Brit Reacts to The North Germanic Languages of the Nordic Nations
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- Опубликовано: 18 сен 2024
- Your languages are so alike, you must all be able to understand each other. Let me know in the comments section below if you can understand you neighbours.
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That Swedish voice not only speaks VERY slowly,
she also sound totally pissed off, actually furious!!
To expand: It's overly clear, pronouncing every single letter, like when teaching someone a language. A natural pronunciation would be more like "ja-älska-dej".
@@md2perpe Indeed.
Ye, she sounded very old to me, the strict teacher type who always speaks in a very "this is how the rules say it should be" kind of way. Sounds very forced.
@@MacDaniboi A parody of that, I would say.
Naahh sounds like a 17 year old trying too hard bc late stage teen pretentiousness @@MacDaniboi
I went to school in Denmark and I am not sure if it was because I went to a private school but we read norwegian and swedish litterature and also learned pronouncination that would make it easier for us to communicate and do business with other scandinavian countries but also english, french , german and spanish.
It's funny you say Norwegian sounds flat, to me and my other Swedish friends they sound much more melodic and happy compared to us swedes. 😂
We think the opposite, Swedish is very sing songy.
I agree about that. But my partner is from Thailand and she say Swedish is more like we singing.
agree they are all singing 😅
To me a Norwegian speaker, Swedish sounds, if not more singy, then at-least like peppy and child-like. The closest English equivalent I can think of is like a stereotypical American "Valley girl" accent mixed with the tone a child puts on when complaining to their parents (like "but mooooom, I don't waaant tooo".) (Note: This is refering to Sweden Swedish, Finno-Swedish is another issue entierly.)
Not more melodic but definitely more happy. Swedish sounds melodic because we use more tones than Norwegian.
All the Nordic countries have a good, friendly relationship. When I was young there were several Nordic co-productions on TV, so we learned the words from our neighboring countries that are different from our language. Even the Finns and the Icelandic took part because they could speak Swedish with a Finnish accent and Danish with an Icelandic accent.
👩🏼🌾🏞️🌅🇫🇮 Please note that the Swedish we Swedish-speaking Finlanders (not Finns) speak does NOT have a Finnish accent. The Finns, whose mother tongue is not Swedish, have a Finnish accent when they speak Swedish. The reason for this is that if your mother tongue is Finnish you have difficulties pronouncing quite a few sounds and letters of Swedish, provided, of course, that you're not perfectly bilingual.
If we leave out the original, old Swedish dialects still spoken along parts of coastal Finland, the standard written and spoken Swedish in Finland (including the Åland islands) is the same language as in Sweden. After all, Finland was severed from Sweden as recently as in 1809. During these last two hundred years, as history and local circumstances have changed, the vocabularies have changed a bit, as well. Some words today considered a little old-fashioned are still being used in Finland.
In Swedish, what we call sentence melody is the most evident difference between Swedish as spoken in Sweden and Swedish spoken in Finland. Here in Finland, we speak Swedish in a kind of flat tone without that sing-song tone that the Swedes in Sweden use. The funny thing, though, is that the Swedes in Sweden insist that we here in Finland 'sing' when we speak, whereas we think that they're the ones 'singing'!
😊😂
Today, the strong influence of English (USA mostly) has resulted in 'Swenglish' being used especially in Sweden among those who want to be seen as young and cool.
As far as understanding Norwegian and Danish, thanks to my Swedish mother tongue, I understand Norwegian the best. Danish only in writing and if somebody speaks it slowly and clearly, like older people tend to do. When two teenage boys talked to each other, they lost me entirely. But if one stays or lives in Denmark for any length of time, one starts distinguishing the words one from the other fairly soon.
In a few years time, if all goes well, there will be as many persons speaking Swedish in Finland as there are now Icelanders - and they have a country of their own! 😊
@@Gittas-tubeit's a Finnish accent. The tonal part is very important when it comes to defining accents. And to us (I'm Norwegian), you guys sound like Finns who have gotten really really good at Swedish. You guys are absolutely not monotone in your speech, but have a distinct but completely different tonal pattern from Swedish-Swedes (this is what makes you sound like Finns). Because you are used to the tonal pattern, you end up not noticing it as much, but to people who are not that used to it, it becomes sing-songy.
@@MarieSallaupHalse
👩🏼🌾🏞️🌅👋🏼😊 Hello, Marie!
Thank you for responding and for your explanation!
I'm aware that outside Finland nobody makes a distinction between Finns (mother tongue Finnish and Finnish cultural customs, many of which actually come from Sweden) and 12:36 Finland-Swedes (mother tongue Swedish), or Swedish-speaking Finlanders, which have retained Swedish cultural customs. Today, the Finns have adopted some of the typically Swedish customs and vice versa.
In short, if somebody calls me a Finn, I will protest. You may call me a Finlander but not a Finn. It has nothing to do with etnicity, because DNA tests have shown that the population of Finland is quite a mix.
My family history is Swedish, with roots in Bavaria and Russia of old, and my mother tongue is Swedish, not Finnish. That I speak five languages, and Finnish among them, is another matter.
Although there are several well-known Finland-Swedes living in Sweden (Mark Levengood for instance) and Lasse Pöysti (totally bilingual), Birgitta Ulfsson, Maria Sid, Stina Ekblad, Jörn Donner, and some artists born in Finland, like the singer Lill Lindfors, most Swedes are totally ignorant of the fact that there are people whose mother tongue is Swedish but who are Finnish citizens. I blame the Swedish school system. Lots and lots of both Finland-Swedes (finlandssvenskar) and Finns have family and friends living in Sweden, so it is a little puzzling that the Swedes don't know about us. I must admit that it's a bit insulting when a Finland-Swedes starts speaking his or her mother tongue in a shop in Stockholm, for instance, and the salesperson immediately switches to English! Or when a Finland-Swedish CEO of a company doing lots of business with Sweden gets told that Wow! Your Swedish is really good! Answer: Thanks. It's my mother tongue.
Finland-Swedes are a distinct group. Research results have shown that we live longer and are healthier than the Finns. We're also told that we're more outgoing, positive and social than the Finns. Our language skills tend to be better, as Swedish belongs to the Germanic language group and Finnish is totally different belonging to the Fenno-Ugric group. The Finland-Swedes are viewed as being more enterprising, too.
I'm not entirely sure of how accurate these findings are, but I know that the Finns are getting better and better each year at what they do. Times have changed and are changing right before our eyes...
It's actually not surprising that we here in Finland feel closest to the Norwegians in spirit and only then to the other Scandinavian countries.
