Danes in Football. So it's all about what time of the year and what sport you're talking about.
About ice hockey, winning gold is not the most important thing in the world. Winning Sweden, on the other hand, is the most important thing in the world. 😂 With love from Finland 😘
When it comes to icehockey the rivalry is with Finland. When it comes to football it is mainly Denmark and in skiing we have Norway. More or less like that.
True. Finland mostly sucks in football. We´ve had only handful of great players like Jari Litmanen. Hockey is like national sport here and we´ve had lots of talented players. We used to have good skiers too, but not so much anymore. Norway is almost out of the league what comes to skiing. But what comes to hockey the toughest teams usually are Finland, Sweden, Russia, Canada, Czech & USA are and have always been tough. Latvia, Slovakia, Switch & Germany might have good teams too. Those are the top 10 tems of ice hockey.
i got that arrogant attitude. When i worked as a security officer at one hotel, swedish people (usually older) demanded me to speak swedish to them. When i could not say a word they got mad at me XD
I worked in security as well a few years back and only knew finnish and english. If someone tried to speak swedish to me, it would enter my ear and exit the other. Pretty much the only way to communicate was to use either finnish or english. There is no point in keep going with swedish giberish if the other person doesn't understand a thing you say.
I, as a Swede, have NEVER understood that. I mean, how can I, as a speaker of another LANGUAGE walk in to a pizzeria in Wasa and demand that people speak my language, just because the country was a part of my country 300 years ago. It is something I would never ever do (although I know many ignorant Swedes do). What's wrong with asking; -"Do you speak Swedish or dou you prefer English?" I hate when I hear Swedish people doing that in Finland. Makes my blood boil.
@@robbalobba nice to hear you understand whats up with this madness XD I lived at porvoo (borgå) at that time, i understand there is strong minority of swedish speaking people, but still.. D:
@@Juhani96 Yep I hear you. It's the; "I'm Swedish and I assume every Finn speaks Swedish"-part that gets me. It's disrespectful and arrogant. Just annoying and ten times as much for you I guess.
The reason for Swedish language being mandatory in Finnish school goes back to the 50's and 60's, the Finnish job market were plummeting but Sweden needed a lot more workers. President Kekkonen made sure Finns could find work in Sweden if not in Finland by this move. That's the basic reason, but things have changed a lot, I guess it's mainly forgotten by now why that is. Finns more thinks it's some kind of infringement on their Finnish national soul. There is some tension between Finnish speakers and first-language Swedish speaking Finns, to make it worse. They are sometimes considered being a minority in power and with "special benefits". And so having to learn their language "in your own country", to some, that hurts and I get that.
So Finland studies Swedish because they were a part of Sweden for a time (but we don't study Finnish...). Finland is also placed between Sweden and Russia and have saved our asses (I'm Swedish) during war through sheer badassery while their kids were shipped to us. Look up the winter wars where Russia invaded Finland.
yeah i think many Finns would think of the gay/snob/arrogant stereotypes. I dont know how old this video is but i have noticed that we used to look up to Sweden a lot in the past but now we are trying to not be like them in many ways. And yes, Finns use English way more than Swedish because its only needed on western coast at some rare instances (i have lived in Vaasa 6 years and havent needed it once because the Swedish speakers speak English and usually Finnish too). Vast majority of Finns forget the language because they have no need for it or never just learn it which makes the mandatory learning part a waste of tax money 😀
Yea, why dont we learn russian, it was nikolaistad before vaasa, or vasa in swedosh and where does that come from, jesus fucking christ im tired of this fennomania, i have a finnish-speaking friend and sometimes we fight over this. Why the fucking hate???
@@guanoapes771I'd rather learn the whole swedish dictionary and all the slang terms before learning a single word of russian. Pretty much anything over russian.
Then there's me. A Swedish speaker from Vasa who can barely hold a basic conversation in Finnish, and can get by in Vasa basically completely without Finnish.
Hello, Dwayne! Great reactions and comments once again! As a Finland-Swede, my views and knowledge are perhaps more balanced than those of the Finns interviewed. I note that no Finland-Swedes were included in the programme. The Finns who live in the part of Finland where hardly any Swedish-speakers live (inland, eastern and northern Finland) and have little use in practice for their knowledge of Swedish, tend to minimise the number of Swedish-speakers, so here's a more accurate picture: -- In Finland, there are almost as many Finland-Swedes (finlandssvenskar) as there are inhabitants on Iceland - and they have a nation of their own! -- While it is true that all along the coastal regions and all over the huge but sparsely populated archipelagoes, Swedish speakers abound and even constitute the majority in many of the oldest towns and of the fishermen out there in the archipelago, still, the biggest concentration of Swedish-speakers live in Helsinki and its surroundings, not counting Åland, which is an autonomous area. Swedish is the single official language in Åland, whereas Finnish and Swedish are the two official languages of the rest of the country. Finland is made up of towns and regions that are either single language Finnish or Swedish, or bilingually both Finnish and Swedish. Official documents, administration and communications between the powers that be and the inhabitants have to follow the pertinent laws. Most of the small coastal towns (the oldest ones established in Finland when the area was an integral part of the Kingdom of Sweden and no country by the name of Finland yet existed, still have big Swedish-speaking minorities. And almost all of them have Swedish names, as do rural places along the coast, except for the ones in the very northernmost parts of Finland. Historically, large groups of Finns emigrated to Sweden and vice versa. For example, when King Gustav Vasa wanted to have a trading town to compete with Tallinn, he ordered a portion of Swedes from Helsingland in Sweden to move to the area that later became Helsinki. Although not exactly in the same spot as today, Helsinki was founded in 1550. The town got its name Helsingfors partly from where the Swedes came from (Helsingland) and partly because it was originally located by a smallish rapid (Vanda). In the nineteensixties, Finland-Swedes started moving to Sweden, especially those living on our western shoreside of the Gulf of Bothnia, where many people spoke only Swedish or their own dialect of it. There is today about as many Finlanders, Finnish-speakers and Swedish-speakers, living in Sweden as there are Finland-Swedes living in Finland. To give you a rough idea of the amount of Finland-Swedes living in Finland, when I was growing up, the population of Helsinki was about 400,000 and 20% of those spoke Swedish as their mother tongue. The Finland-Swedes made up some 10% of the entire population. Today, we are about 6%. It's not that we have been diminishing, really, because we continue to increase, but that proportionally we make up a smaller part of the inhabitants. One fact in the statististics that usually is overlooked is the big number of completely bilingual (Finnish and Swedish) people as well as the equally important number of bilingual families. Also, there's a lot of families with family ties to Sweden. All of this increases the Swedish-speakers considerably. It's a complicated business tightly intertwined with the shared history of Finland and Sweden with many twists and turns...
18:40 i don’t speak english everyday but like, 50% i read in social media a day are in english and i write english everyday. Like everything in social media is in english (Football, wrestling, news etc.)
When that one lady mentioned sailing and arrogance she must have been thinking about the Swedish speaking Finns aka the "Swedes of the coast". And about that gay stereotype: A man who had just recently died entered heaven. Upon arrival he had to check in and was escorted to a waiting room. The room had its walls filled with clocks and dials that all had a name of a country next to them. The man asked the clerk what they were for and the clerk said "Every time a gay person is born in any of the countries, the indicator on that country's dial moves". So, the newcomer sat down and passed the time by looking at all the dials and saw one move every now and then. Then he suddenly asked the clerk where the dial for Sweden was as he couldn't find it. The clerk replied: "The old man uses it as a fan in his office".
We started learning English in 3rd grade but I and a lot of friends already knew a lot of English as we've been listening to music and watching moviesin English
Im a Finn, but are born and have lived in Sweden all my life except when I did my military conscript in Oulu, Finland... I speak both languages fluently + English and I can understand Norwegian and Danish, even some Serbian words and German. Sadly I have lived through and experienced a lot of negative stuff here in Sweden and in Finland too. My parents has been living pretty much "secluded" from the Swedish communities, because we have been treated badly wherever we have lived here. My dad has been an industrial worker and my mom a Math and a Biology/Physics/Chemistry -teacher. They just wanted to live normal lives, but they have constantly been mistreated by both regular people and authorities. As an example I will tell you a story... When I was a little kid and I had gotten a brand new bike, then out of nowhere some older Swedish kid got jealous and kicked me off the bike and beat me up, then he jumped on my bike just to ruin it. His mom cheered at him out of their window and told him he was right beating me up, then he ended it by spitting me in the face not once but he came back and did it a second time. My parents called the police and the entire blame was put on my parents and me, not his mother or him. I hadnt even spoken to him once in my life. We have always been treated like everything is our fault, even though we have been forced to keep away and not being invited to community related stuff etc. My parents have always been regarded as alcoholics and bums despite working their entire lives and not drinking a single drop of alcohol in their adult lives, not even smoking a cigarette. I went to a Finnish class as 6 year old up to grade 9. In the second gymnasium year (of 3, Machine mechanics) I was severely bullied because I was a Finn and a year younger (thus also smaller) than the others. Teacher didnt give a damn, he just told me to keep away from them. I also got lower grades than the Swedish students despite ace:ing every test and being great in gymnastics, the Swedish kids could skip more than half a years classes and still get highest grades. But the gym teacher had to ask my name...before deciding to give me a medium grade. This is the #1 most humiliating thing thats ever happened to me. Two separate teachers (English and Finnish as home language) said they didnt dare to put the highest grade because that would make the others "look bad" and "raise the entire grade average too much". They destroyed my chances to continue studying in a university...I wound up in a low pay workplace, injured my back after I fell down a forklift and now I basicly live on welfare alone in my apartment. This is just a little piece of my story and how badly we Finns get treated here. Sorry for a long comment, but I needed to tell someone this.
Finns in Sweden were for a long time indeed absolutely 2nd class citizens. Just something to barely tolerate. As I understand, it's getting a lot better with new generations but lots of "older generations" still see Finns/Finn-related families as lower status. One of my Great Aunts' sisters (from bi-lingual family branch) moved to Swedes in mid-80s. She was as swedish looking, blonde, woman as one could be and spoke flawless Stockholm swedish and even she encountered lots of trouble settling in. It took until late 90s to people accept that she was, indeed, "swede enough". Post-Millenium is (afaik) much better for any foreigner/non-swede citizen as it was for a long time.
Ikävä kuulla. Omat vanhempani asuivat siellä 70-luvulla ja samantyylisiä kokemuksia. Suosittelen tulemaan kotiin, meidän muiden suomalaisten joukkoon. Omilla vanhemmilla ainakin vastaavat kokemukset loppuivat siihen. 🇫🇮 Suomi viha aivopestään ruotsalaisiin jo lapsena, antamalla ymmärtää että olisivat parempia. Mutta pelkästään jo se, että kokevat tarvetta tuommoiselle, kertoo sen olevan valetta.
