|
 |
How do the Swedish learn English | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| marklewis1234 Newbie United States Joined 5315 days ago 32 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 61 11 March 2013 at 7:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
I am always interested in how the Swedish, and people from other Scandinavian countries
manage to learn English to such a high level without even having to leave the country. What is the secret? When I ask, I am always told that they watch English language TV from a young age and learn it in school, but I still find it impressive that they can generally get to such near-native fluency. Where would they get opportunities for regular conversational practice, or is this not necessary? If any one can shed any light on their learning methods I would much appreciate it and hopefully use it to improve my own language learning. Thanks 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 2 of 61 11 March 2013 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
We speak a language that's closely related to English and that's spoken in a tiny part of the world and studied by nobody outside of our country. English is a must. Swedish culture and society is also completely saturated with English. It's pretty hard to get by in Sweden today if you don't know English. About 80-90% of television programming and the movies we watch is in English. We pepper our speech with English in daily conversation and sometimes say something in English if we struggle to find the words for it in Swedish. Our advertising is usually in English (because it sounds cooler). We play video games that are all in English, often online with people from other countries. We work at companies together with people from India and China and all Swedes go travelling abroad where we assume everyone will speak English to us. We also don't bother with other languages, which makes it easier. :) And we surf the web mostly in English. Frankly, I use English about as much as Swedish in my daily life. All group meetings at work are conducted in English because one in the group (out of 15) is from India. If I write a report or a presentation it needs to be in English. If I have a computer problem I need to write in English to tech support. And so on.
However, Swedes aren't as good at English as they're made out to be. I cringe when I see the English on a lot of the reports and presentations and my boss has a pretty bad accent and grammar to match (but good enough to get his message across). To me the mystery is "Why aren't Swedes better at English than they are?" 14 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| wv girl Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5240 days ago 174 posts - 330 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 61 11 March 2013 at 10:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
I remember when I was in high school, we had a Swedish exchange student. She had a slight accent and had come
to the US to polish her English. I asked her how she learned English and she answered that they watched a lot of TV in English and had studied it since elementary school. Having been a Latin student only, I never had to practice verbal skills, but when I started studying French after college, I was really impressed by her accomplishment. How many years of study did it took me to be able to watch a movie with good comprehension, something she could do as a 17 year old! Later, as a teacher, I often wondered what I did wrong, never being able to reproduce those results with my kids. Granted, I got them mostly as uninterested 14-15 year olds, but I still admire others who achieve such results, both teachers and learners. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4623 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 4 of 61 12 March 2013 at 12:14am | IP Logged | |||||
|
There's no doubt that most well-educated Swedes speak a high level of English. "Near-native fluency" is pushing it though, I don't think many people reach this level without spending a significant amount of time in an English-speaking country.
But you can't generalise for the whole population. I'm sure if you walked on to a building site in Stockholm there wouldn't be a great appetite for communication in English. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6660 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 5 of 61 12 March 2013 at 12:36am | IP Logged | |||||
|
I agree... My parents speak horrible English with thick accents. Even university students sometimes have accents that
are extremely uneasy and constant grammar problems. But constant exposure is indeed very good – for example: I do not recall ever being taught the difference between I eat and I am eating, but I've somehow managed to learn it anyway. School mostly focus on lists of irregular verbs and nouns. Knife, knives, woman, women, sheep, sheep... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5101 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 6 of 61 12 March 2013 at 12:47am | IP Logged | |||||
So... don't bother learning Swedish, right? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4445 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 7 of 61 12 March 2013 at 12:53am | IP Logged | |||||
|
Guess they can listen to pop songs like the ones by their beloved ABBA. Listening to
lyrics that repeat over and over is a good way to reinforce words & phrases in your target language... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tropi Diglot Groupie Austria Joined 5432 days ago 67 posts - 87 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 8 of 61 12 March 2013 at 12:59am | IP Logged | |||||
Probably because of the lack of motivation. I mean, why study hard to fully understand a language when you get 80% without much effort? I guess people that are not genuinely interested in languages, don't see a point learning any more than "getting your point across" or being able to converse in (nearly) every situation.
Reminds me of my English teacher, who insisted we learn "sheaf" as an exception for the -f/-ves plural rule in 5th grade. Still waiting to use this word. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
