American Reacts to Can Nordic Countries Understand Each Other?
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- čas přidán 16. 10. 2023
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As an American I am very interested in the Norwegian language and how tit relates to the other Nordic countries. Today I am very interested to learn about how similar Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian are to each other. If you enjoyed the video feel free to leave a comment, like, or subscribe for more!
I'm Norwegian and to me Swedish is easy to understand when spoken and Danish is easy to understand when written.
Another Norwegian, and I agree. Our written language was Danish at some point (Ibsen!), and it's still very influenced by it. Spoken Danish is a bit more difficult until you get used to it, because of their mouth and throat sounds. Norwegians understand Swedish better than the Swedes understand us.
Also norwegian here, and it's the same for me.
Yup, was about to write the same thing, written Danish is so closely related to written Norwegian that it's very easy to understand, that's not the same for spoken Danish.
Swedish is the opposite, while Swedish is still pretty different spoken than Norwegian spoken, it is still far easier to understand than most spoken Danish, whereas written Swedish is near impossible to understand, at least in my experience.
Danish people can only communicate in writing. No one on earth can understand Danish, not even the Danish.
The easiest to understand person i've met who spoke Swedish to me, was a Finnish guy :D
I'm Danish, and i agree, from the opposite side, Norwegian is easier to read, Swedish easier to hear, especially if it's coming from a Finn ;)
This Danish girl was kind, speaking quite slowly. If she spoke more quickly, I think they would struggle slightly more. As Norwegian I find Swedish much easier to listen to, but Dansih is easier to read. Due to the 400 year union between Norway and Denmark from 1400s to 1800s, our written language was aligned very closely.
as a dane i would say norwegian is the easiest to understand. swedish is pretty tough. and finnish.... well sorry brother from another mother but we are not even gonna try XD finnish language looks like someone fell asleep on their keyboard.
@@MrLarsgren Finnish is also based on a entirely different language base so that dosen't help :P For me, even with a danish aunt, danish is still the harder to understand for me :/ swedish is a lot easier.
Only the last sentence she said that I found difficult to understand, as she spoke it more quickly / or perhaps normal for her. It did seem like she slowed herself when speaking Danish to make it easier for the other girls to understand her.
@@MrLarsgren Really... I would think with all the various dialects in Norway that Norwegian would be the most difficult of the languages to understand. But understanding the Norwegian language, as the people of Oslo speak it, would probably be somewhat easy.
@@MrLarsgren As a Finn, i'm almost offended lmao!
I speak Finnish, Swedish, German and English. I understand some Norwegian. Danish sounds like a mix of German and Swedish to me so it's confusing. :D
As a Norwegian I understood absolutely everything. And I like that the Norwegian girl did stick to her dialect (Trøndersk). The danish girl was surprisingly clear.
Yes as long as the Danish person is not from South East in Denmark.
Then even Danish people struggle too understand.
I agree! The danish girl was quite easy to understand indeed.
She didn't speak too fast either, which helps of course.
I think some norwegians/swedes go into it with the mindset of: "danish sounds weird and difficult, therefore I won't understand it".
It's like they have made up their mind already, which will only make it harder.
Being from Trøndelag myself, I often find certain dialects from Sørlandet to be just as difficult to understand.😅
@@max89756 I am from southeast Jutland living in Sweden. :)
@@max89756 yeah i'm from denmark and know alot of people who strugles to understand some words that people from south east (Jylland) say. i understand tho cuz my dad is from there and his parents still lives there
Most ofr us Danes talk like that. Maybe Norwegians just have a habbit of running into Sønderjyder that basicly speak German? idk.
As a Norwegian I understood absolutely everything without a problem.
Me too
Danish is actually more similar to Norwegian than Swedish when it comes to words and grammar, but their pronunciation is very unique and they have a lot of sounds that are different. They have a huge amount of vowels that we don't have, for example. This makes Swedish easier to understand for many Norwegians, even though there are more words and grammar that are very different. Especially since Norwegians are more exposed to Swedish than Danish culture.
My wife and I were members of a folkdance group in Norway. We often visited Swedish and Danish (and Finnish) dance groups for festivals. The Danes and swedes would look to the Norwegians to translate between the languages when necessary.
