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A note on Swedish-Finnish bilingualism | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Skandinavisk & Nordisk |  | |
| kaptengröt Tetraglot Groupie Sweden Joined 4340 days ago 92 posts - 163 votes  Speaks: English*, Swedish, Faroese, Icelandic Studies: Japanese | Message 9 of 19 29 May 2013 at 4:03am | IP Logged | ||
Err, I thought Finland had one of the best school systems (or the best)... perhaps it's only in Europe though. If you want to talk about kids who want to quit any difficult thing, I think you should ignore Nordics and look at American kids instead (I should know, I was one) : P From what I have seen here in Sweden, and visiting Finland and my Finnish friends: - Swedes don't really understand or know anything about Finland-Swedes, although they think they're cute and fun (ex. the newspaper going "what? why is this book popular with the Finland-Swedes but no one in Sweden reads it? is it possible that there's a different culture with those guys than us, or something?"). Also, many of my Swedish friends have never even been real friends with a Finn, somehow... - Swedes usually don't know any Finnish at ALL unless their relatives know some. Likewise, the Finnish classes are full of people whose parents or relatives are Finnish-speaking, and they teach the class with that in mind (very fast, as if you know a lot already). Swedes also know surprisingly little about Finland, ex. they know random facts and things from visits but don't even know about, say, some famous Finnish foods that you find in a two-second Google search. - But it's not like Finns are much better about Sweden. They seem to know a lot of facts (history and so on) but don't know so much about the culture for example. It's like, you know the information because you're neighbours and some things you just can't help knowing, but there is no real interest in each other it seems, in general from the general population. - Swedes think of Finland as different, but don't always realize just how different it is. It's like Iceland in that way, it's like people "of course" remember the country is Nordic at special points, and then at other points they completely forget about it and are really surprised when there are any similarities. But to be fair, they do the same with Norway and Denmark - "oh, Norway does this too? oh, Norwegian has this phrase too?" c'mon Sweden, you are not THAT special... In Helsinki there seemed to me to be a lot more Swedish (signs, etc.) than there was English, and I also heard a lot of Swedish from the random people around us. I almost never hear Finnish here in Uppsala, or even when visiting Stockholm, in comparison. In the very far north, everyone speaks Finnish and gets mad if you can't (if you're a shop employee etc., that is) but they all also speak Swedish at least well enough for the shopkeeping chitchat. My Swedish-speaking grandmother who lives there, speaks at least basic Finnish (enough to have the types of conversations old quiet ladies have) and seems to know the same amount of Finnish as the Finnish speakers know Swedish... Although I read up on the history, and her town was always a large majority of Finnish-speakers (it had more Sami than Swedish too), and only relatively recently did it change to Swedish. Before I knew anything about Finland or Sweden, I was told that Finland was bilingual and so on, and I thought "How cool! Finns learn Swedish and Swedes learn Finnish! It helps keep their Nordic ties, just like Greenland and Iceland learning Danish!". I was very surprised to find that Swedes do not in fact learn Finnish. The majority of Finns that I've met, seen, or heard of others meeting have claimed to have utter crap Swedish, "I'm barely/not even able to make basic sentences", a few of them failing their mandatory Swedish courses multiple times, (even one claiming to be super great at Swedish, in the three years I knew them I never heard them speak any or write a word, so that's a bit questionable...) and were all better at English than at Swedish. Although there was one girl whose English and Swedish were equally horrible and she couldn't make herself understood. The one Finn I knew who was actually very good at Swedish... was a Swedish-speaking Finn who grew up in a Swedish-speaking area of Finland. And they had utter crap Finnish. Finnish is the biggest foreign-language section in one of my local libraries, even bigger than English, and you can watch Finnish cartoons and things (on some of them at least, you can change the dub from Swedish to Finnish with the remote) on tv. But in the far north, you also get Finland's normal tv channels (as I remember, anyway) and radio. Up there you also may have shops where the entire store is Finnish products in Finnish packaging, something that certainly doesn't happen here (sure, Finnish as a dual language sometimes, but not any more often than other foreign languages). If things were truly accommodating in Finland, you would see it in the bookstore - if a third of the books were in Finnish, a third in Swedish, and the rest in various other languages such as French and English, then I would think Finland to be more equal in terms of language... I think Finns don't want to learn Swedish because they see it as useless, not because it's difficult (since Swedish is an easy language - much easier than English, certainly!). It's the same for Iceland, they don't want to learn Danish and forget it as soon as they stop taking classes for it. Part of it is "oh we aren't owned by them anymore, their language is like them still controlling us" but a lot of it is "why are they making me learn a tiny language only used in a tiny area, this is stupid". Especially considering that the opposite is not true - Swedes don't learn Finnish, Danes don't learn Greenlandic, Faroese, and Icelandic... So it's unfair as well. Edited by kaptengröt on 29 May 2013 at 4:18am 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 10 of 19 29 May 2013 at 11:55am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not sure I agree that Swedish is easier than English. The pronunciation is probably difficult for many, and English can be easier because it's everywhere. In regions where the same thing is true about Swedish (being everywhere) people also learn it well.