Northen swede here! Now been living in stockholm for quite some time I think the bimbo-girl/snob/arrogant/shallow stereotype is somewhat true, but more for southern sweden… 😆northern swedish people are much more down to earth and genuine (in my very arrogant opinion 😂)
@@qwineth Makes me happy to hear you think so! I much more prefer the northern swedish/finnish mentality! Yes we there is Meänkieli but im not from that far north. unfortunately …
For me as a Finland-Swede (Swedish-speaking Finn) I ofc use Swedish more than English, everything in my life ranging from family and friends to education is completely in Swedish. I actually use English more than I use Finnish. Idk about the rest of Finland, but English (and Finnish of course) has always been mandatory for us to learn where I live, since 4th grade up until upper secondary school. I actually live in the city they were talking about in the video, Vasa/Vaasa. Vasa is actually majority Finnish, but there's still like 16.5k Swedish speakers here, and basically all other municipalities in Ostrobothnia (the region we live in) are majority Swedish speaking.
Out of the nordics I feels closest to the Finns, after all we were the same country for hundreds of years. As long as we beat them in Hockey and Finnkampen Im a happy swede.
Regarding Swedish as mandatory language in schools: Growing up in Lapland (northernmost region in Finland) it made absolutely no sense to learn Swedish in school as a mandatory subject. There was no scenario where one could ever need Swedish within our community. We already had three different local minority languages (the Sámi languages: Inari-, Northern-, and the Skolt Sámi) and couldn't choose them instead of Swedish. About a quarter of our class spoke one of the three Sámi languages as their native language, and Finnish was already their second language (and all lessons were in Finnish). About half of our community spoke Sámi, but Sámi wasn't taught at schools at the time, not even as an optional. We could only learn Swedish, which we wouldn't ever need unless we moved to the Southern coast (or had a specific govt career that required it). We were quite close to the Norwegian border, but couldn't even choose Norwegian instead of Swedish, even though most of us had Norwegian family/relatives we interacted often with. We were closer to Russian border than the Swedish border, but couldn't choose Russian either instead of Swedish. For a region that already had four local languages, plus three additional required business languages (Norwegian, English and later on Russian), it was just madness to require learning Swedish. Madness.
@@matsv201 Nope, unfortunately. It is still very much a mandatory subject to learn. Only the requirement as a compulsory subject for matricualtion exams (ylioppilastutkinto) was abolished. You don't have to take the final test on Swedish to graduate anymore, but the first few courses are sill mandatory to pass.
Tbh my Swedish skills are also very, very poor. Even after 6 years of mandatory courses and having decent grades. But since I never had any use of it outside school, the language just didn't stick. Didn't help motivation either to know I'd propably never need it (and so far haven't, since I work in tech). And what little I can still remember is just basic greetings. Can't imagine I'm the only one who forgot everything immediately after being done with schooling.
@@perunarieska9182 even the personell on the fery to sweden hardly speaks swedish any more. That is kind of strange conssdering that they probobly grew up around that area. At the same token, i kind of understand that the swedish people in Finland is sort of like the frensh people in Canada. Of cause culturally im not swedish either considering im grew up in Scania that is very diffrent from the core of sweden.
Basically same for me with Finnish, as a Swedish speaker. Even though Vasa is like 67% Finnish speaking, I have more or less never needed to use Finnish outside Finnish class in school
One of your Finnish viewers here, and I can say that I have had to use English in Finland many times, but I never remember a situation outside of school where I had to speak Swedish in Finland, and one thing I want to say is the observation that Aleksi's video was clearly filmed before the start of the Ukrainian war, because since then nobody has made any mention of wanting the Russian language in schools in Finland, and the times when I've been in Sweden I've managed to speak English as well, although last time in Stockholm the McDonald's seller pretended not to speak English, this pretending only started after the girl realized we were from Finland 🙂
That was my observation as well. I think people are mad to the Russians and are thinking that teaching russian widely might be a bad thing since it might help with the russification of Finland. Generally I think most people came to realise that Russia might be mad enough to do to Finland what it is doing to Ukraine and even though it might not be able conquer Finland, Russia definitely could destroy the country. Many finns thought that Russia actually thought Ukranians as their brothers and that their relationship is tighter and closer than with Finns and the way they just started bombing stuff and the war crimes against ukranians were hard to witness. Like if they are doing this to people they called brothers, what are they willing to do to Finns?
@@SorbusAucubaria people have completely lost their mind and forgot history, soon the war is over and people need to learn to work together again, think of all the wars the US and their allies (mainly Europe) have started without any reason but lies, the fact is Europe have to work with Russia as we are dependent and that wont change since they sit on about 2/3 of the worlds natural resources, so learning Russian is not the worst thing there will come a day where "the Russians are coming" shouting are over, we have been here before, another language worth knowing as mentioned in the video is Chinese even if right now they are the new target as main enemy of the US/EU it's all about a power struggle because one country want to control the world, and it's the country with more than 800 military bases around the world and who uses sanctions to punish a whole lot of countries, so don't get to caught up in hating Russians because tomorrow they have found a new enemy
2 месяца назад
Sweden-Finland (Finnish: Ruotsi-Suomi) is a term sometimes used for Sweden in the 20th century during the era from the 13th century to the end of the Finnish War in 1809, when Sweden also included the area that is today independent Finland. 700 years together
Also I learned my English from books and games back in the day. Had to learn early to use the computers that were entirely in English, and later supplemented that vocabulary by reading English language novels. My favorite book is the Five part trilogy of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Hey bud, just weighing in as a swede who has now lived in Norway för 15 years.. Finland, Norway and Denmark all look to Sweden with loving rivalry in different areas. And yes, we (swedes) def seems to be completely oblivious to all of it and just love them all haha Maybe a little like you, i think, in regards to how England is perceived by at least Ireland if an old friend of mine from Dublin is any indication ;) Have a good one! edit: i wrote before watching the end :)
as a finn, i can say that swedish was good idea back in days. bur nowadays swedish speak english as well as finns. id say learning spanish might be more useful.
As a Swede I only have respect for my Finnish brothers and sisters. We are always going to be stronger together than we are on our own, the idea that one would be lesser than the other is just silly since we all have such similar societies and values. Oh and by the way Dwayne, no one I've ever met in Europe has ever looked down upon brits because of your mono-lingual nature. That's literally how every country in Europe is if you just look hard enough. Sure a lot of people know English as a second language, but if it wasn't for the historical "luck of the draw" that made English and England into such a geopolitical/financial source of influence, I suspect we would all be speaking some other second language like French, German, Spanish, Russian or Chinese instead.
German and French was much more common before WW2 in all of the north. When I when to school in Sweden we had to read English, German and French and if we wanted Latin
About speaking/using the languages in Finland: I can safely say that I've had MORE USE of my quarter-course of German than I've ever had of the several years of mandatory Swedish - both in contexts of civilian and work life, be it in Finland or visiting Stockholm. English is everywhere, every day, pretty much from the ages of pre-/grade school and up. You can not NOT be immersed in English. Even if the speaking isn't necessary everyday thing, writing, consuming and interacting with it is.
Finland used to look Sweden more up and searched for political advice. Less now. Seems we have gotten more independent very recently. Joining NATO was an example of that: it was Finalnd who decided and informed Sweden, who then decided to follow. Immiration crisis is often mentioned as "Sweden's way". I think sailing thing comes from finlandsvensk population, who have more often sailing as a hobby. Arrogance-fctor? I believe it might be pretty similar how Brits view French people. I definately use english more than swedish. Only coastal areas and maybe high Lapland uses swedish. Very rarely I hear Swedish where I live, and I live in a big city. English we hear on television and music all the time. English is mandatory language to learn in Finland. So we have to learn at least Swedish and English.
I’m Swedish and very genuine but many Swedes are not much for small talk and it can be hard to get close to us. I talk and write English every day, my granddaughter is born in Australia and I don’t want her to forget her other language. Most of my friends live in America and I talk to them more or less every day. I talk so much English so sometimes I can’t even remember the Swedish word for things.
I would prefer that instead of being forced to learn Swedish that there would be mandatory 3rd language that you can choose. That would help also with learning since giving the choise makes people more interested to learn it when Swedish can feel like you just try to get through it because you have to.
I feel like that should be the case in most of Finland, but not in the bilingual municipalities (or at least above a certain % of Swedish speakers). I don't expect to be able to get service in Swedish in Finnish speaking areas, but I do at least hope to be able to get it in municipalities with quite a few Swedish speakers.
In some parts of Finland, they speak Swedish, it is called "Finlandssvenska" and has a very special accent. In Sweden, we have no Finnish parts, although we have some minority languages in the northern parts that exist in both Finland and Sweden. That is why Finland had Swedish in school
The first things that come to my mind right at this moment are the RUclipsr The Click (who's awesome), and this other RUclipsr who reacted to a Finland-related video and said "We used to own you!" 😒 And yes, he meant it like that.
In this day I hav never needed Svedish language. But English I use pretty much every day. I read books, watch series and movies using English subs and so on..
Here in Finland i'm in a steiner school and rudolf steiner who made the school was german so i have to learn swedish german and english. So i have to know 4 languages
As a finn I use English much more than I use Swedish. I've maybe once in my life actually needed Swedish. Whenever I've been to Sweden I've never needed Swedish either, just English because even if I have studied Swedish for like a decade I can't really speak it because I never get to use it and therefore forget it. English is also mandatory to learn in school but what I would have wanted was to start learning Russian earlier but we didn't have enough people to make a class in grade 8 so I got to start it just in high school (grades 10-12). And even that Russian teacher retired after I left the school so my brother couldn't start learning it even there. Well maybe he can start it in uni, but starting to learn a language as an adult is much more difficult than it would be as a kid...
I've had to take mandatory Swedish classes from primary school to University, from maybe age 10 to 21 if I remember correctly. I know basically no Swedish. It's worthless to teach it. I'd rather have studied a language I actually wanted to learn.
Me with Finnish. I had to start studying it in 1st grade (age 6) and still have half the mandatory Finnish uni course left. That means I've studied Finnish 11-12 years of my soon 20 years of life, and I can barely hold a basic conversation.
Its pretty true to be honest, we are hard to come close and i feel like alot of our small talk is kinda fake, due to us being so unconfortable in socialism, but we are very down to earth we just have hard to know how to act when being social
About Swedish vs English in Finland: once again, it definitely depends on where you live but unless you live in a heavily Swedish speaking area, you will 100% hear English way more than Swedish in Finland. Especially around larger city areas, which are more multicultural. In Helsinki, I hear English daily, whereas I hear Swedish maybe roughly once in two weeks or something (and that's usually just overhearing a conversation in a shop queue or something). So you do hear both in larger cities but English is definitely much more prevalent in my experience. Also! English IS a mandatory language in Finnish schools (in practice). Both Swedish and English are mandatory to learn. In addition, many students do pick a fourth language as well (German and Spanish are often the most popular but many study French, Russian, Italian or even Chinese).
