|
 |
Talking to Swedes in Swedish | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4426 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 9 of 22 05 May 2012 at 7:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
Are Swedish and Dutch people really "anxious" to practise their English? Nearly everyone under 60 is already fluent in English as it is drummed into children from an early age, is a requirement for many jobs and has a huge media presence.
I'm sure it's a case of people from Sweden simply being accustomed to speaking English with foreigners and not coming across many outsiders who know Swedish. I doubt if Swedish people would object to holding a conversation in their own language? Why would they? People come out with stories about hearing someone make an equiry in perfectly acceptable Swedish, only to be answered in English, but how often does this actually happen? I have made the effort to speak Dutch in the Netherlands in simple transactional situations and in nearly every instance conversation proceeded in Dutch. Edited by beano on 05 May 2012 at 7:29pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4813 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 10 of 22 06 May 2012 at 8:50am | IP Logged | |||||
|
It happens to me with French people quite often. Everyone else (especially people who
can't speak French) has got the opposite experience. The trouble is that many people are living too close to tourist zones and they automatically switch. Once you get out of those places, it is much better but they tend to be quite large. It makes me sad because my French, while it is far from native in many aspects, is usually much better than their English and my pronunciation in general is very good. Not perfect but very good. But thanks for a bit of hope about Swedish. I'd like to continue it during the summer but I was already convinced (by a few similar threads on this forum and some other sources) that I would never have the opportunity to speak it :-D What about Norwegins? Are they similar to Swedes in this? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5257 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 11 of 22 06 May 2012 at 9:42am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, more or less, I guess. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Veel Tetraglot Newbie Norway Joined 4497 days ago 23 posts - 41 votes Speaks: Lithuanian*, Latvian, English, NorwegianC1 Studies: Greek, Estonian | Message 12 of 22 06 May 2012 at 12:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
Haha, I would only second this "guess" ;-) Though my own experience is quite limited and I won't tell you anything new. Anyway, I spent a couple of months in Sweden and now have been living in Norway around Oslo for a bit more than half a year. I went to Sweden being only a beginner in Swedish (A1-A2), so English was undoubtedly ruling over all the initial interactions. After having spent there a couple of weeks, I insisted they speak only Swedish to me, as I more or less got used to the torrential way they spoke and everything little by little was turning into meaningful bits of information. At the same time I put much more effort to speak the language myself, not just safely retreat to English, as soon as I was completely lost and struggling for words. As for people, those 50-year-olds and above were much more patient and understanding than someone 20-30. The most furstrating phase was at the end of my stay though, when I was neither a complete beginner, nor a strong intermediate speaker yet. Then people somehow assumed I knew Swedish quite well (as far as the daily interraction was concerned), but I felt the sudden urge to speak Englsih only, clearly realising how limited my Swedish still was. Okay, not to go too far off-topic, I should mention I struggle more to get my Norwegian practised here than Swedish in Sweden, but the problem itself has different roots. Mainly, I live in Oslo area and it's overflowing with a variety of immigrants, so soon as someone suspects you're not local (a certain hesitation, etc.), they respond in English immediately. However, after insisting on speaking Norwegian only, they usually give in and let their torrential Norwegian flow. Oh dear!! Then it's me who begs (after a few hesistant attempts "Could you please repeat that once again? Could you please speak a bit slower?..etc)them speak English only...haha I'm now strongly discouraged to speak Norwegian, until I reach AT LEAST C1 level (joke). PATIENCE, PERSISTENCE, AND PRACTISE, PRACTISE, PRACTISE! ;-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4426 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 13 of 22 06 May 2012 at 1:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
Maybe you're looking at this from the wrong angle. Yes, the vast majority of Swedes speak an excellent standard of English and are used to dealing with foreigners in English. You cannot change this. But rather than adopting the tired old argument about Swedish people always switching to English, and using that as an excuse not to learn the language, why not embrace the positive side? Here you have a nation of people, yes an entire nation, not just a minority of professional people, who are able to mix and match Swedish and English in order to help you out. Approached in the right way, this could be an ideal learning environment; Swedish is all around you but English is available to provide further clarificaion if and when you need it. I very much doubt if the Swedes have a hidden agenda to prevent their language being mastered by outsiders. In nearly every case, their use of the English language will be a genuine attempt to be welcoming and inclusive, not a case of "how dare you try and speak my language!" 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6713 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 22 06 May 2012 at 2:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
I wouldn't call "nearly everyone under 60" fluent in English (by any definition, really), but anyone who has a job involving "contact with people" (any kind of store for example) can generally converse with a random person in English. I assume most Swedes just don't think that the typical foreigner/tourist has a particularly high level of Swedish. As simple as that. We're not crazy about using our English. It depends a lot on where you are, and what you're used to. Earlier this week I spontaneously used English with a Polish student at work, and it turned out that she now (all of a sudden) had functional Swedish. At a gig earlier this year, an Englishman asked me about something (in English). I talked to him for a couple of minutes, and afterwards, a bloke next to me commented "Wow, now you had a chance to practice your English!" - as if it was the most unusual thing in the world... Edited by jeff_lindqvist on 06 May 2012 at 11:01pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4426 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 15 of 22 06 May 2012 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
There was an interesting programme on BBC Radio 4 recently about how many university courses in Sweden, particularly scientific disciplines, present much of their material in English. The presenter wasn't trying to argue that the Swedish language itself is under threat from English (one academic dismissed this notion out of hand, pointing out that Sweden has ALWAYS had to learn other languages, way before English became a global lingua frana), but the point of the show was to illustrate how specialist areas of smaller languages were now being infiltrated by English.
Several Swedish students said they found it difficult to think of advanced scientific concepts in their native tongue, as their course had been delivered primarily in English and the required vocabulary was lacking, or at least not fresh in their minds. Yet Sweden was a pioneer in scientific reasearch long before English became ubiquitous and must certainly have an extensive technical vocabulary, whereas languages from less developed nations might not. Edited by beano on 06 May 2012 at 4:31pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4511 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 16 of 22 06 May 2012 at 5:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
That's because that's a global trend across the board, we experience the same thing in the Netherlands.
1 person has 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. |
