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English in Scandinavia | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6315 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes  2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 1 of 32 25 July 2009 at 10:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am curious to know the extent to which English is understood or spoken throughout Scandinavia. How likely is it for a Norwegian, Swede or Dane to not come into any contact with English in the major cities, like Oslo, Stockholm or Copenhagen? I know most Scandinavians learn English from a young age, but how many people nowadays in their early 20s, say, wouldn't be able to speak English? Is this at all common?
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| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5837 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 2 of 32 25 July 2009 at 11:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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It is understood by everybody under ~60, but some may have poor confidence about speaking, and may avoid it. The great majority are quite willing to speak it though.
In rural areas perfectly fluent English is probably a bit less common than in the larger cities, but as an English speaker you'd have absolutely none of the communication problems that you might experience in some other rural parts of Europe. You could ask directions, ask for products in a shop or order in a restaurant without any trouble. English is a compulsory subject in school, without which you cannot graduate from secondary school, or go to university. TV uses subtitles and not dubbing. A fair bit of programming is in English, so everybody is exposed to English practically daily. But unlike some other parts of the Europe and the world, public information is rarely in English and you'd find it hard to convince a group of Scandinavian friends to speak English for a longer period, just for the benefit of one person. Some English speaking friends of mine complain about public information they don't understand, and feel excluded in social situations (they live in Sweden). There isn't a lot of tourism from English speaking countries in Scandinavia. Some British tourists travel to the harbour cities that have ferry lines from the UK. But there is much more traffic the other direction. Americans arrive in the summer on cruise-ships. Of course, there are individual travellers, but not at all to the level you'd see in France, Italy, Spain etc. There is more tourism from neighbouring countries like Germany and other nations on the Baltic Sea. As a result English is sometimes used between two non-natives. All Scandinavian countries have accepted large numbers of refugees from Africa and the Middle East. These people are taught the local languages in ambitious government sponsored programmes. They are expected to use local languages and not English. The good English skills of regular people in Scandinavia is the result of conscious government policies to help maintain competitive edge(s) of our countries... Some even think these policies have worked a bit TOO well... What is your reason for asking about this? Planning a holiday? Edited by cordelia0507 on 26 July 2009 at 12:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrhenrik Triglot Moderator Norway Joined 6078 days ago 482 posts - 658 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 32 25 July 2009 at 11:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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There will always be contact with English wherever you are in Norway, almost all entertainment is in English with Norwegian subtitles.
Or, what did you mean by come in contact with? Edited by mrhenrik on 25 July 2009 at 11:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 32 26 July 2009 at 2:49pm | IP Logged | ||
That is how it should be. It is possible to get informations, but it shouldn't be too easy to stay here speaking English only. Personally I am perfectly willing to speak English at length to tourists and short-term visitors, but long-term visitors or immigrants should have the decency to learn at least a smattering of Swedish, Norwegian or Danish. And inversely we should be appreciative of any 'expat' who at least tries to speak our languages and don't force him/her to speak English. Edited by Iversen on 27 July 2009 at 11:02am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6908 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 32 26 July 2009 at 5:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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I know a regular visitor to our library who has have lived in Sweden for at least eight years. It wasn't until two days ago (!) he asked us if we had any books in English that we also had in Swedish, because he's about to finally learn our language.... How about that, eight years!
On another account, we had an American visitor a couple of days ago who spoke perfect Swedish with only a slight American accent (he was a Harvard professor). He didn't even think about speaking English. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Marlowe Triglot Newbie Norway Joined 5711 days ago 24 posts - 25 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish Studies: French, German | Message 6 of 32 27 July 2009 at 4:45am | IP Logged | ||
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In my opinion the English skills of Scandinavians are rather overrated. Sure, we're a lot better than people from Spain or France, but that's not saying much.
In my experience you will find a lot of people are able to get by, but not much more. They will be able to give you directions or tell you what they do for a living, but the conversations won't flow freely and the content will suffer because of their fairly poor skills. In short, you will almost always be able to talk about basic things, but don't expect discussions about advanced topics to be effortless for everyone. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| alexptrans Pentaglot Senior Member Israel Joined 6764 days ago 208 posts - 236 votes Speaks: English, Modern Hebrew, Russian*, French, Arabic (Written) Studies: Icelandic | Message 7 of 32 27 July 2009 at 10:40am | IP Logged | ||
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How about English in Iceland?
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| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 32 27 July 2009 at 11:05am | IP Logged | ||
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At least as widespread as in the 'continental' Nordic countries, and a better bet than Danish if you want to talk to the Icelanders - I visited Reykjavik a couple of weeks ago, and I met ONE person who spoke fluent Danish, but a fair number who spoke English
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