Humility and being humble aka not bragging is literally law in Sweden, so idk what type of swede those old folks have met... Watch the "apology song" (😑😣) that Petra & Malin performed at ESC a few weeks ago "please don't be angry with us for being good at something" basically, to the entire world. That about sums it up.
I have lived in Finland all my life, 36 years, and I have never studied Swedish, because studying Swedish was optional for me, in adapted elementary school (Finns start studying English and Swedish in elementary school). I don't remember anymore, what I studied instead of Swedish, but i have never needed Swedish.
Studying and working in IT here in Finland - yes, I absolutely use English more than Swedish since in many offices the working language is English. But I've got to say, going to a Nordic conference in Sweden, I felt a bit lonely because the Scandinavian languages are so similar that the assumption around the conference was that you can always start in Swedish and then I had to be the different one who doesn't know it. Of course the official language for the conference was indeed, English. And I never was really against learning Swedish; I can comprehend written Swedish pretty well and my sister has many Swedish Finn friends so she and my mom often just speak Swedish to practice. However, for most of my time in school, I had teachers who assumed that no one wants to truly learn Swedish. During the compulsory school and upper secondary school I only had an actually good Swedish teacher for a single year. Others just had the attitude that since no one wants to learn the language, why put more than the minimum effort to teaching it. The only people to actually learn the language well in my class were people who put extra effort into it and at that point I was already teaching myself another language outside of school.
As a Swede, you understand what the Finns mean when they say "all Swedish guys are gay". Our image of Finnish men is that they cut down trees with their teeth, take a hot sauna, drink vodka and walk naked in the snow….every day 😂 We've joked about this for decades, but there is some truth to it. Visit Stockholm on a Saturday night and compare it to Helsinki. We experience Finland as a great, but maybe a bit boring country. We are also close to Norway and Denmark, Finland only have us to tease… 😂 But without a doubt, we all feel an incredibly strong bond with each other. I trust and feel a sense of belonging much more with the Nordic countries than the rest of Europe. They are like family.
I’m in university in eastern Finland and my degree is mostly in english, even tho my school is fully a finnish school. I’m not actually sure why, it might be because the field and the careers of my degree are quite international and we have had a couple of exchange students on some lectures. We never use swedish tho.
So far I have never had to use Swedish in Finland. I hear it sometimes, but I haven't needed to use it, even when I was on a trip with some Swedish speaking Finns they only used it with each other and used Finnish with us😅 English was the first language I started studying because it was mandatory to start in elementary school, a year after starting that I picked optional French because my school didn't offer Swedish. So I started learning Swedish way later and did the shorter time of it. Though I doubt starting earlier would've helped much, I can barely speak French after 7 years of studying it... It really comes down to how exposed you are to a language, my English actually sucked the first few years and then it suddenly skyrocketed once I started consuming more media in English. I haven't really had interesting media to follow in Swedish or French, so of course they've stayed on the basic level and all my knowledge is from school classes
I would def say that most Swedes are proud of our nation. Not because of what it is today maybe, but of what we have endured and done in the past. We took care of our people during WW1, WW2 and the cold war. We have history of great power and kings. We have the viking age and Asatru. Its mostly stuff like that.
5 месяцев назад
Am I the only Swede that wants to learn Finnish? Seriously. Never been to Finland, but would be cool to master their language anyways.
"Blond hair and sailing, maybe in some cases an arrogant attitude". she is talking about stockholm upper class. Yes many people sail, its mostly upper class or upper middle class swedes from stockholm or the west coast I would say. and some other places.
Personally I think even people in Finland who aren't homophobic or think Swedes are gay.... think that Swedes are flamboyant. Like... I don't think many people think there's more gay people in Sweden. But I have heard even Finnish GAY people say they think Swedish people are divas and really flaming or flamboyant, even if they're straight.
All of the neighbours to Sweden has there are defenite sportsrivality with Sweden . Icehockey: Finland-Sweden Football: Denmark-Sweden , Skiing in all forms Norway-Sweden and Handball Iceland-Sweden,Denmark-Sweden...even if Handball isnt a major sport in Sweden though...... From a Swedish standpoint. I would say that we Love all our neighbours espeially Norwegian and Finnish....but we would go hard mocking each other when about sports . From What I can see (from working in a Nordic company) ...Sweden,Norway,Finland and Denmark are getting closer and closer for every year. We have understood to stick together to protect what is ours ...And that we all together are very strong in many aspects.
I use finnish and swedish both, but mainly because my dad's side of the family is swedish and mom's side is finnish. I also had a job where swedish was needed and I was the only one speaking it. So it is beneficial in some jobs to know it. And no, I don't live in southern Finland or even in a region where swedish would be "needed".
As a Finn I actually use more english than finnish these days. Swedish... I tried to use it in Sweden but those shopkeeper immigrants prefered english. And people who spoke swedish were speaking so fast and with thick dialect that I had no idea what they said. English is used in entertainment I consume, games and work. English is prefered in many international industries anyway.
I use English at work every day, I do not speak more than 10 or so words of Swedish and have basically never really needed it here in Finland. Everyone from Sweden knows English, it is much more important to know it well than learn a language which most of us will never use. Different thing in Swedish speaking areas like Vaasa or Porvoo etc of course. English is mandatory too.
You would get quite different answers to the survey in places like Joensuu or Kajaani in Eastern Finland. The attitude towards the Russians and foreigners would also be different in the East.
before uknraine war. russian languange was good as lived in lappeeeranta, near Russian border. Currently living at Sweden, did think that i do not need sweden languane, but here are. needed to learn swedish and it not so bad. Englans works still fine.
I have never heard that a Swede would expect a Finn to know Swedish. However, we are so impressed and fascinated if you do. So you ask, and hope for luck. 😂 I don't think you should place such a high value on the issue. Many Swedes also think that “FinnishSwedish” is so fascinating and that it is more sophisticated than Swedish. Finnish Swedish is more preserved than Swedish are.
I have thought, why Swedish are not interested to learn Finnish at all. Here many pages are written so often that "Finland's sak är vår sak"... maybe in difficult situations. Many Finns understand Swedish quite fluently although speaking it is practically impossible in other parts than on the coast. We should be proud of that. Sweden was years a country with two languages, which the other was Finnish. History tells why thousands and more leave our country. Those who did the underestimated words and are a lower state and like pigs (not remember the Swedish name). Why so? The answer is clear, if have learned at least a bit our history and our role in it, to protect Sweden, too. I myself love Swedish and in all meetings with our leaders I love to listen and understand it. And I am so happy that our brother, not bigger or smaller are together in NATO and Nordic Army.
I would have loved to learn Finnish in school as a third language if I had the option. I did 1 one year Spanish and changed school and did not start again...
Interesting. I was watching ice hockey on Swedish tv toghether with finns once. (I am swedish). The speaker said that "Finland is better than Sweden", and then a very upset finn said that "now they starts to brag again". I thought that if we are bragging, we at least should had said that we are good, not the finns? Also, I have heard people in finland saying that we only make joke of them and treated the one that moved from Finland to Sweden bad, but I have only heard jokes about Norwegians and I guess treating finns bad, must gave been somewhere else than were I grow up... Also, I have noticed that many Swedish talking Finns, always change to Finnish if there is finnish talking people around. At least they did 20 years ago.
Thanks to internet we use a lot of english. And tourists and foreigners often use english, even if they arent native english speakers. But in southern finland most people know swedish speaking finns, but they know finnish so well that people dont realise their first language is in fact swedish. I kind of object to the dominance of englsh and wish other languages were learned as well.
❤❤❤😊This must be an old video. My Swedish brothers and sisters, lets stay strong and proud together! And the rest of the Scandinavia too! We have something unique in this World which combines us even tighter together. The World has gone mad but we are going to keep our heads clear and calm. (maybe we Finns will slip a bit). All the best and love from Finland❤😊
Also fun fact.. when in trouble .. we all speak English pretty much fluent.. Finland is Not Scandinavia.. But we as a people think of them as Scandinavians. Thet being Norway and Sweden.. Dunno about denmark
Ok I am swedish and I have to set some stuff right. We all don"t eat ärtsoppa and pannkaka ( peasoupe and pantade) Thursdays. That is an old tradition. Gotland is the biggest Island of Sweden but we have 220 000 islands in sweden many of them are very very small ofcourse. All swedish People are not shy and don't wanna talk. I for exemple loves to speak to new People. Our Police are NICE and very often very respectful if you are respectful to them. But ofcourse if there is a bad crime going on they are more focused and not so charming. I have lived in the states and Everyone that comes and vistit me from the states comment on how clean it is. And Stockholm my home city IS very clean. There are almost 2 million People Living in Stockholm now. One fun fact to know is that English speaking expats that comes to Sweden find it Hard to learn Swedish for the simple reason Swedish People are rankad no. 1 world to speak English that has another längre as their main langue. So everybody gladly speaks English so you get less opertunity to speak Swedish than most country.... If you going to come here come somewhere between May and September! Swedish People generelly very open minded! We are very known for some Swedish dishes and there are many good but also try Swedish pizza... we put so much god and sometimes weird stuff on our pizzasallad. One good thing is steak with bearnaisesauce. Ha ha one bad example according to my teste anyway is banans, curry and pinaple on the same pizza many swedes loves it. I am half Italien and I HATE that. Can you imagine to eat that with tomatsauce and Cheese that combination is BAD.... all swedes don't like licrish yack. I also watch what finish People think of swedes is not True Finland have had this little brother complex for soooo long. But they deep down can't hate Sweden that much cause we have alots of finnish living here. And in parts of Finland they even teach the kids Swedish as a second langue. But Norway, Danmark and Sweden are closer mentaly even if we have fun Jokes about norweigian People and they have it for swedish People 😂😂 just for fun no Hard feelings. If you want more tips for your trip you can email me on ingela@imodesign.se. stay cool and welcome to Sweden!! 🇸🇪🇸🇪
Sweden is the most similar country on this earth to us - you go to Stockholm and it is like a bit more sophisticated Helsinki :) On the other hand they are far from perfect: like they love Melodifestivalen and cold saunas etc
To be fair tho, english language is know in big parts around the world, hence why irish and scotish ppl learn it. Like for finland, if they learn swedish they can understand even norwegian and maybe a little danish
I think most Finns have way better English skills than Swedish and many people can barely speak any Swedish at all whereas almost everyone can speak fairly decent English. Personally I haven't spoken a single word of Swedish in decades since my last mandatory course. Practically everyone in Sweden speaks English as well so I don't see a point in trying to communicate with them in Swedish which I hardly understand when I could just speak English with them effortlessly. Another funny thing is that due to my company environment I speak more English nowadays than I speak Finnish even though most people at work are Finns and I only travel out of Finland maybe once in a year.