Don't forget that the average person doesn't care much about linguistics and doesn't see things the way we do :-) Even loan words aren't necessarily obvious. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| caam_imt Triglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 4864 days ago 232 posts - 357 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, Finnish Studies: German, Swedish | Message 11 of 19 29 May 2013 at 1:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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Agreed. However, I've been thinking that perhaps for Finns there is a bit of a relief in
the sense that they can choose to speak the Finland-Swedish variant. Since Finland- Swedish phonetics are closer (but not the same!) to Finnish than Standard Swedish, I suppose it diminishes anxiety or tension, specially if the interlocutor is a Fennoswede (and shares the same culture). But this is just speculation. There are also many Finns who don't dare to say anything in Swedish, but speak quite good English (but perhaps here the problem is motivation). At least there is a girl I know who speaks better Swedish than English and doesn't have Swedish-speaking relatives. I think it's not possible to objectively say which language is easier (for them). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| bela_lugosi Hexaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 6456 days ago 272 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English, Finnish*, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish Studies: Russian, Estonian, Sámi, Latin | Message 12 of 19 01 June 2013 at 12:43am | IP Logged | ||
That doesn't help much if you want to use the language in Stockholm. ;) IMHO, studying Finland-Swedish at school is nearly useless because the pronunciation is so different in Sweden (riksvenska). You may be able to get your message across but you won't be able to understand the answer... I've always hated compulsory Swedish even though I did manage to learn it to a functional level of fluency. It's truly absurd that time and money are wasted in teaching Swedish to all native Finnish speakers because the majority of them will A) never really learn it and be able to communicate efficiently in that language, B) never actually need it because 99% of all Fennoswedes are fluent in Finnish, and C) rather focus their language learning efforts on something more useful. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 13 of 19 01 June 2013 at 1:32am | IP Logged | ||
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But you don't need to be able to pronounce riksvenska to understand it.
Interesting how it's the opposite of the closest thing that comes to mind, Portuguese. If you learn the European variety, you'll understand the Brazilian one (especially if you find some helpful natives), but the Brazilians won't understand you. And if you learn the Brazilian variety, you'll be understood in Portugal but you'll struggle a lot to understand anything. (and Brazilians are still taught some grammar things that have fallen into disuse in Brazil but not in Portugal) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| bela_lugosi Hexaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 6456 days ago 272 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English, Finnish*, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish Studies: Russian, Estonian, Sámi, Latin | Message 14 of 19 01 June 2013 at 8:07pm | IP Logged | ||
Of course not but the intonation and pronunciation are so different that unless a Finn is used to the riksvenska accent, he won't be able to understand it easily. Most Finns do not watch Swedish TV and trips to Sweden are usually very short, so we don't get that much practice. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Marikki Tetraglot Senior Member Finland Joined 5497 days ago 130 posts - 210 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Spanish, Swedish Studies: German | Message 15 of 19 02 June 2013 at 1:15am | IP Logged | ||
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I think Swedish is a lot easier than English. Of course it has helped that my mother is bilingual (native Finnish and Swedish) but not so much, because she didn't speak Swedish with us children. We heard her speaking Swedish only when she spoke it with her sister and some other relatives and occasionally with our father as a secret language. I have also Swedish speaking friends and other relatives with whom I don't speak Swedish either. My friends know I understand Swedish fully so they speak Swedish freely with each other also when I'm present. But as soon as someone who might not fully understand Swedish enters they switch to Finnish.
So my Swedish was actually at higher level than my English when I left school, but as the circumstances do not encourage practising to speak, my speaking ability hasn't developed much. It is touching though how Swedish tourists in Thailand or South America immediately want to switch to Swedish when they hear that I'm from Finland. And surprisingly enough they don't want to switch back even though my English is clearly better. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 16 of 19 02 June 2013 at 5:42am | IP Logged | ||
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That's what I said :)) Those that have more contact with Swedish find it easier. Or is there some difference between them that you wouldn't put down to exposure?
1 person has voted this message useful |
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