Heja, Norge! 🇧🇻🇧🇻
@@Gittas-tube We certainly *do* make the distinction between Finland Swedes and Finns (the latter when speaking more or less broken Swedish).
You do *not* sound identical to us, but both groups still sound *very very* Finnish in tonality and prosody.
@@Gittas-tube Not all Swedes. There are definitely a lot of Swedes that can distinguish between Finnish people with a Swedish mother tongue or a Finnish person with a Finnish mother tongue but is good at Swedish. However, I agree with you that it might be generation-dependent. I am 63 myself.
As a Norwegian I have no problems understandign Swedish, Danish I have to "warm up" to 2-3 hours. So if I go to Denmark I have to concentrate hard to understand the first hours, then it's like speaking to another Norwegian. But that's the same with some dialects in Norway.
4 Carlsberg and your good 😂
@@AbsSolut
👍😂
I'm swedish. When I went to Norway for a business meeting I met two gentleman, one from Oslo (the capital) and the other one was from Bergen. I understood the Oslo gent perfectly well, but had to go English with the Bergen gent. It was a fun meeting 😄👌.
as i have understood it Bergen dialect are hard even for people from Oslo
@@ronnyhansson8713 As a Bergensar, I can tell you that our dialect is even hard to understand ourselves
@@DraslyThe1 so modern danish in a singing voice?
@@ronnyhansson8713 nah nothing like danish in Bergen dialect, we sound more like French ppl, since we are using Sharp R´s and use many dialect words/cutting letters in the words xD
@@DraslyThe1 insering letters and swallow about half of them still sounds like danish ;)
but you might be right, french might be close as i asume you have swallowed that potato you ate earlier :)
20:20 we often learn the commonly used words for things in the other Scandinavian languages. Either from school, parents or from exposure. For example, as a Swede it isn't immediately obvious what the words "gøy" or "sjov" mean, but I have just learned what they mean because you run into them quite a lot. False friends are often also taught in school to help ease communication with our neighbors. A famous example is the word "rolig" which means fun or funny in Swedish but calm in Norwegian and Danish. And even if you've never heard the phrase "kunne lide" (could suffer) you can kind of figure out that it means something positive, especially given the context of the whole sentence. If we're unsure of what someone is saying, it's usually just a word or two in any given sentence so it's easily explained. This is how interscandinavian communication is usually conducted.
There was a problem with the sentences he used, there are this strange thing called synonyms. In Norwegian I could say both "Kjæledyr" and "Husdyr", so understanding "Husdjur" in Swedish is quite easy.
The few words that really are different in Scandinavian languages, I knew before school age.
But then again it is important for a kid to know how to say words like "ice cream"; Swedish "glass", Norwegian "iskrem" or just "is" for short. Or to have fun with false friends like Swedish "roligt" (fun), Norwegian "rolig" (calm). Danish "må" (could), Norwegian "må" (have to). Or the word "grine", used in all three languages, but we cant agree if it means laugh, smile or cry.
And in Swedish we have the word keldjur, so kjaeledyr is totaly understandable.
Må in danish can also be ‘have to’; Jeg må have fat i det nye album.
Grina is a fun example 😂 we can't even decide within Sweden.
Husdjur used to mean all domestic animals - pigs, cows... keldjur must originally have been a luxury concept.
@@Martin-g1e5sI have heard må in that sense on Gotland.
In Sweden, pronunciation is not always as we write. For example, the word "morgon" mentioned in the clip. The AI voice pronounced the word with a distinct g, whereas we usually pronounce it more like "morron" without the g being heard. And we don't pronounce the word "gillade" with a distinct g either, but more like "jillade". Admittedly, I live in the Stockholm area and cannot answer for the pronunciation in other parts of Sweden.
'G' before a soft vowel is pronounced like a soft 'j' (slightly harder than English 'Y' in 'yard' etc).
(As well as 'K' before soft vowels become a 'sh' (sj) sound. Kyckling (chicken), kyrka (church), käke (jaw), käft (mouth/jaws), kind (cheek), köra (drive) / kaka (cake/cookie), kål (cabbage), kosta (cost), kula (small ball).
Yeah, yeah. Kex or sjex.
The exception that confirms the rule; KEX, with a K it is.
The comment i was waiting for 👏
As a Finnish man I speak Finnish, some Swedish and English. But since we speak way different than Swedish. I usually try to speak Swedish if that doesn't work I switch to English since most of Finland,Sweden Denmark and Norway population speaks pretty fluent English. Rarely I haven't gotten message through to another person.
I think people forget that Finnish is also a minority language in Sweden as well.. There are a couple hundred thousand or so Finnish speakers living in Sweden. So if you are in Sweden you could try Finnish as well..
Hate when you do that.
Sometimes we know the words used in the other languages but they are either more formal or slang in our language. Like speak in Danish wich is "snakke" and in Swedish "snacka" is slang for speak "prata". The more formal word for speak is "tala" in Swedish and "tale" in Danish.
This is also often the case wirh Nordics vs older Englis; these "synonyms from different times" or separate niches. So wirh our own language, English and a few random pieces from other families, we can guess the meaning of many words. Sometimes even correctly.
A few expressions leak across the borders too. We 🇸🇪 say till syvende och sist, barely knowing that syvende means seventh, for example.
Indeed. And the English speak that you mention is related to Swedish språka, which also means to speak, but usually as in having a conversation. (Also related to German sprache, sprechen.)
The words snakka, prata, tala, mæla is in all three languages and means the same, but used with different preferences depending on local dialect. Someone from Trøndelag saying "ke du går å meel ti?" would not be understood in Oslo for asking "hva er det du snakker du om?" Someone speaking Old Norse or Icelandic would probably have no difficulty.
@@mellertid "syvende og sidst" is how I write it!
At my first job there was a lot of communicating with foreign people for business reasons. One time, a Danish guy sent me an email in Danish (I'm Swedish), he most likely though he was sending it to another Dane. Well, can't be outdone by a Dane - so I replied in Swedish.
The Danish guy was really surprised he not only received a letter in Swedish, but that he also understood what it said. Apparently, he had never thought about how close our languages are. I was of course also surprised to get an email in Danish.
Showed the message to my colleague who was from Britain (who knew Swedish) and he could not understand much of the message. You kind of need that cultural connection to better understand our neighboring languages, like some words Danes use are considered "old" in Swedish - but we still learn those, even if they are not used in modern Swedish.
Anyway, we continued writing in our native languages until the issue was resolved. Was a fun experience.
“… some words Danes use are considered “old” in Swedish”. It’s the same for us. We used, for instance, to say kvæld and sjunge, where now it’s aften and synge.