290 000 people in Finland have finlandssvenska (finnish swedish) as their native language. It sounds like a dialect of swedish but much more beautiful (I am swedish) and not all words are exactly the same. You could say that it is the same as between Brittish english and American english. Tove Jansson, the mother of Moomin, spoke it.
Personally, I don't mind having Swedish in school, but I do think it should be optional after going to college and university. Frankly, if you haven't pricked it up or use it, what little you learn of it as mandatory language will just escape you after the course is over. That's what happened to me literally whole time I was in school. I was almost reset to zero every time. Ultimately greater emphasis on english and some maybe mandatory but self selected language would make most utilaterian sense. That said like in video, it should be refined a bit based on region
That's me with Finnish. I have studied Finnish 11-12 years in school, but I can barely hold a basic conversation in Finnish. I live in Vasa, but practically never need Finnish. All my friends and family are Swedish speakers, my education has always been in Swedish (since kindergarten until now in university) and when I played football when I was younger it was completely in Swedish (except for like 2 guys who spoke Finnish)
Finland looks to Sweden a lot, maybe to much. They does copy the good things, that is great, but the also almost always copy the bad things, even that it by the time they are doing it, it should be obvious that it was. As a result Finland is in many way where Sweden was 30 years ago. And i loved the 90s, so Finland is currently a really nice place. Its basically Sweden in the 90s. When i visited last time... a week ago,it made it extra so. I don´t know if there as some 90s music week,. but they where playing 90s music like everywhere. (and some 80s). Great time. Really enjoyed my last visit to Finland. 4:20 the issue here is that a lot of Finish people confuse Sweden with Swedish people, specially Swedish people that live in Finland. The thing is that Sweden use to be much larger than it is today, and Finland use to be non existant. About 25% of Finland was Core Sweden originally, and the rest was basically occupied by Sweden. Sweden then 800 years later lossed a war against Russia, and Russia took what is current day Finland From Sweden. That also included the part that was never Finish to begin with. Eventually Finland got independent and they then become a nation with basically Swedish people and Finish people under the Finish flag. The thing is, The Swedish people always lived there. We talking over 1000 years, maybe even 1400. Its just so happen that the border included the area that use to be core Swedish. This set up some hostility. Also for several different both historical and geographical resions the Swedish part of Finland was way richer. So basically Finish people see Swedish people in Finland as snobs. But generaly its amied at the swedish people that came with the Russian occupation. A lot of this is true, some is not. But the issue here is that some people cant tell the diffrance between Swedish people in Finland, and Swedish people in Sweden. 7:00 all the men are gay and all the women are bimbos. Well.. yea, in the yes of a Finish person, it probobly look that way. but i have to say. Finish girl for sure try to emulate Swedish girls
0:40 No, there was no rivalship between Finland and Sweden. The rivalship was with Denmark and Russia. At that time, Finland *_was_* Sweden, for many hundreds of years, well over half a milliennia. I.e. until Finland was given to Russia in 1809 (after a peace treaty in 1808).
I think that learning swedish should be optional because those who don't want to learn it forget the language almost entirely most of the time (me and most of the people i know included) so it kind of ends up being a waste of educational resources in my opinion. Of course, there are counties in Finland where Swedish is spoken more widely but even in those places i think it should be optional but more incentivized
There's one part of Finland where Swedish is THE main language, almost 100% Swedish speaking, youy very rarely hear anyone speaking finnish, even the schools are entirely in swedish....
@@AHVENAN yeah i know about Ahvenanmaa, i didn't mention it because it seemed kinda obvious and because it's a system of islands separate from the mainland and the only connection to and from there is by ferry
@@eemeli1744 not just Ahvenanmaa. Many municipalities in Pohjanmaa are more or less completely Swedish speaking. As long as I can get service in Swedish (in public sector, municipal and governmental matters) in the Swedish-Finnish bilingual municipalities I'm fine. I really don't care if Swedish is mandatory there, as long as I can get the service the constitution says we should get.
il live north karelia and i dont think i've heard anyone speak swedish here since my swedish studies, then again i hear russian daily. Mandatory swedish do sound bit wierd for us who live east. atleast in my opinion
to understand finnish culture and people, best to start from is study history bit further than 2nd WW, but short term, we have "accepted" culture and vocabulary from sweden and russia..certain words or cultural differences varies a bit by what part of finland you were born/you live/have lived..though finnish has one language that is hard to us fins even to understand and that is called "saami" that belongs to people that has roots in very lapland and its nature with bit different culture style than normally stated finnish style or culture etc..kippis..
Much is the same in both Sweden and Finland. Finland was, after all, Swedish in type over 600 years. And then it worked like any other part of Sweden. So we are more similar than different, but we are not the same. Then Finland thinks they are better at ice hockey than they are😂
Sweden has a very good view of the Finns generally nowdays i think! We admire your school system, progressive social wellfare structures and love your peculiar sense of humor and suble sarcasm id say the swedish rivalry is more with norwegians yes… the Finns, we just generally like you! 🤗 Perhaps we feel rivalry with Norway and not Finland cuz Norway BROKE UP with us in contrast to how we very sadly LOST Finland to Russia? Who knows…??
For me personally, I would take German instead of Swedish any day. Most swedes are proficient in English, and I just think we have so much overlap there that I don't think it's justified to allocate resources for Swedish in schools. I would rather use that time to teach more English to be honest. It's going to be of use to many more people. Most people I know never use Swedish after school, but everyone uses English.
There were really strict unwritten rules how to be a finnish man. Due the stereotype of swedish gay men. More diversity there. Times are changing though. For better here in Finland.
Parts of Finland is swedish-speaking, therefore swedish is also mandatory, there are no parts of Finland who are Russian ( I assume). All have english in school anyway, it is not between swedish or english....
I live in the east part of Finland so here we use to speak more Russian. Now the Ukraine war and I can't see any Russians here The border is closed. Anyway the more languages you learn easier those come...... so keep on learning👍
I think that most of nordic people are quite similar. Finns are probably more introvertic and indepent compared to swedes. Swedes are also probably more nationalist and proud.
around 13:42: i live in tampere finland here is nothing in swedish and i havent needed to speak swedish ever after school.. I understand a historical meaning of swedish language but nowadays its not so important if you are in neighbouring country or other side of the world in trade or co-operating. And sweden just is not so important trade partner or not so much finlands land area has really swedish population. Ahvenanmaa should ofc have mandatory swedish if they want as its +90% swedish.
I have worked with Finns, Norwegians and Danes and my experience is that we Scandinavians are very similar, but the Finns are tougher and more independent. But when alcohol comes into play, the Finns are World Champions. There are no better people to party with! And as said, Finland vs Sweden in hockey is something special!
Yes, he says that he as a svede and other scandinavian peopke differ from finnish folk. :) I misread it too first lol
i totally agree with ya, but as a swede from the northern part i feel we are much more similar than the danes, ppl from southern sweden and norway (cant tell how the ppl in the northern norway is though) when it comes to the the how we are on the social lvl
we are famous for be more quiet and stick to ourself up here
Regarding the relationship between Finland and Sweden, I think ´Geography now said it best in their video about Finland "They have the biggest frenemy relationship, they'll share a beer or two but when hockey season comes, the bloodbath begins" 😅
Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark are all family. Historical we all been part of each others history and been part of each others country. So see us as brothers, always teasing and joking about each other but at the same time loving our neighbors and family. And hey, it’s always fun to crack jokes about someone you love and you know that it will come back at you with a big portion of love and irony.
And if you ask me about the language, we all speak English with each other except when Finn’s and Danes get really drunk, then we don’t understand a shit of what they are saying 😂😂😂
the speaking English with each other thing must be the young generation if it's Swedes, Norwegians and Danes, where as with Finns that is a completely different language although they can speak Swedish they don't understand Danish and I don't think Norwegian either if their first language isn't Swedish, but the 3 Scandinavian languages are a branch of very similar germanic languages so speaking English that's lazy
@@veronicajensen7690 well I just think you take the easiest option when it’s needed. I live in the south of Sweden and I always speak English with my friends from Denmark and Norway.
Sweden is great example for political decisions both in good and bad. We try to avoid some things Sweden has done and try to adapt some things to our society.
I use English daily both on live situations with different people or commenting on Facebook, here or somewhere. Swedish I use only in Sweden and in Åland.
Malmö...😂
Ban the Malis and Albos 😂
Sweden and Finland was the same country for nearly 7 hundred years . Alot longer than the USA has been a nation. So educated swedes understand that we have a special relationship with the finns. We have the deepest military cooperation with Finland. When a new government is instalĺed the first they talk to is the finns. When Sweden was moving towards joining the EU the government was talking with the finnish government. When Sweden wanted to join NATO they talked with the finnish government about joining NATO together. The swedish primeminister have very close comunication with the finnish primeminister and president. Sweden does not have such relationship with any other nation.
We were under imperialistic rule. We never were the same nation nor will we never be. Some of the Norse gods are based on old pagan gods from Finland by the way. So you vikings were fanboying us which is cute 😂
You also left us for dead as a government during WW2 if you've forgotten. I salute the volunteers who came through but your country's not too great. Nothing against you as a person either so don't take it that way. Enjoy the summer my Nordic brother ❤
@@De_Lirium about the second world war like the swede above mentioned it’s important to be educated. First of all, it was the government of Sweden, who failed Finland not the people there were so many Swedish men who willingly volunteered to help Finland during the war. Second of all, it’s easy to say it was selfish but thinking about either letting the powerful enemy go through your country or letting them take your country. I’m guessing a lot of people would have let them go through because humans nature is selfish when it comes to survival. We do anything to survive. if Finland was the nation that Germany went through and tried to bomb Sweden, I think you might have done the same decision.
@@Frizzi04 I know there were many swedish men coming to help. Those being practically the only help we received other than the training from the monsterous Naziz. I hate the swedish government just like I hate my own.
As a Swede, we REALLY accknowlege the rivalry in Ice-Hockey. We might loose a championship, but if we beat Finalnd it's eases the blow, and I know the Finns feel the same way. Also we have the Swedish/Finnish games every summer and that is 100% about beating the Finns. That said, we REALLY rival with the Norwegians in cross country skiing competitions, and the Danes in Football. So it's all about what time of the year and what sport you're talking about.
Not really a rivalry in football these days, is it? ;-)
About ice hockey, winning gold is not the most important thing in the world. Winning Sweden, on the other hand, is the most important thing in the world. 😂 With love from Finland 😘
When it comes to icehockey the rivalry is with Finland. When it comes to football it is mainly Denmark and in skiing we have Norway. More or less like that.