Mutually intelligible languages are very cool. They're different enough to be classified as separate languages, but close enough to where you can communicate without having to swap to a different language. There are numerous examples, such as Danish, Swedish and Norwegian, as well as Czech and Slovak, Thai and Lao, Spanish and Portuguese, etc.
my dialect is from Arendal Norway. when we get drunk in arendal we all talk and sound exatly like Danish people. the only danish i struggle to understand is the numbers. they got a wierd way to count
I am norwegian. Understanding danish can be difficult, but its very easy to read. Not so easy to read swedish, but very easy to understand.
thankfully in my experience danish gets easier the more youre exposed to it. i used to struggle a fair bit when i was a small kid, but spending time over in denmark visiting family and friends helped me get used to it. i dont really have any issue with danish nowadays and carry full conversations with a dane, which is nice seeing as how alot of friends of mine along with family live in denmark.
Yea thats funny, as a Swede i find Danish much easier to read than Norwegian (bokmål i think)
As a Norwegian I understood everything the Swedish girl said, and 90-95% of what the Danish girl said, but that was because she spoke very slow and had a relatively easy dialect from Copenhagen area. In Norway most people have seen Swedish television since they were kids, and also been to Sweden multiple times. Denmark not so much TV, and they speak very fast on TV and it is a bit difficult to understand, and of course it is longer to travel to Denmark than Sweden on holiday even though most Norwegians probably have been there several times. There are also many Swedes working in Norway in shops and restaurants, not so many Danish people.
That obviously depends on where you live in Norway. Hilsen Kristiansand, where Denmark is way closer that Sweden 😉
Same, hilsen Stavanger.
Same from Haugesund. Much more danes here 😅
Yeah I def understand Danish more than Swedish, and I'm from Stavanger. Swedish have so many words that are foreign to me. We had a lot of Danish people working here before our currency went in the basement.
I find it moreso a question of how proficient they are in their own language in how well they understand the others.
As an Icelander in my 40s (we are mandated to learn danish in school), I understood all the words, the ones not used in Icelandic were typically similar to old lesser used words that my 13 year younger sister does not know.
Like the word Meal/food we now commonly refer to it as "Mat" or "Matur" which is similar to norwegian and swedish, but the word commonly used by older people is "Mál" (root for our word for Mealtime "Máltíð). Mál is one of the multipurpose words with many meanings such as;
a case in a criminal case.
Cup to drink from=Drykkjarmál.
Deal in a big deal=mikið mál.
Language=tungumál.
Measuring lengths (ie. Flatamál=surface area).
That's why the context is so important when translating our language.
I am from Denmark, and work with Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish people on a weekly basis, 90% of the time i can speak Danish to the Swedes and Norwegians, we only switch to english when we run into a misunderstanding, like some words are just too different, like get in trouble different :D
E.g. the word "Rolig" in Swedish means "Fun", but in Danish it means "Calm". Which you can imagine might lead to some misunderstandings ;) There are plenty of other examples.
I think the closest comparison for an American english speaker would be listening to a Scottish person speak with their local dialect. Most words either sounds similar or are spelt similar to each other and whenever you can't figure out what a word means you can figure it out by context clues. It can also make it harder depending on the person's local dialect since some can completely change the way a word is pronounced or spelt (in some cases the word might change entirely).
As a Norwegian in my 50s, there was not a single word here I did not understand. I think it may be these girls are somewhat young and have had too little exposure yet to the other languages. For example they were surprised at how much they could understand, whereas I would already know from experience. I know I can understand someone from Copenhagen just fine, but go to Southern Jutland and I will also struggle more. I can read Danish effortlessly, but Swedish can from time to time have very different words, where I will have to really think about it. Spoken though Swedish is closer to Norwegian.
I grew up in Denmark and I have difficulty understanding South Jutland and Bornholm. 😄
Try some Pitemål. :P
Growing up with Swedish tv was super common in Norway. Shows like "Emil på Lønneberget" and "Pippi Langstrømpe" are some standout shows from my childhood that was Swedish. There was a few more as well.
Danish was less common in my experience at least, but I remember some commercials was in Danish.
I think the older generation in Norway was even more exposed to Danish and Swedish, and todays kids are less exposed, but constantly exposed to English cause of the Internet.
Danish and Norwegian written language are more similar.
While Swedish and Norwegian spoken language is more similar.
Norway being kind of the middle point as we have been under the rule and influenced by both Sweden and Denmark.
The ability to understand depends on the individual, but with context clues within the sentence most of us would get by.
The Danish girl was speaking pretty slowly and clearly, they all where, but Danish girl was being quite considerable with her speak as it is the most different and hardest to understand(spoken) for both Swedish and Norwegian people.
As a Dane I also grew up with a lot of Astrid Lindgrens stories on tv - with the original Swedish speak that was regularly turned down and retold in Danish.
@@ellenstergaardgravesen1011 Yeah, same, but we just had the Swedish version with no translations.
@@ellenstergaardgravesen1011and we got to see it on Danish TV as well, but with one loud danish voice over (for all characters) distroying the experience...