So interesting, so if I learnt Swedish I would still probably find Danish really hard to understand I guess. It certainly through me off trying to read it in this video. It's so different and similar at the same time lol!
@@dwaynesview All the common words would still be understandable to you, but as I and the person above noted, some individual words are not commonly used, although they still exist in our respective languages.
I'm guessing "user-lw8bv3ln9n" is Danish - they note the words "kvaeld" and "sjunge" ("Kväll" and "Sjunga" in Swedish) - meaning "Evening" and "Sing" respectively.
They then mention "Aften" and "synge" as the words they now use. In Swedish, we have the word "Afton", which to us is an older word for evening - but still used sometimes. "Synge" is close enough I feel to "sjunga" in pronunciation that you could understand it just by listening to it.
For me, I just have to warm-up a little and get my brain used to interpreting written Danish. Sometimes when looking at stuff online some reviews are in Danish/Norwegian and it is a good time to practice. Takes a bit longer to get through with a few words being harder to understand, but being able to understand 90% of the rest of a given sentence lets you guess at the rest of the 10%.
Sometimes it feels like they write the words in a different order that Swedes would, some expressions are like "huh, I would not write it like that, but I understand what you mean".
In Sweden, there is a famous fake-Norwegian word called "Guleböj" (yellow-bend) which is supposed to mean "banana" - but although this is not a true word, it sort of encapsulates how our languages can be weird in how certain words are built up. For the record, "banana" is "banan" in both Swedish and Norwegian.
@@vicolin6126It’s funny how it’s the opposite, afton is old for you, aften is what we use now. Kvæld is old for us, kväll is what you use now. 😊
@@vicolin6126 And in danish.
"Banan", that is. Although the pronounciation is somewhat different. Norwegian: "Barnarn"; Swedish; "Barnån"; Danish: "Bænæjn" .
It is said that Norwegians speak Danish, but with a Swedish accent. This is the reason why both Swedes and Danes understand us. The reason for this mixture is that Norway was first in union with Denmark for almost 400 years and then in union with Sweden for almost 100 years.
Maybe a little with bokmål, but that has also changed a lot since 1814. I would say it's more about loan words, some came into the country through the church and justice system. Bibles had to be in Danish and same with law document. But of course through other work places too, it's a reason why so many Dutch words have ended up in the Norwegian language. But other then that the majority of Norwegian stuck to their dialects that was little effected by the Danish language. It's much closer to Old West Norse(Old Norwegian or Old Icelandic), Swedish and Danish split into Old East Norse. Neither Denmark or Sweden really tried to settle Norway, and each country where more controlled locally then what we see today. The king also had limited power in Norway, he sold off all the land and tax rights of todays Nordland and Troms because of his debt back in 1666. This didn't come under state controll until the 1800s, when the Norwegian state put limits on exports and forced them to sell back to the state.
Ahh so really i should really learn Norwegian if I want to understand Swedish. BTW I'm thinking about making a channel for Norway. I feel I've not learn enough about your country. What do you think?
@@dwaynesview Norwegian can be seen as several languages though. The differences are more than just accents, or even dialects. Some varieties are closer to Swedish in certain respects (say common words not used much in Danish) while others are closer to Swedish in another aspect (say tonality or consonant sounds). So it's a complex picture.
@@herrbonk3635 In a uni programming course we had a Norwegian lab assistant/TA and we initially tried to communicate in Swedish/Norwegian respectively, but his Norwegian was not like anything we'd heard before... We quickly settled for English to get things done 😁
Thanks for your great reaction video Dwayne.
To Finnish person Swedish is of course easiest language to understand. Norwegian I might have some change, not so much with Danish or Icelandic.
Swedish is official language here. Even if you have been actively against to learn it in the school (it is mandatory) you still have been influenced by it.
Cities, roads are often named with 2 languages, there is every documents in 2 language and you will stumble daily to Swedish programs in TV.
As a English speaker, Dwayne, you have huge variety of online courses in any languages to pick. So register your Swedish online course today, man!
There are great Swedish detective stories in Netflix. I am looking forward to your video where you show us your Swedish skills.
Take care.
Agree. Many times i wonder, that why native English speakers won't learn other Germanic languages, you kinda are into those languages as you born and learn English. F.g Dutch ppl to me seems to be neatly in the middle of every Germanic languages. So kudos to you Dwayne of learning a Swedish language.
"The party was gay" (sounds pretty Norwegian) sprung in mind immediately. An example of words changing meaning in recent history.
Norwegian is neither gruff(I would more describe Danish that way) or straight lol. It's a very happy sounding language in my ears. They often go up at the end of their sentences. Kinda like Australian actually. I don't know why he said the word gillade is sometines pronounced with a hard g because it never is. It's pronounced like jillade. I have a very hard time understanding spoken Danish but I def can understand it in writing, even with the different words they use. I think it's that way for alot of Swedes, so I understand those sentences very well.
"Yillade", J in English is pronounced with a D sound in front.
In what way is Danish "gruff"? With all their soft consonants and flowing sounds?
@@Painocus In my ears it's not a soft language at all. It doesn't help that it sounds like the words stop so suddenly lol
@@Painocus It sounds as though they are trying to get rid of some phlegm down in their throats. The Danish version of the glottal stop and in between that they speak as if their mouths are full and the are unable to pronounce their words properly.
Compare the word "kaka" (cookie). The Danish have softened it so that the spelling is "kage", but they pronounce it: ke'uh. It sounds a bit like someone is vomiting.
I understand a lot of Old Norse, and read a lot of sagas and texts in Old Norse. About 10% or so, of modern English words have Old Norse origin, such as for example: 'Window' means 'wind eye'. ('Vindr' meaning 'wind', and 'auga' meaning eye'), and many other words such as knifr (knife), baða (bathe) and skull (skull). And they probably understood each other quite a bit. There's a video of a conversation between an Old Norse speaker and an Old English speaker, and some of it is quite similar.
I remember when I was studying in Denmark I kind of understood Danish thanks to the fact that I've studied Swedish in school in Finland. Did I ever learn how to speak Danish? No, because my class was international one so I perfected my English instead, but I still remember some words and sometimes when I have to use Swedish, instead of "jag" I use "jeg", even after a decade has past. But it's quite fascinating to notice how learning one language might help you to understand another one just because of the linguistical similarities.
Those from the east part of Denmark was in the past pretty good in Swedish. This because the Swedish TV channels STV1 och STV2 was possible to receive. I think that at the time there was only one channel on the air in Denmark.
Interesting, we had a tv channel that had mostly Swedish programs. On personal level I had some issues to even learn Swedish, I picked English as my 1st foreign language. And wanted to learn Germany or Spanish as second but our school did not have that option.