True. Finland mostly sucks in football. We´ve had only handful of great players like Jari Litmanen. Hockey is like national sport here and we´ve had lots of talented players. We used to have good skiers too, but not so much anymore. Norway is almost out of the league what comes to skiing.
But what comes to hockey the toughest teams usually are Finland, Sweden, Russia, Canada, Czech & USA are and have always been tough. Latvia, Slovakia, Switch & Germany might have good teams too. Those are the top 10 tems of ice hockey.
@@ArchieArpeggio The chicks are pretty descent in football these days, though. The guys truly suck balls.
Not really a rivalry in football anymore, is it? ;-)
i got that arrogant attitude. When i worked as a security officer at one hotel, swedish people (usually older) demanded me to speak swedish to them. When i could not say a word they got mad at me XD
I worked in security as well a few years back and only knew finnish and english.
If someone tried to speak swedish to me, it would enter my ear and exit the other.
Pretty much the only way to communicate was to use either finnish or english.
There is no point in keep going with swedish giberish if the other person doesn't understand a thing you say.
@@MK-U-N yeah, true
I, as a Swede, have NEVER understood that.
I mean, how can I, as a speaker of another LANGUAGE walk in to a pizzeria in Wasa and demand that people speak my language, just because the country was a part of my country 300 years ago.
It is something I would never ever do (although I know many ignorant Swedes do).
What's wrong with asking; -"Do you speak Swedish or dou you prefer English?"
I hate when I hear Swedish people doing that in Finland. Makes my blood boil.
@@robbalobba nice to hear you understand whats up with this madness XD I lived at porvoo (borgå) at that time, i understand there is strong minority of swedish speaking people, but still.. D:
@@Juhani96 Yep I hear you. It's the; "I'm Swedish and I assume every Finn speaks Swedish"-part that gets me.
It's disrespectful and arrogant. Just annoying and ten times as much for you I guess.
The reason for Swedish language being mandatory in Finnish school goes back to the 50's and 60's, the Finnish job market were plummeting but Sweden needed a lot more workers. President Kekkonen made sure Finns could find work in Sweden if not in Finland by this move. That's the basic reason, but things have changed a lot, I guess it's mainly forgotten by now why that is. Finns more thinks it's some kind of infringement on their Finnish national soul. There is some tension between Finnish speakers and first-language Swedish speaking Finns, to make it worse. They are sometimes considered being a minority in power and with "special benefits". And so having to learn their language "in your own country", to some, that hurts and I get that.
So Finland studies Swedish because they were a part of Sweden for a time (but we don't study Finnish...). Finland is also placed between Sweden and Russia and have saved our asses (I'm Swedish) during war through sheer badassery while their kids were shipped to us. Look up the winter wars where Russia invaded Finland.
Swedish is our second mother language and a lot of people in Finland speaks swedish as their first language.
yeah i think many Finns would think of the gay/snob/arrogant stereotypes. I dont know how old this video is but i have noticed that we used to look up to Sweden a lot in the past but now we are trying to not be like them in many ways.
And yes, Finns use English way more than Swedish because its only needed on western coast at some rare instances (i have lived in Vaasa 6 years and havent needed it once because the Swedish speakers speak English and usually Finnish too). Vast majority of Finns forget the language because they have no need for it or never just learn it which makes the mandatory learning part a waste of tax money 😀
Yea, why dont we learn russian, it was nikolaistad before vaasa, or vasa in swedosh and where does that come from, jesus fucking christ im tired of this fennomania, i have a finnish-speaking friend and sometimes we fight over this. Why the fucking hate???
@@guanoapes771 dunno what you are talking about 😂
@@guanoapes771I'd rather learn the whole swedish dictionary and all the slang terms before learning a single word of russian. Pretty much anything over russian.
Then there's me. A Swedish speaker from Vasa who can barely hold a basic conversation in Finnish, and can get by in Vasa basically completely without Finnish.
Cheers to my finnish brothers and sisters from Sweden and Slava Ukraini!
Heroyam slava!
Heja Sverige och Heroyam Slava!
Slava Ukraini, blue and yellow love 🇺🇦🇸🇪💙💛
Hello, Dwayne! Great reactions and comments once again!
As a Finland-Swede, my views and knowledge are perhaps more balanced than those of the Finns interviewed. I note that no Finland-Swedes were included in the programme.
The Finns who live in the part of Finland where hardly any Swedish-speakers live (inland, eastern and northern Finland) and have little use in practice for their knowledge of Swedish, tend to minimise the number of Swedish-speakers, so here's a more accurate picture:
-- In Finland, there are almost as many Finland-Swedes (finlandssvenskar) as there are inhabitants on Iceland - and they have a nation of their own!
-- While it is true that all along the coastal regions and all over the huge but sparsely populated archipelagoes, Swedish speakers abound and even constitute the majority in many of the oldest towns and of the fishermen out there in the archipelago, still, the biggest concentration of Swedish-speakers live in Helsinki and its surroundings, not counting Åland, which is an autonomous area. Swedish is the single official language in Åland, whereas Finnish and Swedish are the two official languages of the rest of the country.
Finland is made up of towns and regions that are either single language Finnish or Swedish, or bilingually both Finnish and Swedish. Official documents, administration and communications between the powers that be and the inhabitants have to follow the pertinent laws. Most of the small coastal towns (the oldest ones established in Finland when the area was an integral part of the Kingdom of Sweden and no country by the name of Finland yet existed, still have big Swedish-speaking minorities. And almost all of them have Swedish names, as do rural places along the coast, except for the ones in the very northernmost parts of Finland.
Historically, large groups of Finns emigrated to Sweden and vice versa. For example, when King Gustav Vasa wanted to have a trading town to compete with Tallinn, he ordered a portion of Swedes from Helsingland in Sweden to move to the area that later became Helsinki. Although not exactly in the same spot as today, Helsinki was founded in 1550.
The town got its name Helsingfors partly from where the Swedes came from (Helsingland) and partly because it was originally located by a smallish rapid (Vanda).
In the nineteensixties, Finland-Swedes started moving to Sweden, especially those living on our western shoreside of the Gulf of Bothnia, where many people spoke only Swedish or their own dialect of it. There is today about as many Finlanders, Finnish-speakers and Swedish-speakers, living in Sweden as there are Finland-Swedes living in Finland.
To give you a rough idea of the amount of Finland-Swedes living in Finland, when I was growing up, the population of Helsinki was about 400,000 and 20% of those spoke Swedish as their mother tongue. The Finland-Swedes made up some 10% of the entire population. Today, we are about 6%. It's not that we have been diminishing, really, because we continue to increase, but that proportionally we make up a smaller part of the inhabitants.
One fact in the statististics that usually is overlooked is the big number of completely bilingual (Finnish and Swedish) people as well as the equally important number of bilingual families. Also, there's a lot of families with family ties to Sweden. All of this increases the Swedish-speakers considerably.
It's a complicated business tightly intertwined with the shared history of Finland and Sweden with many twists and turns...
"Sweden hasn't been in any wars"
Somebody doesn't know any history 😂
She didn't say that. She said "the wars" and means the last three.
@@SteamboatW Subtitles say that but she said literally "in any wars".
A Dane entrees the conversation! lol...
Technically they haven't. It's always been the Finns fighting their wars 😂
@@washitokusei6801 Not really. That's just another victim story that the Finns tell to themselves 😁
18:40 i don’t speak english everyday but like, 50% i read in social media a day are in english and i write english everyday. Like everything in social media is in english (Football, wrestling, news etc.)
When that one lady mentioned sailing and arrogance she must have been thinking about the Swedish speaking Finns aka the "Swedes of the coast".
And about that gay stereotype:
A man who had just recently died entered heaven. Upon arrival he had to check in and was escorted to a waiting room. The room had its walls filled with clocks and dials that all had a name of a country next to them. The man asked the clerk what they were for and the clerk said "Every time a gay person is born in any of the countries, the indicator on that country's dial moves". So, the newcomer sat down and passed the time by looking at all the dials and saw one move every now and then. Then he suddenly asked the clerk where the dial for Sweden was as he couldn't find it. The clerk replied: "The old man uses it as a fan in his office".
lmao
We started learning English in 3rd grade but I and a lot of friends already knew a lot of English as we've been listening to music and watching moviesin English
Im a Finn, but are born and have lived in Sweden all my life except when I did my military conscript in Oulu, Finland...
I speak both languages fluently + English and I can understand Norwegian and Danish, even some Serbian words and German.
Sadly I have lived through and experienced a lot of negative stuff here in Sweden and in Finland too.
My parents has been living pretty much "secluded" from the Swedish communities, because we have been treated badly wherever we have lived here.
My dad has been an industrial worker and my mom a Math and a Biology/Physics/Chemistry -teacher. They just wanted to live normal lives, but they have constantly been mistreated by both regular people and authorities. As an example I will tell you a story...
When I was a little kid and I had gotten a brand new bike, then out of nowhere some older Swedish kid got jealous and kicked me off the bike and beat me up, then he jumped on my bike just to ruin it.
His mom cheered at him out of their window and told him he was right beating me up, then he ended it by spitting me in the face not once but he came back and did it a second time.
My parents called the police and the entire blame was put on my parents and me, not his mother or him. I hadnt even spoken to him once in my life.
We have always been treated like everything is our fault, even though we have been forced to keep away and not being invited to community related stuff etc.
My parents have always been regarded as alcoholics and bums despite working their entire lives and not drinking a single drop of alcohol in their adult lives, not even smoking a cigarette. I went to a Finnish class as 6 year old up to grade 9. In the second gymnasium year (of 3, Machine mechanics) I was severely bullied because I was a Finn and a year younger (thus also smaller) than the others. Teacher didnt give a damn, he just told me to keep away from them. I also got lower grades than the Swedish students despite ace:ing every test and being great in gymnastics, the Swedish kids could skip more than half a years classes and still get highest grades. But the gym teacher had to ask my name...before deciding to give me a medium grade.
This is the #1 most humiliating thing thats ever happened to me.
Two separate teachers (English and Finnish as home language) said they didnt dare to put the highest grade because that would make the others "look bad" and "raise the entire grade average too much". They destroyed my chances to continue studying in a university...I wound up in a low pay workplace, injured my back after I fell down a forklift and now I basicly live on welfare alone in my apartment.
This is just a little piece of my story and how badly we Finns get treated here.
Sorry for a long comment, but I needed to tell someone this.
Just proves that swedes are arrogant as fuck
Finns in Sweden were for a long time indeed absolutely 2nd class citizens. Just something to barely tolerate.
As I understand, it's getting a lot better with new generations but lots of "older generations" still see Finns/Finn-related families as lower status.
One of my Great Aunts' sisters (from bi-lingual family branch) moved to Swedes in mid-80s. She was as swedish looking, blonde, woman as one could be and spoke flawless Stockholm swedish and even she encountered lots of trouble settling in. It took until late 90s to people accept that she was, indeed, "swede enough".