As a Norwegian, it's easy to understand both Swedish and Danish because we grew up with Tv-shows in those languages and we often go there on holidays and harryhandel.. we never used to dub language, only subtitles, but nowadays it seems like children tv-shows are more dubbed than before. There is one huge difference between Norwegian and Danish though, and that is counting. Danes uses halv tress, tress, halv fjers etc and that is femti (50), seksti(60), sytti(70) in Norwegian. Only thing I need to concentrate on understanding when they talk. Fir og halv fjers (74) is the other way around from Norwegian
Childrens shows are dubbed today because of those who can't hear ... so its suppose to help them, even at cinema for example so are movies where they speak norwegian still subtitled at norwegian.
@@arcticblue248I don't understand, how does dubbing help those who can't hear?
@@Kraakesolv i’m guessing he meant subbtitles !? 😅😛
@@Kraakesolv hehe meant subtitles ofcourse... my bad. 😅🤣
I found it easy to understand both Swedish and Danish here. Its worse when they come from outside the big citys and have a heavy dialect. To read the languages are quite easy, but Norwegian and Danish is very similar written.
I am Czech, living in Norway and learning Norwegian, but I felt both the Swede and Dane were pretty understandable. Three languages for the price of one! ^^
A lot of media, like on TV, in music, is consumed across the countries. So we are quite exposed to each others languages which makes it even easier to understand each other. A similar example is with Finnish and Estonian. Estonians have a way easier time understanding Finnish than the other way, since Estonia consumes quite a lot more Finnish media than vice versa.
As a Swede, after binging Danish crime dramas (they are SO good!) I start feeling fluent in Danish after a while. 😂
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@EC-qc1dx
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- Although I can't proclaim to be 100% fluent when it comes to at least understanding Danish, let alone speak Danish, as a Norwegian having watched a lot of Danish television, like 'Movies', 'Series', 'Reality Shows' and 'Documentaries' of sorts.
I as well found it a lot easier to understand what they are saying over the years...
Being dyslectic and a very slow reader, I've learned to live without the need for subtitles.
Me watching a movie and at the same time trying to catch all the subtitles, that way I tend to miss a lot of what is actually happening in the movie.
Because I never manage to read the subtitles completely before they change, anyway...
This must sound a bit weird, but even watching Movies and (TV-)Series in a vastly different language I can still follow the story and kind of guesstimate what's being said based on context without reading or needing the subtitles.
And it's even easier when the language is a lot closer to home, so to speak, like German or Dutch f.e...
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I am Swedish and I understand like 98% of what any Norwegian person says (unless they are from Bergen! Then it drops to 50%😅). Most words are exactly the same (or VERY similar) in both languages. They are just pronounced differently sometimes. It is actually the same with Danish, so most Norwegians and Swedes can (mostly) understand Danish in written form, but their prounouciation is VERY different which can make it hard to understand when spoken. It is quite logical that we all understand eachother. Today's country borders have not always been there and at many points throughout history, all three countries have been part of the same "country" or union etc.
If you are going to learn one Scandinavian language, go with Norwegian. You'll get 3 for 1.
nah go for Swedish
Det er kun fordi vi lytter mer til Svensk og Dansk enn de lytter til oss.
Im Norwegian danish are quite easy to understand,,but hard to speak .watch alot of tv series and movies in danish whitout subtitles whit no problem
I am Estonian and as I have been working in whole Scandinavia, I learned Swedish and according to my experience- it was OK for me to speak to norwegians in Swedish, while they spoke to me in Norwegian language. Danish on the other hand sounds really impossible.
But actually even swedish sounds way different in South Sweden.
Weird thing about Danish and Norwegian is that they look very similar in writing, even labels are pretty often marked as S and DK/N, Swedish and Norwegian SOUND similar, of course we can't forget they are still different countries.
As I said, I'm Estonian and many people have asked that since Estonian and Finnish language look alike or sound alike, can we understand each other just like that- I can say that no, we can't, even though we are in the same language group.
Really, Iam half finnished / Swedish ( don’t speak finish ) went with my grand dad as a volunteers to hand over clothing to kids in orphanages in the 90s , we stayed at the orphanage for two weeks and my granddad seem to speak to the staff but mabey in reality they did. Not. Understand , thought they did
I'm Norwegian, and I grew up watching television in all three languages. For instance I watched Pippi Longstockings and other Astrid Lindgren shows/movies in the original Swedish (fun tidbit, as a kid whenever my family would travel to Sweden, as soon as we crossed the border, us kids would start 'speaking Swedish', as in using the tone, words and phrases we picked up from watching Swedish shows). There were also shows that were collaborations between the countries where you had Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and even Finnish characters (Finnish is totally different as a language, but some Finns speak Swedish). So I got a lot of good language exposure as a kid and picked up on words that differed from mine, particularly Swedish words. Swedish is definitely the easiest for me to understand spoken out loud, while Danish is easier for me to understand written down. The latter is because the Norwegian bokmål (the written form I primarily use) derives from written Danish (thanks to a few centuries of being in a union with Denmark). I can read Swedish fairly fine, but it's very different in comparisson.
