I speak a little Spanish after seven years of school lessons. Ack! I did not listen or practice. I sound much better than I comprehend.

I grew up hearing very thickly accented broken English and I always thought that was normal and cute.

I learned a little German and when in Sweden, my very precise family corrects me!! Thus, I keep quiet and we speak in English. (BTW: I’m shocked, more and more, how similar German, Swedish and English are.)

Ironically, I’m much closer to my older family members in Sweden, due to their comfort speaking bilingually. My cousins feel too insecure to speak English, which I completely understand because I feel insecure speaking foreign languages, too.

However, it’s really important to me to speak Swedish, so I am focusing on it now. Finally. But, I have no idea *how badly* I’m goofing up!

When it comes to German and French, I have the same issues. Halfway through high school I chose French over German, although I was much better at German. My present French is a joke. That was made embarrassingly clear again, a few weeks ago. Missed opportunities. Perhaps I should start reading German newspapers to master that language again. Luckily my pronunciation of both languages is very good. How about yours?

Anyway, I was glad to see this entry, since I was wondering two things. First, what’s your experience with Dutch? (For instance, do you, as a Swede, find it in any way appealing? Or: is there much recognition?) Just terribly curious! Second, if I would have to chose between learning Norwegian or Swedish, what would you recommend? I’m asking because I want to learn at least one of them, and I can’t decide which.

O.

Isledance - you must have gone to school in the US, not Sweden? The seven years of Spanish is a giveaway. You can only take it for three years in the Swedish school system; German and French have a higher priority.

Spanish is probably a lot more useful in the States than it is here.

I actually thought you grew up in Sweden… But I guess it’s more complicated that that!

I’ll have to get to the bottom of this mystery!

Olivier,
Oh I really like Dutch. I think it sounds nice.

Some Dutch words are identical to Swedish words. I noticed that when I spent time in Holland for work. I have NO idea how these words can be the same when no other languages have them.

Dutch is much harder for me to understand than German though.

It really irritates me when arrogant English people say that “Dutch is a throat disease.” Who are they to speak? At least Dutch doesn’t have the silly “th” sound!

As for Swedish vs Norwegian for you:

It depends on what you want it for. If it’s for business or similar, then;

1) Sweden has twice the population of Norway.
2) Swedish is also spoken in Finland,where everything is double-posted in both languages.
3) Norwegians understand Swedish anyway, and have no issue with speaking it.

If it’s for history etc, then maybe Norwegian.

Norwegian is a tiny bit closer to Danish -particularly in writing. Denmark and Norway put together have the same population as Sweden.

Also these two have closer ties with Iceland, although Icelandic is quite removed from the other Scandinavian languages.

Cordelia,

A few years ago I met a Swede in New York who pointed me to the interesting similarities between Dutch and Swedish vocabularies. As you do now. Alas, I only remember one example he gave me: Dutch handdoek> and Swedish handduk. But apart from that, I do have have a general knowledge of the history of (Germanic) languages, so I would say that apart from a shared ancestral language the Hanseatic League has played a big role in the export of Dutch (and Low German) words to Sweden and vice versa.

O.

Yes - it’s complicated!

My seven years of school Spanish were in the US, but only three years of lessons were available through the formal school system. The other four years of lessons were taken before classes started, so while we did not receive credit, we had a head start.

But, due to much chaos at home (I can relate to your story with your mother), I had little energy to pay attention/retain school lessons.

It is rare that anyone in the US retains the additional language knowledge, for there is little to no use/opportunity to speak anything except English. Even my family would not speak Swedish in the US.

One need not know anything except English in the US, though if one lives in the Southern states, more and more, there are opportunities to fluently speak Spanish.

Ah, but Swedish people generally don’t speak English, they speak (or at least sound) American.

It’s incredibly difficult for us native English speakers to learn another language well. Aside from our first foreign language usually being French (and therefore not too easy for us), the biggest problem is that until we are VERY good at a foreign language, everyone replies to us in English.

In fact, it wasn’t until I reached close to degree standard in French that people stopped replying to me in English. Spanish is even worse as we’re most often in Catalonia and there they prefer to speak English than to speak Spanish to you but even aside from that they tend to go to English almost immediately even if you have degree level Spanish.

The single thing that people could do to help us with foreign languages is to let us carry on for a little bit even when we don’t speak the language terribly well. Without that, happening an awful lot of Brits tend to just give up. After all, why bother even trying to learn a foreign language when everyone just replies to you in English?

Ah, but Swedish people generally don’t speak English, they speak (or at least sound) American.

I’d really like to know why the Swedish sound American, the Dutch sound British, etc. What causes the difference? It’s not like the Dutch are watching Star Trek dubbed in British.

I realised the other day that since leaving school, my level of French has been dropping so fast that I may soon know more Japanese than French. Why do they teach us French in school when we will rarely use it? The Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Germans, Spanish and even Scandinavians if you’re a metal head, all have more cultural penetration in the UK.

So why is French the foreign language primarily taught here when kids could learn, say, Japanese at school and then enhance their abilities at home with Japanese animé or video games? French is spoken in many places all over the world and it’s probably more useful than many of the languages I listed, but since we’re all so useless at it then why don’t they try something else?

K, I guess we learn French out of respect for that country… and because of tradition… and because it is handy when dealing with menus, wines etc ??! Not sure really!

My step mother is Japanese and I used to go there on school holidays. It’s a HARD language to learn. I never managed to get any further than just nicities…

If I could choose between speaking a major Asian language fluently, or a European language, I think I’d choose the Asian language.

Arnold, Swedish schools officially teach British English actually. All text books, tapes etc focus on England.

The ‘American’ accent that you heard is picked up from TV and music, not school. I think British English is more appropriate to teach in school for several reasons, and so does the national school board in Sweden. But American culture is ubiquitous.

My own accent is BBC style English, but if you are alert, you’ll soon notice a faint accent.

If Hollywood was located in the UK, more people would speak with a British accent!

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One of the interesting little pieces of information that I came across in the last few months is how come that English is the lingua franca these days.

If you check up the history of the usuage of foreign languages you’ll find that French was always THE diplomatic language and German was always THE scientific language up to the 1960s. What happened then was that there was a decision taken by the American & British governments in 1961 to the effect that there was no way they were going to let that situation continue and that they fully intended to do something about it.

Anyway, subsequently to that agreement (which was classified as secret at the time by the then UK cabinet), they kicked off all kinds of initiatives including ramping up the likes of Voice of America, the BBC Empire Service (now known as BBC World), supporting all kinds of English language teaching around the world etc. (that was when the British Council came into being and is why they historically offered courses in English).

Net effect? Well, whilst had you done a science degree in 1960 you’d have had to do it in German, my French cousin has recently completed her PhD in France but in English. And, of course, French is basically dead in the water as a diplomatic language as it’s now English that diplomats use worldwide. Also, as far as I know there are no international organisations started after the early 1960s that don’t use English as their only language. Perhaps the most peculiar example of that is OPEC where none of the constituent countries have English as their native language.

Have to see if I can track down an Internet reference for that; I came across it via a BBC produced video on the development of English.

Incidently, Holywood (spelled correctly with one “L”) is in the UK. It’s just outside Belfast. Sadly, they don’t have a film industry though