Post-Millenium is (afaik) much better for any foreigner/non-swede citizen as it was for a long time.
@@Makapaa I agree 100%.
as a swede im sorry to hear that, thats just fucked up!
im a bit ashamed because when i grew up i saw this in my everyday life 😟
Ikävä kuulla. Omat vanhempani asuivat siellä 70-luvulla ja samantyylisiä kokemuksia. Suosittelen tulemaan kotiin, meidän muiden suomalaisten joukkoon. Omilla vanhemmilla ainakin vastaavat kokemukset loppuivat siihen. 🇫🇮 Suomi viha aivopestään ruotsalaisiin jo lapsena, antamalla ymmärtää että olisivat parempia. Mutta pelkästään jo se, että kokevat tarvetta tuommoiselle, kertoo sen olevan valetta.
Northen swede here! Now been living in stockholm for quite some time I think the bimbo-girl/snob/arrogant/shallow stereotype is somewhat true, but more for southern sweden… 😆northern swedish people are much more down to earth and genuine (in my very arrogant opinion 😂)
Oh, northern Sweden is pretty identical to most of rural Finland, you even have meänkieli there etc
@@qwineth Makes me happy to hear you think so! I much more prefer the northern swedish/finnish mentality!
Yes we there is Meänkieli but im not from that far north. unfortunately …
Living in northern Finland and having worked with northern Swedish people I agree. We are the same.
Blanda inte ihop Stockholm med övriga södra Sverige tack
For me as a Finland-Swede (Swedish-speaking Finn) I ofc use Swedish more than English, everything in my life ranging from family and friends to education is completely in Swedish. I actually use English more than I use Finnish. Idk about the rest of Finland, but English (and Finnish of course) has always been mandatory for us to learn where I live, since 4th grade up until upper secondary school.
I actually live in the city they were talking about in the video, Vasa/Vaasa. Vasa is actually majority Finnish, but there's still like 16.5k Swedish speakers here, and basically all other municipalities in Ostrobothnia (the region we live in) are majority Swedish speaking.
In fact, we have more than twice, almost three times as many boats in Finland relative to the population. 😂
🇫🇮❤️🇸🇪
Definitely more English than Swedish. I have never spoken Swedish outside of school.
English is also mandatory in Finland.
No, it is not by law. It may be mandatory if there is no practical alternative.
Out of the nordics I feels closest to the Finns, after all we were the same country for hundreds of years. As long as we beat them in Hockey and Finnkampen Im a happy swede.
Regarding Swedish as mandatory language in schools:
Growing up in Lapland (northernmost region in Finland) it made absolutely no sense to learn Swedish in school as a mandatory subject. There was no scenario where one could ever need Swedish within our community. We already had three different local minority languages (the Sámi languages: Inari-, Northern-, and the Skolt Sámi) and couldn't choose them instead of Swedish. About a quarter of our class spoke one of the three Sámi languages as their native language, and Finnish was already their second language (and all lessons were in Finnish). About half of our community spoke Sámi, but Sámi wasn't taught at schools at the time, not even as an optional. We could only learn Swedish, which we wouldn't ever need unless we moved to the Southern coast (or had a specific govt career that required it).
We were quite close to the Norwegian border, but couldn't even choose Norwegian instead of Swedish, even though most of us had Norwegian family/relatives we interacted often with. We were closer to Russian border than the Swedish border, but couldn't choose Russian either instead of Swedish.
For a region that already had four local languages, plus three additional required business languages (Norwegian, English and later on Russian), it was just madness to require learning Swedish. Madness.
Wasn´t the mandatory Swedish removed like 15 years ago?
@@matsv201 Nope, unfortunately. It is still very much a mandatory subject to learn. Only the requirement as a compulsory subject for matricualtion exams (ylioppilastutkinto) was abolished. You don't have to take the final test on Swedish to graduate anymore, but the first few courses are sill mandatory to pass.
@@perunarieska9182 strange. It seams like nobody under 25 know a word swedish
Tbh my Swedish skills are also very, very poor. Even after 6 years of mandatory courses and having decent grades. But since I never had any use of it outside school, the language just didn't stick. Didn't help motivation either to know I'd propably never need it (and so far haven't, since I work in tech).
And what little I can still remember is just basic greetings. Can't imagine I'm the only one who forgot everything immediately after being done with schooling.
@@perunarieska9182 even the personell on the fery to sweden hardly speaks swedish any more. That is kind of strange conssdering that they probobly grew up around that area.
At the same token, i kind of understand that the swedish people in Finland is sort of like the frensh people in Canada.
Of cause culturally im not swedish either considering im grew up in Scania that is very diffrent from the core of sweden.
Never needed to use Swedish outside school, but English yes
Basically same for me with Finnish, as a Swedish speaker. Even though Vasa is like 67% Finnish speaking, I have more or less never needed to use Finnish outside Finnish class in school
With southern Europe some people from the Nordic countries mean the countries you mentioned while other of us mean everything south of Denmark.
Norway, Denmark and Finland makes jokes about Sweden. But not between themselves..
One of your Finnish viewers here, and I can say that I have had to use English in Finland many times, but I never remember a situation outside of school where I had to speak Swedish in Finland, and one thing I want to say is the observation that Aleksi's video was clearly filmed before the start of the Ukrainian war, because since then nobody has made any mention of wanting the Russian language in schools in Finland, and the times when I've been in Sweden I've managed to speak English as well, although last time in Stockholm the McDonald's seller pretended not to speak English, this pretending only started after the girl realized we were from Finland 🙂
That was my observation as well. I think people are mad to the Russians and are thinking that teaching russian widely might be a bad thing since it might help with the russification of Finland. Generally I think most people came to realise that Russia might be mad enough to do to Finland what it is doing to Ukraine and even though it might not be able conquer Finland, Russia definitely could destroy the country. Many finns thought that Russia actually thought Ukranians as their brothers and that their relationship is tighter and closer than with Finns and the way they just started bombing stuff and the war crimes against ukranians were hard to witness. Like if they are doing this to people they called brothers, what are they willing to do to Finns?
@@SorbusAucubaria people have completely lost their mind and forgot history, soon the war is over and people need to learn to work together again, think of all the wars the US and their allies (mainly Europe) have started without any reason but lies, the fact is Europe have to work with Russia as we are dependent and that wont change since they sit on about 2/3 of the worlds natural resources, so learning Russian is not the worst thing there will come a day where "the Russians are coming" shouting are over, we have been here before, another language worth knowing as mentioned in the video is Chinese even if right now they are the new target as main enemy of the US/EU it's all about a power struggle because one country want to control the world, and it's the country with more than 800 military bases around the world and who uses sanctions to punish a whole lot of countries, so don't get to caught up in hating Russians because tomorrow they have found a new enemy
Sweden-Finland (Finnish: Ruotsi-Suomi) is a term sometimes used for Sweden in the 20th century during the era from the 13th century to the end of the Finnish War in 1809, when Sweden also included the area that is today independent Finland. 700 years together
We absolutely rival with all our brethren countries 😂! We make fun of each other all the time but from a loving place ❤
Swedish woman (born and raised) with a Finnish father and Danish mother here. I look at Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway as one big family.
Also I learned my English from books and games back in the day. Had to learn early to use the computers that were entirely in English, and later supplemented that vocabulary by reading English language novels. My favorite book is the Five part trilogy of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Swede: Fan! - Finn: PERKELE!
Which one sounds stronger? Hmm...🤔
Helvete...(not fan)
@@Rix.67 se on sitte HelveTTI!
@@Rix.67 that would translate to helvetti in finnish so it's not right either
Hey bud,
just weighing in as a swede who has now lived in Norway för 15 years.. Finland, Norway and Denmark all look to Sweden with loving rivalry in different areas.
And yes, we (swedes) def seems to be completely oblivious to all of it and just love them all haha
Maybe a little like you, i think, in regards to how England is perceived by at least Ireland if an old friend of mine from Dublin is any indication ;)
Have a good one!
edit: i wrote before watching the end :)
as a finn, i can say that swedish was good idea back in days. bur nowadays swedish speak english as well as finns. id say learning spanish might be more useful.
As a Swede I only have respect for my Finnish brothers and sisters. We are always going to be stronger together than we are on our own, the idea that one would be lesser than the other is just silly since we all have such similar societies and values.
Oh and by the way Dwayne, no one I've ever met in Europe has ever looked down upon brits because of your mono-lingual nature. That's literally how every country in Europe is if you just look hard enough. Sure a lot of people know English as a second language, but if it wasn't for the historical "luck of the draw" that made English and England into such a geopolitical/financial source of influence, I suspect we would all be speaking some other second language like French, German, Spanish, Russian or Chinese instead.
As a Sweden-Finn I wish everyone were like you and I respect your comment so much. 🥰
Sadly most arent, especially "boomer" -age people.
German and French was much more common before WW2 in all of the north. When I when to school in Sweden we had to read English, German and French and if we wanted Latin
About speaking/using the languages in Finland: I can safely say that I've had MORE USE of my quarter-course of German than I've ever had of the several years of mandatory Swedish - both in contexts of civilian and work life, be it in Finland or visiting Stockholm.
English is everywhere, every day, pretty much from the ages of pre-/grade school and up. You can not NOT be immersed in English. Even if the speaking isn't necessary everyday thing, writing, consuming and interacting with it is.
Finland used to look Sweden more up and searched for political advice. Less now. Seems we have gotten more independent very recently. Joining NATO was an example of that: it was Finalnd who decided and informed Sweden, who then decided to follow. Immiration crisis is often mentioned as "Sweden's way".
I think sailing thing comes from finlandsvensk population, who have more often sailing as a hobby.
Arrogance-fctor? I believe it might be pretty similar how Brits view French people.
I definately use english more than swedish. Only coastal areas and maybe high Lapland uses swedish. Very rarely I hear Swedish where I live, and I live in a big city. English we hear on television and music all the time. English is mandatory language to learn in Finland. So we have to learn at least Swedish and English.
I’m Swedish and very genuine but many Swedes are not much for small talk and it can be hard to get close to us.
I talk and write English every day, my granddaughter is born in Australia and I don’t want her to forget her other language.
Most of my friends live in America and I talk to them more or less every day. I talk so much English so sometimes I can’t even remember the Swedish word for things.
I would prefer that instead of being forced to learn Swedish that there would be mandatory 3rd language that you can choose. That would help also with learning since giving the choise makes people more interested to learn it when Swedish can feel like you just try to get through it because you have to.
I feel like that should be the case in most of Finland, but not in the bilingual municipalities (or at least above a certain % of Swedish speakers). I don't expect to be able to get service in Swedish in Finnish speaking areas, but I do at least hope to be able to get it in municipalities with quite a few Swedish speakers.