I think in terms of understanding each other, Norwegians probably have a leg up due to importing media from the other two countries (don't know how much it goes the other way around). We do get plenty of younger Swedes who come to Norway to work, and they will obviously then have an advantage of learning to understand us better. Because Danish is so much harder for Norwegians and Swedes to understand vocally, Danes might have an advantage in, but I cannot say for sure. Denmark definitely is a popular destinations for both Norwegians and Swedes, so they probably get plenty of exposure that way.
Norwegians always went on vacations to especially Sweden and sometimes Denmark before.But that sort of changed in the 90's when many norwegians begun travelling to Syden as we call it. Mallorca in Spain etc. Maybe that's why this youngsters had a little bit harder time understanding eachother.... then someone who is maybe 35 + would have had......they dont have enough exposure to S and D anymore.
In my opinion they're the same language, and it's mostly cultural reasons why we define them as different. The best way for an english person to understand and compare is to listen to really thick irish, scottish and farmer england dialects.
As a woman growing up south/east of Norway. I understand and speak both languanges. I read Swedish before I read Norwegian.
I learned English as 9y/o. And some Persian when I was 16y/o. And German in University. Now I only speak NOR, SWE, ENG.
Well, as a Norwegian I will say I understand Swedish and Danish at least 90% of the time, both when listening and reading.
I also understood every Swedish and Danish word in this video.
I'm actually surprised that the girls that were there didn't understand more than they did, but it might be more difficult when you are actually sitting there compared too watching the video itself. idk.
And of course certain dialects might be kinda tricky, but for the most part I will say that understanding Swedish and Danish is pretty easy as a Norwegian.
Just maybe don't talk too fast.😅
I live in Oslo and what you say doesn't resonate with my experience. Danish often have go pass english or say things differently. Lots of people have problems with Danish. Some youngsters in Oslo don't even realize they speak to a Swede often. They sometimes seem to have better grip on foreign languages than they do Norwegian dialects.
@@TullaRask Sure, which is why I said it's easy for the most part, and not all the time.
There's always going to be exceptions of course.
Danish is generally quite a bit more difficult to understand compared to Swedish, mostly because of how it sounds.
Most Norwegians are exposed to both Swedish and Danish media and entertainment as well, which really helps when it comes to learning the language, and how it's spoken.
Even some words are completely different too, but you will at the very least get the gist of what they are talking about, usually.
Studies have shown that the Norwegians are best suited to understand Danish and Swedish. This has something to do with that Norwegians are very proud of there dialects. Everybody speaks some sort of dialect in Norway.
Yes we have Danish and Swedish TV shows on TV in Norway. The are subtitled. I know nobody that reads them. Except my ex-wife maybe. I do not know about Danmark and Sweden tho. But i would be surprised if it's any different.
When I am driving through Danmark og Sweden I just keep speaking Norwegian. Most of the time people do understand me.
In Sweden, it was public policy to eradicate the dialects. A TV show was made to teach people to speak standardized Swedish. I think you can find it on CZcams.
A Swedish person said in a comment once that the reason was that Norway seceded from Sweden, and since parts of Sweden are former Norwegian territory, the dialects were more Norwegian than Swedish. It therefore became important for the Swedish authorities to make everyone completely Swedish as soon as possible.
I tried watching klovn without subtitles, it wasn’t exactly easy
@@mari97216 veldig avhengig av dialekten ja.
@@andreehobrak1425 ja, og der er det en del slang også. Digger den serien, men må ha tekst.
Surprising comment , every country you go people have distinct dialects . Iam Swedish and let me tell you , people in the north sound nothing like the people from the south , and nothing like anyone between
We hear the other languages fairly often, growing up there was Swedish shows for kids on TV, and while the name got translated, I think the show itself was still in the original Swedish, as I can't remember ever hearing Pippi Langstrømpe in Norwegian.
And there are TV shows that have been co-operations between countries, so there's people speaking Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish in the same show.