People in the Oslo area could also take in Swedish TV, but most Norwegians understand Swedish well because NRK always broadcast a lot of Swedish TV programs for children. Back then they weren't dubbed, which unfortunately they are today because NRK is responsible for the Norwegian language - including the dialects.
Most Danes can today receive the Swedish tv channels SVT1, SVT2 and TV4, plus Norwegian tv channels NRK1, NRK2 and TV2.
@@Martin-g1e5s True, but today there are a lot more options. Back then it were Swedish TV or Danish TV and most kids in eastern Denmark preferred the Swedish children shows. The Swedish TV also had more children shows than the Danish TV. It took a long time for the Danish TV to get around to producing kids morning shows and Swedish TV also had more money to buy shows like Scooby Doo, Spellbinder, and such.
Danish Television did make a fair amount of really good danish shows for children, but Swedish TV won by volume.
That sounds weird. Pretty sure Denmark had TV broadcasting years before Sweden.
May well be correct all the same of course.
Norwegians grew up with tv shows from sweden and denmark in the 70's and 80's
As a Swede, it's usually much easier to understand spoken Norwegian than Danish. Unless it's one of the really weird dialects. Reading either language is usually not a big problem.
One thing to understand is that even though we speak different languages most of it is really close and you'll get into them quite fast. Not that you can speak the other languages but that you can understand them. A bit different flow, intonation and other differences but you get used to it.
Most of the words or a close variant of them exist in all languages but are not commonly used. You might also find some of the words in English, brought to you by the Vikings as in the Norwegian "likte musikken" - "liked the music" so you get a clue that way.
Hi, Dane here. 😊 I was wondering, if it makes any difference if you speak to a person from Copenhagen or from the south of Denmark (like me…) I live close to the German border and my Danish sounds a lot different from the people in Copenhagen. We understand each other of course, but the melody in our accents is very different. On top of that we have our own unique dialect here, that is a kind of mix between Danish and German, but actually classifies as a language on its own, because of both the different vocabulary but also the structure of the sentences.
The other way round, I find people from Skåne really hard to understand, but I have only a few problems with the Swedish spoken in Stockholm (and on tv).
You pronounce swedish really good every time! (Sorry if i misspell something.
Thank You :). I watch Swedish shows on my Patreon so I think it's starting to sink in. I don't understand most of it but the sound of the words are sticking lol!
You should look at how we counts in these countries. Danes have a unbelievable difficult way of counting 😊
As a Dane, I don’t find it that difficult. It just doesn’t make sense. 😜
@@Martin-g1e5s A littel tricky but it's not that difficult when you find out of the system🤣🤣🤣
@@Martin-g1e5s Oh, but it does make sense, if you know the rules. From 0-10 it's a 10 base system and from 11 to 20 it's a 20 base system. From 21 you first name the 10 base and then the 20 base (1 is 'en' and 20 is 'tyve' so that makes 21 = 'en' and 'tyve'; 22 is 2= 'to' and 'tyve'; 23 is 3='tre' and 'tyve' and so on up til 29)
The same is repeated with 30 and 40.
50 is fun, because now we move into the 20 base system. 20 is also know as a score and this is the basis for the danish number from 50 and onward. To really understand 50 we need to look at 60 first. 60 is pronounced as a modern version of three scores and 50 is halfway between 40 and 60 so it is half (way to) three scores. 70 is half (way to) four scores and 80 is, you guessed it, 4 scores. 90 is half (way) to 5 scores
100 gets it own name (et hundred) one hundred. Now everything works as expected from left to right until we hit 121 and the madness begins again. We pronounce 100 and then the one and then twenty. Like one hundred, one and twenty (et hundred en og tyve), and it repeat until we reach 1000 where we again begin left to right until we reach 1121 and the madness repeat . Like one thousand, one hundred, one and twenty (et tusind et hundred en og tyve)
So you see it does make perfect sense ... to a Dane ... Sort of ... I think. 😁
Edit: Mixed up Dozen and Score. Now corrected. Dozen = 12 and Score = 20.
"Hey, it's very easy compared to what the Romans had!" -Some Dane, probably. 😺
Swedish actually used to have a similar number system to the Danish one based on 20 ( score / snes / tjog (!) ) until c. 400 years ago.
About understanding the Scandinavian languages:
There was a study about this in Nordic political cooperation about 20 years ago. The language easiest to understand was the Swedish spoken in Finland and Norwegians were the best in understanding the other Scandinavian languages. Personally, I think the reason for the latter is simply that Norwegians are so used to hearing different dialects compared to the two other countries, where the standard language has been more prevalent e.g. in school and on TV.
Yes, when i worked in Norway (I'm swedish) i met an older Norwegian guy and we started to talk about this. And he told me that when he was young the majority of stuff on radio and TV was swedish, how true it is i don't know. But also there's alot of swedish music on the norwegian radio stations even today but not quite the opposite. You barely hear any norwegian on swedish radio/tv.
@@jesper2127 Really interesting. However, I wasn't talking about being exposed to the other Scandinavian languages - although that would play a huge part - but about all the dialects of their own language. As Norway really doesn't have a single standard language (or even just two), and all dialects are equal, they are, imo, exposed to a lot of variety within their own language all the time. If I remember it correctly, that hasn't been the case in e.g. Sweden, where the standard language has been used extensively in TV news and other programs. That was the case at least earlier.
I'm danish but I live in Stockholm. I always start out by speaking to the Swedes in Danish and most of the time it works just fine. I find that the older generation is better at understanding Danish though. My Swedish boyfriend and I speak mainly English together as he doesn't understand enough of my Danish but I speak Danish/Swedish with his mom and dad as they understand Danish better than him. There are some cases where a Swedish person looks at me like I have just spoken to them in Chinese or something haha then I just switch to English. I always say that Danes understand 80% of Swedish and Swedes understand 70% of Danish.
I think it's absolutely the case that older people understand Danish better. Is it the same with Danes' understanding of Swedish?
@@mellertid I think it is because of the younger generations jump to english a lot quicker, as most of them are fluent... "So why bother" - a bit sad, actually.
I love the challenge of understanding both Norwegian and Swedish (and Islandic) 😁
@@mellertid So yes...
Yes, mainly because a lot of us in DK grew up with only one often rather BORING Danish TV channel (DR), but fortunately with access to two Swedish channels here in the East of Denmark (Copenhagen etc.), which even very often had much better TV series, movies, documentaries, entertainment and sports programmes etc.