In some parts of Finland, they speak Swedish, it is called "Finlandssvenska" and has a very special accent. In Sweden, we have no Finnish parts, although we have some minority languages in the northern parts that exist in both Finland and Sweden. That is why Finland had Swedish in school
The first things that come to my mind right at this moment are the RUclipsr The Click (who's awesome), and this other RUclipsr who reacted to a Finland-related video and said "We used to own you!" 😒 And yes, he meant it like that.
We learn both English and Swedish as mandatory languages, I hope that doesn't change.
In this day I hav never needed Svedish language. But English I use pretty much every day. I read books, watch series and movies using English subs and so on..
Here in Finland i'm in a steiner school and rudolf steiner who made the school was german so i have to learn swedish german and english. So i have to know 4 languages
As a finn I use English much more than I use Swedish. I've maybe once in my life actually needed Swedish. Whenever I've been to Sweden I've never needed Swedish either, just English because even if I have studied Swedish for like a decade I can't really speak it because I never get to use it and therefore forget it.
English is also mandatory to learn in school but what I would have wanted was to start learning Russian earlier but we didn't have enough people to make a class in grade 8 so I got to start it just in high school (grades 10-12). And even that Russian teacher retired after I left the school so my brother couldn't start learning it even there. Well maybe he can start it in uni, but starting to learn a language as an adult is much more difficult than it would be as a kid...
I've had to take mandatory Swedish classes from primary school to University, from maybe age 10 to 21 if I remember correctly. I know basically no Swedish. It's worthless to teach it. I'd rather have studied a language I actually wanted to learn.
Me with Finnish. I had to start studying it in 1st grade (age 6) and still have half the mandatory Finnish uni course left. That means I've studied Finnish 11-12 years of my soon 20 years of life, and I can barely hold a basic conversation.
Its pretty true to be honest, we are hard to come close and i feel like alot of our small talk is kinda fake, due to us being so unconfortable in socialism, but we are very down to earth we just have hard to know how to act when being social
About Swedish vs English in Finland: once again, it definitely depends on where you live but unless you live in a heavily Swedish speaking area, you will 100% hear English way more than Swedish in Finland. Especially around larger city areas, which are more multicultural. In Helsinki, I hear English daily, whereas I hear Swedish maybe roughly once in two weeks or something (and that's usually just overhearing a conversation in a shop queue or something). So you do hear both in larger cities but English is definitely much more prevalent in my experience.
Also! English IS a mandatory language in Finnish schools (in practice). Both Swedish and English are mandatory to learn. In addition, many students do pick a fourth language as well (German and Spanish are often the most popular but many study French, Russian, Italian or even Chinese).
Humility and being humble aka not bragging is literally law in Sweden, so idk what type of swede those old folks have met...
Watch the "apology song" (😑😣) that Petra & Malin performed at ESC a few weeks ago "please don't be angry with us for being good at something" basically, to the entire world. That about sums it up.
And if that song wasn't outright bragging I don't know what.
Ni kanske har jantelagen, men de ha int hindra svenskar från att bete sig arroganta och snobbiga.
I have lived in Finland all my life, 36 years, and I have never studied Swedish, because studying Swedish was optional for me, in adapted elementary school (Finns start studying English and Swedish in elementary school).
I don't remember anymore, what I studied instead of Swedish, but i have never needed Swedish.
Studying and working in IT here in Finland - yes, I absolutely use English more than Swedish since in many offices the working language is English. But I've got to say, going to a Nordic conference in Sweden, I felt a bit lonely because the Scandinavian languages are so similar that the assumption around the conference was that you can always start in Swedish and then I had to be the different one who doesn't know it. Of course the official language for the conference was indeed, English.
And I never was really against learning Swedish; I can comprehend written Swedish pretty well and my sister has many Swedish Finn friends so she and my mom often just speak Swedish to practice. However, for most of my time in school, I had teachers who assumed that no one wants to truly learn Swedish. During the compulsory school and upper secondary school I only had an actually good Swedish teacher for a single year. Others just had the attitude that since no one wants to learn the language, why put more than the minimum effort to teaching it. The only people to actually learn the language well in my class were people who put extra effort into it and at that point I was already teaching myself another language outside of school.
As a Swede, you understand what the Finns mean when they say "all Swedish guys are gay". Our image of Finnish men is that they cut down trees with their teeth, take a hot sauna, drink vodka and walk naked in the snow….every day 😂 We've joked about this for decades, but there is some truth to it. Visit Stockholm on a Saturday night and compare it to Helsinki. We experience Finland as a great, but maybe a bit boring country. We are also close to Norway and Denmark, Finland only have us to tease… 😂 But without a doubt, we all feel an incredibly strong bond with each other. I trust and feel a sense of belonging much more with the Nordic countries than the rest of Europe. They are like family.
I’m in university in eastern Finland and my degree is mostly in english, even tho my school is fully a finnish school. I’m not actually sure why, it might be because the field and the careers of my degree are quite international and we have had a couple of exchange students on some lectures. We never use swedish tho.
So far I have never had to use Swedish in Finland. I hear it sometimes, but I haven't needed to use it, even when I was on a trip with some Swedish speaking Finns they only used it with each other and used Finnish with us😅 English was the first language I started studying because it was mandatory to start in elementary school, a year after starting that I picked optional French because my school didn't offer Swedish. So I started learning Swedish way later and did the shorter time of it. Though I doubt starting earlier would've helped much, I can barely speak French after 7 years of studying it... It really comes down to how exposed you are to a language, my English actually sucked the first few years and then it suddenly skyrocketed once I started consuming more media in English. I haven't really had interesting media to follow in Swedish or French, so of course they've stayed on the basic level and all my knowledge is from school classes
I would def say that most Swedes are proud of our nation. Not because of what it is today maybe, but of what we have endured and done in the past. We took care of our people during WW1, WW2 and the cold war. We have history of great power and kings. We have the viking age and Asatru. Its mostly stuff like that.
Am I the only Swede that wants to learn Finnish? Seriously. Never been to Finland, but would be cool to master their language anyways.
"Blond hair and sailing, maybe in some cases an arrogant attitude". she is talking about stockholm upper class. Yes many people sail, its mostly upper class or upper middle class swedes from stockholm or the west coast I would say. and some other places.
Personally I think even people in Finland who aren't homophobic or think Swedes are gay.... think that Swedes are flamboyant.
Like... I don't think many people think there's more gay people in Sweden. But I have heard even Finnish GAY people say they think Swedish people are divas and really flaming or flamboyant, even if they're straight.
All of the neighbours to Sweden has there are defenite sportsrivality with Sweden .
Icehockey: Finland-Sweden Football: Denmark-Sweden , Skiing in all forms Norway-Sweden and Handball Iceland-Sweden,Denmark-Sweden...even if Handball isnt a major sport in Sweden though......
From a Swedish standpoint. I would say that we Love all our neighbours espeially Norwegian and Finnish....but we would go hard mocking each other when about sports .
From What I can see (from working in a Nordic company) ...Sweden,Norway,Finland and Denmark are getting closer and closer for every year. We have understood to stick together to protect what is ours ...And that we all together are very strong in many aspects.
I use finnish and swedish both, but mainly because my dad's side of the family is swedish and mom's side is finnish. I also had a job where swedish was needed and I was the only one speaking it. So it is beneficial in some jobs to know it. And no, I don't live in southern Finland or even in a region where swedish would be "needed".
I honestly didn’t know it was some rivelsy between Finland and Sweden but it always been jokes flying between Norway and Sweden.
When it comes to rivalry in sports for Sweden
Ice Hockey - Finland
Skiing - Norway
Football - Denmark
As a Finn I actually use more english than finnish these days. Swedish... I tried to use it in Sweden but those shopkeeper immigrants prefered english. And people who spoke swedish were speaking so fast and with thick dialect that I had no idea what they said. English is used in entertainment I consume, games and work. English is prefered in many international industries anyway.
I use English at work every day, I do not speak more than 10 or so words of Swedish and have basically never really needed it here in Finland. Everyone from Sweden knows English, it is much more important to know it well than learn a language which most of us will never use. Different thing in Swedish speaking areas like Vaasa or Porvoo etc of course. English is mandatory too.
You would get quite different answers to the survey in places like Joensuu or Kajaani in Eastern Finland. The attitude towards the Russians and foreigners would also be different in the East.
before uknraine war. russian languange was good as lived in lappeeeranta, near Russian border. Currently living at Sweden, did think that i do not need sweden languane, but here are. needed to learn swedish and it not so bad. Englans works still fine.
I have never heard that a Swede would expect a Finn to know Swedish. However, we are so impressed and fascinated if you do. So you ask, and hope for luck. 😂 I don't think you should place such a high value on the issue. Many Swedes also think that “FinnishSwedish” is so fascinating and that it is more sophisticated than Swedish. Finnish Swedish is more preserved than Swedish are.
I have thought, why Swedish are not interested to learn Finnish at all. Here many pages are written so often that "Finland's sak är vår sak"... maybe in difficult situations. Many Finns understand Swedish quite fluently although speaking it is practically impossible in other parts than on the coast. We should be proud of that. Sweden was years a country with two languages, which the other was Finnish. History tells why thousands and more leave our country. Those who did the underestimated words and are a lower state and like pigs (not remember the Swedish name).
Why so? The answer is clear, if have learned at least a bit our history and our role in it, to protect Sweden, too.
I myself love Swedish and in all meetings with our leaders I love to listen and understand it. And I am so happy that our brother, not bigger or smaller are together in NATO and Nordic Army.
I would have loved to learn Finnish in school as a third language if I had the option. I did 1 one year Spanish and changed school and did not start again...
Interesting. I was watching ice hockey on Swedish tv toghether with finns once. (I am swedish). The speaker said that "Finland is better than Sweden", and then a very upset finn said that "now they starts to brag again". I thought that if we are bragging, we at least should had said that we are good, not the finns? Also, I have heard people in finland saying that we only make joke of them and treated the one that moved from Finland to Sweden bad, but I have only heard jokes about Norwegians and I guess treating finns bad, must gave been somewhere else than were I grow up... Also, I have noticed that many Swedish talking Finns, always change to Finnish if there is finnish talking people around. At least they did 20 years ago.
Thanks to internet we use a lot of english. And tourists and foreigners often use english, even if they arent native english speakers. But in southern finland most people know swedish speaking finns, but they know finnish so well that people dont realise their first language is in fact swedish.
I kind of object to the dominance of englsh and wish other languages were learned as well.