So we simply had to learn to understand ( and even "speak" 😂 ) Swedish the natural way by listening concentrated to this strange, but still mysteriously familiar neighbour language, while also getting a lot of help from the Swedish subtitles in the foreign programmes that simply looked like somewhat poorly spelled Danish most of the time with a few "weird" and unfamiliar words and expressions in between here and there, that could usually be guessed from the context or from their familiar constituents.
Today I still understand "everything" in Swedish because of this - even most Swedish dialects! - and I am even able to speak and write in Swedish fairly well. 😂
Thank you / Tack så mycket, Sweden / Sverige 😉
Check out the brilliant video from Langfocus called "Viking Influence on the English Language" to see how the originally West Germanic English became so very similar to its North Germanic (Scandinavian etc.) cousin languages at the basic level - like parallel worlds in many respects with deep similarities in vocabulary and grammar that still make English a fairly easy language for Scandinavians to learn - as if we already by magic "know" half of a simplistic older core English in advance and then "just" need to fill in the gaps and climb a few hurdles here and there 😉
At uni in sweden you are expected to be able to read and understand swedish, english, norwegian and danish. I’m doing ok with reading Norwegian and danish, but I’ve seen the panic in other students eyes as the course literature includes complicated scientific articles in danish. I think it’s standard in most universities here, and especially in social studies.
Very often, when the norwegian and danish language use the same word and the swedish word look different in a sentence , a swede can understand norwegian and danish anyway because very often we have the same word in swedish but we don't use it in the same kind of sentences or the norwegian and danish word is just an older version of a modern swedish word.
There's an old video where Suzy Izzard (before transitioning) tries to buy a cow from a Frisian farmer by speaking Old English. I recommend looking it up!
Check out the brilliant video from Langfocus called "Viking Influence on the English Language".
Melvyn Bragg's great TV series "The Adventure of English" is also highly recommended - especially episodes 1 & 2 ( of 8 ) in this Scandinavian context.
My man... I wish you were my friend, because I truly find you to be an awesome guy. I just love your reactions and your thoughts. Much love from Sweden 🇸🇪
Aw thanks man :). I really appreciate the compliment. Glad you enjoy the videos.
Swedish speaking person -------> Danish speaking person = okay
Danish speaking person -------> Swedish speaking person = potato
Agreed! XD
My Swedish opinion about our Scandinavian neighbours: Danish is HARD, the sounds are so beautiful and strange and alien to a little Swede like me! I've lived neighbour to Denmark in more than 20 years, not until now in my early thirties I can make out some of it if they speak slowly. I understand Norwegian a bit better, but not perfectly, it depends on the dialect. I did play a game back in the day (Dreamfall, and is part of one of the most amazing game series) that I played completely in Norwegian because I was told it was a Norwegian game, so that helped. I try to speak Swedish and listen to their languages when I meet the them because I find them interesting, beautiful and I want to become better at understanding them. But when I get the chance to speak with them they instantly speak English, in rare cases they try in their language and then give up when they don't understand me 😅 if I'm stressed I speak English from the beginning too.
As a Norwegian, I can say that you must not give up on understanding Norwegian and Danish. I am older than you and when I was younger it was difficult to understand Danish, but after watching some Danish TV series it is much easier to understand the language. It probably also helps that I have moved to Sørlandet, which has a dialect that is closer to Danish.
Why not encourage those you meet to try to understand each other without switching to English? It doesn't take much goodwill to pull it off. An alternative is of course to talk to older people from the other countries, because they usually are much better at understanding the other languages.
I'm from western Sweden and grew up very close to the Norwegian border, every summer there were many Norwegian tourists and the Swedish dialect has some Norwegian influences.
This year I was on vacation with a few friends, all of them are from the eastern part of Sweden, and we by coincidence stumbled upon a few Norwegians we talked to, and it wasn't until later my friends said they had a really hard time understanding them, which I was surprised by. ( Fyi, The Norwegians didn't speak Oslo Norwegian, but still it was bokmål)
Yeah, I live in Western Sweden as well. I often hear "og" instead of "och" when speaking dialect. For those not in the know "og" is Norwegian for "and" and "och" is Swedish for "and".
As a Swede living on Gotland, the island of Gutnish, wich I do not speak but understand mostly I feel Norwegian is the easiest to understand, but I guess it depends on which part I guess. Gotland also were a Danish island for 300 years until 1645, which I believe have left some traces in my accent.
I think the fact that Sweden and Denmark have been at war with each other has meant that we historically made a point of "not understanding" each other even though we might understand most of the language. Now a days I think it's mostly how much contact you have with them, such as if you live on the west coast of Sweden you are more likely to visit or be visited by Danish tourists (as well as Norweigan), meaning that you are more likely to learn the languages.
There is also a standard "Swedish" in Finland, called Standard Finland-Swedish ("Standardfinlandssvenska" or "Högsvenska"). We have many different Swedish dialects here in Finland alone, and they can often vary from village to village. Split into 4 different dialect groups: Österbottniska, Nyländska, Åboländska and Åländska.
Finland-Swedish has many words and phrases they don't use in Sweden anymore, or never at all. Many words are quite "archaic", and sound very old fashion to Swedes. The Österbotten dialects are very archaic and some of them are more similar to old Swedish, than any Sweden-Swedish dialect is today. Many of the words come from Finnish.
Finland-Swedish has a very different pronunciation from that of the Swedish in Sweden, and the difference in pronunciation varies quite a lot between the different dialect groups. There are even some minor grammatical differences between the two regional variants. In some cases we have "Swedified" a Finnish way of saying things, and therefore have different grammar.
The dialects in Sweden that are most like those in Finland, are the Norrland dialects which have some of the same pronunciations and words as we use in Finland but that the rest of the Swedish speakers in Sweden don't really use. The pronunciation is also affected by Finnish. Österbotten dialects to a lesser extent than the Åboland and Nyland dialects, due to there not being nearly as many Finnish speakers there (Österbotten is majority Swedish-speaking). Åland dialects have not been affected by Finnish at all really, because Åland is more or less completely Swedish-speaking, and is closer to Sweden than the other areas).
My favourite Finnish-Swedish word is "hoppeligen". Sounds much more fun than "förhoppningsvis".
@@Komona Yeah that's a good one😁
You are asking all the relevant questions!
As a linguist scholar.. I have to add. That there is another theory about the English language that is gaining more traction.. And that is that When the Danish vikings invaded and took over most of England. The English that was spoken then was replaced with Danish in the ruling class.. That Danish quickly became creolized with Olde English to become Middle English and that explains the huge differences between Olde and Middle English... Hence.. Modern English is actually more related to North Germanic languages.. Than West Germanic language.. And there are many grammatic comparisons that can be made that support that theory. Word order for example.. And core morphology etc.etc.
Wow that's so interesting, that may explain why I actually find it as easy or easier to learn Swedish as I would say German.
When I was young we learned a bit of both Danish and Norwegian in school. This is apparently not the case any longer.
Which has the effect the young Swedes might have a harder time understanding the Nordic languages. In uni I had quite a bit of Danish litterature, so I quite easily read Danish.
There are a few words I don't get immediately, but not that many.
The study of language is pretty interesting
It's kind of like you, as a particular language/dialect speaker, carry the history of human movement throughout history
Im so impressed!!
So yeah I'm from Southern Sweden. I can definitely understand Norwegian better than Danish, but I can still understand Danish quite a bit, as long as it's not super rural Danish! I like to think that I can understand most Swedish dialects 100%, but I was shocked when I went to Värmland in Sweden and had a real hard time understanding their rural dialect!
It's a point of pride for us Scandinavians to always try and communicate in our own languages at first. There's no greater feeling of defeat than having to give up and switch to English haha
As a Dane from Copenhagen, there are many dialects in Jutland that I don’t understand. I’d probably understand Swedish better. 😂
Totally agree! 😁 I'll keep on trying, but if I have to speak english for something I always try to switch back to my own tounge. If I don't keep trying I'll never learn more. But, yeah. As a swede, danish can be hard. But this really depends on the accent and how fast/slow they speak.
I love our brotherhood/sisterhood in the north ❣
@@Martin-g1e5s Even in Jutland, we can sometimes have difficulty understanding each other
I totally agree that it feels like defeat when us Scandinavians resort to speaking English with other Scandinavians when we really should try to make an effort in speaking our own language and understanding the other person's language. Switching to English is just lazy imo. It of course depends on the dialect but I generally feel that we Scandinavians should be able to understand each other just fine for the most part. I am Norwegian myself and I always speak and write in Norwegian with other Scandinavians, except for this reply, which is a global comment section. But in more closed groups, or in a one-on-one conversation with a Swede or a Dane, I always speak/write in Norwegian and I also make an effort in understanding their language as well and I've almost never been misunderstood and I've also almost never misunderstood them. If that happens, we clarify to each other what we mean. The linguistic connection between the Scandinavians really shows the bond we have, a beautiful brotherhood and we should try to preserve that. It would truly be a shame if future generations of Scandinavians only ended up speaking English to each other.
@@Martin-g1e5s Well shame on that you don't understand thne people in our country, for me I understand ALL!
I'm Swedish, I live in Värmland, and growing up there was about 30 minutes (car drive) from Norway's border, so even though I've never studied Norwegian I can understand it pretty well (Depending on the Norwegian dialects that is spoken, of course) And also, people from the other side of Sweden (Stockholm and so on) will probably think I'm Norwegian when I speak because of my own swedish dialect. And they will have trouble understanding what I'm saying.
Actually, go back a few generations and Danes understood Swedish perfectly because the only tv channels we had were Danish and Swedish. I’m 52 yo and in my childhood there was just 1 danish tv channel and 2 Swedish, nothing else, so I often watched Swedish children shows 😊
The Swedish samples are formal, Stockholm dialect, and when you speak you usually contract "morgon" to "morron" (without the "g") or "morrn". "Jag" become "Já". So we say: "I mor(r)n ska já till Tyskland". "Ska" kan also be written and pronounce "Skall". This is the equivalent to English "shall". How we express future tense.
Yes. Unfortunately, carefully pronounced Swedish doesn't sound much like it is actually spoken.
@@mellertid Not even in your buffer country (the shield between you and the land of evil) where they speak archaic Swedish?
Each person may also speak differently at home or at work. For instance, if you are a teacher you generally take care to make your pronunciation more accurate standard Swedish and less with the dialect, than you would do at home with your wife and kids.
I'm Swedish and there are a few words in Danish/Norwegian that can cause problems because they sound the same but mean different things. The most common of them is rolig,, In Swedish it means fun but in Danish and Norwegian it means calm. Most of us know know but it can still cous problems sometimes.
I have a few memories of confusion from spending time in Denmark. The first is someone commenting on a scarf i made. She kept saying it was so wet. I was so confused and she was as well. Why was i insisting that my scarf was not soft? Blöt is wet in Swedish and soft in Danish.
I took a beginner course in bioligy and the first day i was starting to doubt my teachers credentials. He was talking about cutting snakes in half and them adapting and regrowing. In experiments a surtain kind of snake would grow rwo heads if they're head was split in two. Found out a few days later that the Swedish word for snak, orm, means worm in Danish.
Last one almozt turned violent.
My friend and I where at a festival in Denmark. We where waiting in the bathroom line. A man in front of us in line turned around and asked us if we could hold his bag while he used the toilet. Problem is that the word he used for bag translates to slang for male genetalia in Swedish. We where pissed of and he thought swedess where verry rude and agressive. We luckily figured it out before anyone got hurt😁
It's funny because as a Swede I've always thought Norwegian sounds more sing songy than Swedish. And I definitely find it easier to understand than Danish! There are some interesting youtube videos about the Swedish pitch accent, which apparently is the reason we sound sing songy.
I live an hour outside stockholm and i find it easier to understand norwegian than the skåne dialect in the south of sweden. Yrp, danes sound like they have potato in their mouth and porridge in their throats.
Kul kille 😎
You nailed it @ 20:16 👍 It's mainly the words that are completely different in our languages that makes it hard for us to understand each other fully. But we kind of get what the other person's saying since we understand most of the words. I'm from Sweden and find Norwegian easier to understand than Danish
Norway and Denmark are superbestfriends.
Sweden is just some country in the east.
Being Danish, i've had most succes talking to Norwegians.
And fun fact, Danish is the first foreign language they learn in Greenland, Iceland and Faroese islands. Tag den, fjeldaber.
I’m Swedish and I understand Norwegian easier than Danish. We usually say that Danish sounds “porridgey” - that it’s so unpronounciated, and Norwegian sounds very happy and we usually make fun of Norwegians for that reason. My hometown is in Värmland, a 3h drive from Oslo, and when I worked in booking at a ski resort I got a call from a Norwegian man and he exclaimed happily straight after I answered the call that I was a fellow Norwegian. I replied that I wasn’t, but he said that of course I am since he can hear me speaking Norwegian. We spent about 10-15 minutes just arguing back and forth about this instead of discussing the reason he called. When I finally told him where I came from he was like “well that explains it “
I am a swede who learned German and English in school and have an easy time learning languages and I have studied old Swedish and Scandinavian.