❤❤❤😊This must be an old video. My Swedish brothers and sisters, lets stay strong and proud together! And the rest of the Scandinavia too! We have something unique in this World which combines us even tighter together. The World has gone mad but we are going to keep our heads clear and calm. (maybe we Finns will slip a bit). All the best and love from Finland❤😊
Also fun fact.. when in trouble .. we all speak English pretty much fluent.. Finland is Not Scandinavia.. But we as a people think of them as Scandinavians. Thet being Norway and Sweden.. Dunno about denmark
Ok I am swedish and I have to set some stuff right. We all don"t eat ärtsoppa and pannkaka ( peasoupe and pantade) Thursdays. That is an old tradition. Gotland is the biggest Island of Sweden but we have 220 000 islands in sweden many of them are very very small ofcourse. All swedish People are not shy and don't wanna talk. I for exemple loves to speak to new People. Our Police are NICE and very often very respectful if you are respectful to them. But ofcourse if there is a bad crime going on they are more focused and not so charming. I have lived in the states and Everyone that comes and vistit me from the states comment on how clean it is. And Stockholm my home city IS very clean. There are almost 2 million People Living in Stockholm now. One fun fact to know is that English speaking expats that comes to Sweden find it Hard to learn Swedish for the simple reason Swedish People are rankad no. 1 world to speak English that has another längre as their main langue. So everybody gladly speaks English so you get less opertunity to speak Swedish than most country.... If you going to come here come somewhere between May and September! Swedish People generelly very open minded! We are very known for some Swedish dishes and there are many good but also try Swedish pizza... we put so much god and sometimes weird stuff on our pizzasallad. One good thing is steak with bearnaisesauce. Ha ha one bad example according to my teste anyway is banans, curry and pinaple on the same pizza many swedes loves it. I am half Italien and I HATE that. Can you imagine to eat that with tomatsauce and Cheese that combination is BAD.... all swedes don't like licrish yack. I also watch what finish People think of swedes is not True Finland have had this little brother complex for soooo long. But they deep down can't hate Sweden that much cause we have alots of finnish living here. And in parts of Finland they even teach the kids Swedish as a second langue. But Norway, Danmark and Sweden are closer mentaly even if we have fun Jokes about norweigian People and they have it for swedish People 😂😂 just for fun no Hard feelings. If you want more tips for your trip you can email me on ingela@imodesign.se. stay cool and welcome to Sweden!! 🇸🇪🇸🇪
Sweden is the most similar country on this earth to us - you go to Stockholm and it is like a bit more sophisticated Helsinki :) On the other hand they are far from perfect: like they love Melodifestivalen and cold saunas etc
To be fair tho, english language is know in big parts around the world, hence why irish and scotish ppl learn it. Like for finland, if they learn swedish they can understand even norwegian and maybe a little danish
I think most Finns have way better English skills than Swedish and many people can barely speak any Swedish at all whereas almost everyone can speak fairly decent English. Personally I haven't spoken a single word of Swedish in decades since my last mandatory course.
Practically everyone in Sweden speaks English as well so I don't see a point in trying to communicate with them in Swedish which I hardly understand when I could just speak English with them effortlessly.
Another funny thing is that due to my company environment I speak more English nowadays than I speak Finnish even though most people at work are Finns and I only travel out of Finland maybe once in a year.
In sweden english has been mandatory in school for a VERY long time. We see movies and tv:shovs in einglis
290 000 people in Finland have finlandssvenska (finnish swedish) as their native language. It sounds like a dialect of swedish but much more beautiful (I am swedish) and not all words are exactly the same. You could say that it is the same as between Brittish english and American english. Tove Jansson, the mother of Moomin, spoke it.
I'm assuming you meant 290,000 people
@@orangeeeeeee Yes, thank you for pointing that out. I have changed it now.
@@ceciliasoderman3316 No worries!
Personally, I don't mind having Swedish in school, but I do think it should be optional after going to college and university. Frankly, if you haven't pricked it up or use it, what little you learn of it as mandatory language will just escape you after the course is over. That's what happened to me literally whole time I was in school. I was almost reset to zero every time. Ultimately greater emphasis on english and some maybe mandatory but self selected language would make most utilaterian sense. That said like in video, it should be refined a bit based on region
That's me with Finnish. I have studied Finnish 11-12 years in school, but I can barely hold a basic conversation in Finnish. I live in Vasa, but practically never need Finnish. All my friends and family are Swedish speakers, my education has always been in Swedish (since kindergarten until now in university) and when I played football when I was younger it was completely in Swedish (except for like 2 guys who spoke Finnish)
Finland looks to Sweden a lot, maybe to much. They does copy the good things, that is great, but the also almost always copy the bad things, even that it by the time they are doing it, it should be obvious that it was.
As a result Finland is in many way where Sweden was 30 years ago. And i loved the 90s, so Finland is currently a really nice place. Its basically Sweden in the 90s. When i visited last time... a week ago,it made it extra so. I don´t know if there as some 90s music week,. but they where playing 90s music like everywhere. (and some 80s). Great time. Really enjoyed my last visit to Finland.
4:20 the issue here is that a lot of Finish people confuse Sweden with Swedish people, specially Swedish people that live in Finland.
The thing is that Sweden use to be much larger than it is today, and Finland use to be non existant. About 25% of Finland was Core Sweden originally, and the rest was basically occupied by Sweden. Sweden then 800 years later lossed a war against Russia, and Russia took what is current day Finland From Sweden. That also included the part that was never Finish to begin with. Eventually Finland got independent and they then become a nation with basically Swedish people and Finish people under the Finish flag. The thing is, The Swedish people always lived there. We talking over 1000 years, maybe even 1400. Its just so happen that the border included the area that use to be core Swedish.
This set up some hostility. Also for several different both historical and geographical resions the Swedish part of Finland was way richer. So basically Finish people see Swedish people in Finland as snobs. But generaly its amied at the swedish people that came with the Russian occupation.
A lot of this is true, some is not. But the issue here is that some people cant tell the diffrance between Swedish people in Finland, and Swedish people in Sweden.
7:00 all the men are gay and all the women are bimbos.
Well.. yea, in the yes of a Finish person, it probobly look that way. but i have to say. Finish girl for sure try to emulate Swedish girls
0:40 No, there was no rivalship between Finland and Sweden. The rivalship was with Denmark and Russia.
At that time, Finland *_was_* Sweden, for many hundreds of years, well over half a milliennia.
I.e. until Finland was given to Russia in 1809 (after a peace treaty in 1808).
I wouldn't say that we gave Finland to Russia. We LOST Finland in a war with Russia, plain and simple.
@@currentoflinden It was part of the treaty though.
I think that learning swedish should be optional because those who don't want to learn it forget the language almost entirely most of the time (me and most of the people i know included) so it kind of ends up being a waste of educational resources in my opinion. Of course, there are counties in Finland where Swedish is spoken more widely but even in those places i think it should be optional but more incentivized
There's one part of Finland where Swedish is THE main language, almost 100% Swedish speaking, youy very rarely hear anyone speaking finnish, even the schools are entirely in swedish....
@@AHVENAN yeah i know about Ahvenanmaa, i didn't mention it because it seemed kinda obvious and because it's a system of islands separate from the mainland and the only connection to and from there is by ferry
@@eemeli1744 not just Ahvenanmaa. Many municipalities in Pohjanmaa are more or less completely Swedish speaking. As long as I can get service in Swedish (in public sector, municipal and governmental matters) in the Swedish-Finnish bilingual municipalities I'm fine. I really don't care if Swedish is mandatory there, as long as I can get the service the constitution says we should get.
il live north karelia and i dont think i've heard anyone speak swedish here since my swedish studies, then again i hear russian daily. Mandatory swedish do sound bit wierd for us who live east. atleast in my opinion
I, as a Swedish speaking Finn, think it should be optional in most of Finland, but not in Swedish-Finnish bilingual municipalities.
That is polite talks.
to understand finnish culture and people, best to start from is study history bit further than 2nd WW, but short term, we have "accepted" culture and vocabulary from sweden and russia..certain words or cultural differences varies a bit by what part of finland you were born/you live/have lived..though finnish has one language that is hard to us fins even to understand and that is called "saami" that belongs to people that has roots in very lapland and its nature with bit different culture style than normally stated finnish style or culture etc..kippis..
Much is the same in both Sweden and Finland. Finland was, after all, Swedish in type over 600 years. And then it worked like any other part of Sweden. So we are more similar than different, but we are not the same. Then Finland thinks they are better at ice hockey than they are😂
Sweden has a very good view of the Finns generally nowdays i think! We admire your school system, progressive social wellfare structures and love your peculiar sense of humor and suble sarcasm id say the swedish rivalry is more with norwegians yes… the Finns, we just generally like you! 🤗
Perhaps we feel rivalry with Norway and not Finland cuz Norway BROKE UP with us in contrast to how we very sadly LOST Finland to Russia? Who knows…??
We dont use swedish clearly as much as english. Like in school and when doing homework but thats about it.
For me personally, I would take German instead of Swedish any day. Most swedes are proficient in English, and I just think we have so much overlap there that I don't think it's justified to allocate resources for Swedish in schools. I would rather use that time to teach more English to be honest. It's going to be of use to many more people. Most people I know never use Swedish after school, but everyone uses English.
There were really strict unwritten rules how to be a finnish man. Due the stereotype of swedish gay men. More diversity there. Times are changing though. For better here in Finland.
Nah, not for better
@@christianheikkonenyes, for the better
@@mixlllllll No no and no
@@JukkaRamo yes yes and yes
There are two official languages in Finland, Finnish & Swedish, the reason for learning Swedish not it's a neighbour country..
Smaltalk:
US>UK>Sweden>Finland
Glominess/seriousness is the exact other way around.
We dont need to replace Swedish with English bc English is already mandatory in Finland, so both Swedish and English are both mandatory
Parts of Finland is swedish-speaking, therefore swedish is also mandatory, there are no parts of Finland who are Russian ( I assume). All have english in school anyway, it is not between swedish or english....
I live in the east part of Finland so here we use to speak more Russian. Now the Ukraine war and I can't see any Russians here The border is closed. Anyway the more languages you learn easier those come...... so keep on learning👍
I think that most of nordic people are quite similar. Finns are probably more introvertic and indepent compared to swedes. Swedes are also probably more nationalist and proud.
Moi. Olen tulossa perheen kanssa Lontooseen 15.7.24. 🇫🇮Violet😀
around 13:42: i live in tampere finland here is nothing in swedish and i havent needed to speak swedish ever after school.. I understand a historical meaning of swedish language but nowadays its not so important if you are in neighbouring country or other side of the world in trade or co-operating. And sweden just is not so important trade partner or not so much finlands land area has really swedish population. Ahvenanmaa should ofc have mandatory swedish if they want as its +90% swedish.
And ofc it came right after i continued... but yeah thats pretty normal attitude in younger population around other than west coast.
Ahvenanmaa ofc, but also the bilingual municipalities. At least those with like 10%+ (or 20%+) Swedish speakers should also have it.