Danish and Norwegian for me it’s easy because they use more words that is closer to older Swedish from about 1800 (200 years ago) like kærlekdyr or something means love pet we might not say that in Sweden we say house pet pet very easy to understand since kærleheid (my spelling might be wrong) is similar to kärlek
Scandinavian languages have a LOT of synonyms (different words for the same thing) . So in Swedish one of the synonyms are more commonly used, and in Norwegian another is more commonly used. Ex is to eat, S: Äta N: Spise. Sounds very different, but both words are used in both languages at different times.
For me as a Dutch person who learned both English and German in school and from television I had little problem to learn Danish. By doing so I can understand Norwegian and Swedish a little all depending where the speaker comes from. I noticed those different Scandinavian speakers need to adjust to each other when talking to each other. They stay speaking their own language but use words and phrases that are more common to the Scandinavian languages than they would do speaking their home language.
If you ask why English is a good common language to solve detailed communication, English has a large bit of Angles and Saxon in it, just find the origin of those people and you understand the relation between Scandinavian and English.
I’m danish and I understand swedish perfectly fine, and Norwegian as well, but when it comes to nynorsk it’s very difficult.
Over 1000 words used in english today comes from the scandinavian countries. Example: He/Him, She/Her, They/Them, Egg, Berserk, Window amongst many other words.
It is more common that we Swedes think that the Danes talk as if they had porridge in their throats, instead of potatoes.
And it is also common for Swedes north of "Scania/Skåne" to think that Sweden can give back Scania/Skåne in Sweden to the Danes, because they speak such unclear Swedish .
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And from the Danish side they think we speak in "slow motion" and from Sweden we think they speak way too fast. Norwegian is somwhere between :)
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Denmark understands Sweden and likewise Norwegian, and the Norwegians understand Danish and Swedish, while we in Sweden only understand Norwegian and not Danish. Norwegian and Swedish are very similar, however, with a certain dialectal difference and some word differences, but which we understand quite well in contrast to the Danish language.
I could compare the differences in the language between Sweden, Norway and Denmark with an old record player, where you had 3 choices of speed on the disc, Swedish 33 rpm, Norwegian 45 rpm, Danish 78 rpm. I hope this could be a good answer to your question/thought.
Back when we watched Swedish TV in eastern Denmark and they watched Danish TV in southern Sweden, a relative of mine would sometimes travel to Sweden on Business. He said that in Skåne, just across the Sound, people understood, him, but he did not understand them. In Stockholm, he understood people, because they spoke just like on TV, but they did not understand him.
Shetland & Orkneyusedto have their own Nordic "dialecs" aswell, since they used to be part of Norway. 🧐
Norsk is the easiest for us. Finnish is not a teutonic german languange. But we love!!! Finland anyway. Such a fine neighbour nation, you could only wish for! They are good strong people! Kind regards. Jonas Gothenburg Sweden. ❤
As a swede i´ve had a danish friend for 20 years. But we still speak english cuz danish just sounds like someone vomiting. If we both speak our native language he understands me way better than i do him.
Sorry, but are you really saying that in 20 years you haven't bothered to even try to understand your Danish friend in his/her native language? Are you sure that you are friends... You surely don't seem to treat him/her as one, and saying that his/her language sounds like vomiting is such a clear sign of that.
I'm from the north west parts of Dalecarlia, and many norwegians visit regularly so I have no/very little difficulty with speaking with Norwegians from close to the border, my uncle however lives quite a bit south (in Halden) and well he is my uncle to I have spoken to him and I can understand him, but it's hard, I have to focus to understand him. When I speak to Danish people I switch to english, they seem to understand me, but they have to slow down and speak as clearly as they can and even then it's quite difficult for me to understand and it's just easier to speak english. And I took German in gymnasiet, so I know a bit of German and while I usually switch to English when I speak to German tourists, I'm more comfortable speaking German with someone from Germany than I am speaking Swedish while trying to understand what a Dane is saying in Danish. Also since there (in my experience) are quite a lot of Dutch people in online games, I find even written Dutch to be easier to understand than spoken Danish. Written Danish however is super easy to understand, actually easier than written Norwegian, even though spoken Norwegian is so easy to understand.
Husdjur.. (House animal).. keldjur... (cuddle animal) pronounced the same as Norwegian kjäledyr.. Is also a valid word in Swedish but mostly used for stuffed animals... Or an animal or object in particular that is emotionally attached to a small child.
I've also heard it used as slang for a person who you like to snog.
As a dane I think Norwegian and Danish is closer to each other, you can read a newspaper and suddenly discover oh it is in danish or the other way a round, when you have a swedish newspaper it is harder to understand, but I have no trouble to understan Norwegian or Swedish, some of the Danish dialect is mush more difficult to understan 😂
The south of Sweden (Skåne) understand Danish as well as Norwegian. The fun part is that my Danish friends understand the middle Swedish (Stockholm) easier.
I been to Scotland many times and it surprise me every time how many Scandinavian words they use and how they easily understood us when we speak Swedish.
Another fun fact is that Danish speak every language in Danish (almost everyone), for example English they use the English words but say it in “Danish” and keep the Danish melody. The biggest difference in Danish is the way they say numbers and how they turn and splits every number backwards and upside down. 😂
And believe me, give us alcohol and we understand and speak all languages fluently!
im a Swede and i've been to Norway on a fishing trip and a group of Norwegians came up to me only and they only spoke Norweigan to me but i could understand enough to know that they wanted me to take some photos of them holding their fish. i also play alot of online games so i meet alot of nordic people their and i can understand norweigans the best when we speak to eachother.
Norwegians know the Danish and Swedish words as well. Many of them are parts of our dialects in many mystical ways 😂 We are not guessing, but some Danish dialects can be quite challenging. But that’s the truth about some Norwegian dialects as well. Yes, for Norwegians too 😂
Danish is the language that is most challenging for its own native speakers among the Scandinavian languages.
Dane, who got a Swe work mate, he refused to learn Danish,, my option?, i love to speak Swedish and read it as well as i ended at as moderator on a Swe site,, vad bra 😂
I’m Faroese and we in general wehave have quite easy understanding the onordic languages
As a Swede, its hard to understand while talking with a Dane, Sometimes with a Norweigan aswell. But you can get context clues within the sentence. Written is easier because we can try and sound it out and stuff. Theres always hints. AHhaha
Norwegian is easier to understand than Swedish. In Denmark, we talk of "singing Norwegian". It really sounds as if they are singing.
Swedish is the most similar to german out of the three languages so swedes usually have en easier time understanding german than Norwegians or Danes.
In many cases swedish uses the german word for something while the danish and norwegian words are closer to old norse. One example is window. In swedish window is fönster and comes from the german fenster while in norwegian and danish it is vindu and vindue. The old norse word for window was something like windöga meaning wind eye and that is also where english got the word window from.
I’m a Swede and I have no problem understand Norwegian at all but with Danes I switch to English. Ofc I can pickup a word here and there but it’s just annoying on both parts when they have to repeat 3-4 times. I actually study finish language now - a fun crazy challenge and it’s sooo different! 😂
22:04 The history of for example sweden is interesting. The viking trade via the rivers in russia to Konstantinopel, where the vikings actually guarded the emporer as his personal bodyguard is interesting. But for the full story I recommend the channel "Free peoples movement", because the official narrative has been modified for many reasons.
I am a swede and I think I understand norwigean and the swedish they talk in Finland.
It would be fun to see a video with the words that are the same, but have a totally different meaning in SE than No or DK
What do you mean here, there are no Danish Sapmi people?
@@Jonasjonkable example: rolig, mås, frisk
Med åren så lär man sig ord från Danmark och Norge framförallt när man har jobbat med olika nordiska grannar. Ibland kan man förstå ändå då en del ord liknar ord som talades för länge sedan men inte används direkt iallafall på svenska. Sedan tycker jag att Norska är ett mer melodiöst språk. En del talar dialekter som är svåra att förstå.
Jeg som Dansker forstår alt det du skriver uden at skal læse det to gange
Gutnish, aka Gibberish :-) But it sounds lovely.
I’m Swedish and I usually have no problem understanding Norwegian, but some dialects are tougher than others. I can usually understand Danish as well, but it takes more of an effort, and some Danish dialects are completely unintelligible. They swallow most of the consonants and pronounce all vowels the same, so most words sound identical, and then they slur them to make it even harder. I was once staying at a hotel in Italy. There was about a dozen Swedes there and one Danish couple. All of us Swedes understood pretty much everything the Danish woman said, but no one understood anything her husband said. So, yeah, it depends a lot on the dialect. And written Danish is much easier than spoken Danish.
When you were saying that Norwegian is like Swedish without melody, Finnish-Swedish is even more like that 😁
There is actually an interessting phenomenon that the true and most clear Swedish is not spoken in Stockholm, it is actually in some areas of the north, like Kiruna and Jokkmokk (I think), sure they have different words, but less dialect than the middle of Sweden. The story goes that work force were imported from the Stockholm area, way back. So that is why the one of the least extreme dialects can be found in those remote areas. I am not saying this is 100% truth, but I can confirm that some areas has much less dialect in the up north than some southern parts of Sweden.
Im swedish, its MUCH esier to understand Norwegian.
Its not even hard at all. I worked i Oslo and after a week or so I understood 100%
Yes, we speak English with eachother. And sometimes one person speaks their native language and the other one English. It depends on how well we understand eachother.
Norwegian has two written languages because the Eastern dialects are actually Danish. In the 19th and early 20th century they were called Dano-Norwegian. Bokmål diverged from Danish in 1929. Bokmål is East Nordic like Swedish and Danish. Then there is Nynorsk, based on the Western dialects in the mid 19th century. This is a West Nordic language related to Icelandic. Based on the written standrads one can say that only 300,000 Norwegians actually speak and write Norwegian, whereas around 5 million Norwegians speak and write a variety of Danish.
The Norwegian shown in the example is actually Bokmål, so he is displaying Danish twice. "I love you" in Norwegian would actually be "Eg elskar deg". Notice how the first pronoun is identical to Icelandic and the inflection of "å elska" is identical to Swedish. Also the proper Norwegian would be "I morgon skal eg til Tyskland", which is more similar to Swedish and not identical to Danish.
As for the melody: Swedish and Western Norwegian have vocal harmony. Danish and Eastern Norwegian (aka Norwegian Danish) do not. That is why Swedish sounds more melodic than the dialect spoken in Oslo. However, if you visit Western Norway the melodicity in the language returns.
Regarting Denmark -> He forgot Greenland :) Also under Denmark.
Yes Mate!
May nordic word are present, slightly modified, in english. Mainly bodyparts . Most likely a heritage from Viking era.
Since I live in the southernmost part of Sweden, very close to Denmark, and have watched quite a lot of Danish TV, I can understand Danish pretty well, but only if they speak reasonably slowly. It's interesting that Norwegian to me is somewhat more difficult, because some Norwegian words and several expressions are unfamiliar to me.
Danish people always switch to English when I try to speak Swedish with them however I work with Norwegian customers and they would be very offended if I spoke English to them 😅
It was a while ago, but I'm pretty sure we learned basic Finish in School
I remember watching this video when it came out originally. I was a bit sad that he didn't have examples from Icelandic and my native language, Faroese.
Culturally, we are pretty close to the rest of the Nordics, mainly Denmark because of 600 years of belonging to Denmark but the proximity to the UK has also left its mark. Like, probably nowhere else in the Nordic region will you find as many tea drinkers and as many types of British biscuits (McVities, Burtons, Tunnocks etc.) in shops than in the Faroe Islands.
He didn't speak about finish language because its not a scandinavic language its not even a germanic language either, they have their one thing going on and it is a bit related/simular to hungarian.
A lot of similarities between Norwegian and Swedish despite their “evolutionary” split earlier on are quite easily explained by the huge overlap in history, especially due to the fact that it is very recent that they split into two countries
as a swede, I would definitely say that understanding Norwegian is easy. Danish is understandable, but would require more focus and possibly having to ask them to repeat what they said. I might be biased though since I grew up pretty close to the Norwegian border.
I'm from Sweden. Norwegian is the easiest to understand apart from those from around Bergen, southwest Norway. In Denmark I change to English. I have a friend from south, south Sweden she had on the other hand who had no problem understanding people from Bergen and no problems with Danish. One among things they have in common is, they all pronounce the letter R ... like the French do, in the back of the throat...or jump R all together...talking like you have food in your mouth...potato... 😉😃
I am a Dane from Copenhagen and understand most Norwegian or Swedish, having said that I must add that I do not understand certain dialects, but this also applies to certain Danish dialects.
I live in Sweden, 20 kilometres from the Norwegian border, and I understand them both completely and speak them both more or less fluently.
The potato theory is real, and I do understand why and where Norwegians and Swedes get that thought from (dane here). They sing when they talk, and we just talk, basically. But…. Copenhagen is still the place to be in the Nordic countries, so I guess they do love us after all 😂
I switch to english sometimes when I talk with people from Skåne, if they have a difficult dialect. Im from Stockholm. I dont always understand what they are saying if they speak swedish. And im not good in english😅