As for Danish, written, it's close to identical to Norwegian Bokmål, the problem is how the Danes pronounce words, they can be written the same way in both Norwegian and Danish, yet the way they say the word, sounds completely different, it's as if the Danes' alphabet is mostly silent letters, and the only ones you actually say just sounds like making weird gutteral sounds with no variation. :P
I’m from Denmark, and I understand both languages 95%. Norwegian is nearest to danish for me, couse my mother had a Norwegian friend which family we visited many summers. And yes, we Watch each others TV-programs. In Scandinavia, we grow up listening to all sorts of languages throug the internet and TV, or going on holliday or Meet people who visits our country. There’s nothing funny or wierd about other languages, it’s just normal 😏. I visited Italy once, and could order Meat at the butcher with single words. I’ve never learned Italien 😅
I understood everything without any problems, but unlike most of the people that have commented I find it easier to understand danish. To my ear it's much closer to the norwegian language, both in written and spoken form. But I suspect it might have something to do with where in Norway you live and what dialect you speak.
Your right, about the context, its almost impossible to give only one word and the other tell what it means, but when you put it in a sentence you understand.
Norwegian here. I understood every word. But Danish can be alittle tricky sometimes. But our writing is almost the same
I'm from Sweden, and I work in a store. Sometimes people from Norway comes to that store, and most of the time it works perfectly well when they speak Norwegian and I speak Swedish. But, the only time I've met a person from Denmark, we talked English. It was impossible for me to understand her. She had no problems to understand what I said...
Written Danish and Norwegian is almost the same, while spoken Swedish and Norwegian is very similar. Thousands of words are the same, or almost the same in all 3 languages and if you hang around ppl from one of the other countries it doesn't take long to get the hang of it. Here in Norway we do watch a lot of Swedish TV/movies, and listen to their music, Danish TV/movies/music not so much, but some. All 3 languages have many dialects, understanding each other also depends on that
I'd say how well you can understand will often come down to how close to the borders you live and naturally how much you interact with folks from here and there. When I was younger and lived right on the border I had an easier time understanding Swedes than I did some of the more intense Norwegian dialects, ha ha.
For a norwegian, swedish is like a close to a norwegian dialect. I almost don't notice it as a different language anymore because I hear it so often. We have a LOT of swedish television in Norway. Danish is a bit more tricky, it feels like in between a dialect and a different language. I often ask danish people to slow down a little bit, then I understand perfectly. And no, it's not rare. We are very aware that these three languages is similar.
..So you know Scottish English? Well, I like to call Danish language "Scottish Norwegian" cus it's very similar but they speak fast and sound like they cut off last half of the words they say😂 I have some Danish family and I usually have to ask them to repeat what they said at least once, just like when I talk with someone having a thick Scottish accent 🤪
I find Swedish easier to understand, however when it comes to reading, Danish is easier 😅
I’d say these languages are in principle the same. I’t just the pronounciation and some words that differs. To me, Swedish feels just like a dialect. The Norwegian girl is from Trøndelag, I think, so her dialect is a bit different from the ‘standard’ Norwegian. I’d probably have an easier time understanding the Swedish girl than the Norwegian girl when she speaks her ‘trønder’ dialect 😊
Swede here. The majority of words are either the same or very similar, with just minor variations in vowels and sounds. We can usually guess the context from the rest, or one language use a word that we _could_ have used but don't, but that in the other language is more popular in that context. So yeah, as you deduced - it is a mixture of very close sounds (for swedish and norwegian) and writing (for all three, though there norwegian and danish is actually closer!).
Norwegians score highest on comprehension of scandinavian languages for two reasons:
- norwegians have preserved a great dialect variety. All norwegians are used to and regularly exposed to many dialects and handle unexpected words more often.
- norwegians have had a lot more exposure to swedish and danish language programming on TV. While norwegian TV programs appear on our channels, it is sadly often at awkward hours. Norwegians happily put our language programming in prime time.
- the proximity of our countries means that norwegians and swedes along the border are able to receive terrestrial TV from one another in the west and north, and swedes and danes each other TV in the south west of sweden and eastern denmark.
I really like looking at your channel. I think it would be fun for you to do a lot of Eurovision content. I am always interested in American view of the contest and reactions to the songs. First time listens of the song are always fun and we have a huge Eurovision following here in Europe. I am an American that has been living in Sweden for the last 20 years. Keep up the great content you are producing.
I understand Swedish and Norwegian perfectly, even most of their dialects - including trøndersk. I watched swedish television often growing up and went to school in Norway for almost a year - near Trondheim. I also have friends in both places I talk with regularly.
❤❤❤
People from the different countries can watch each other's television. Though I noticed that some of my Swedish relatives that have only lived in (northern) Sweden, struggle a lot more with understanding Norwegian and Danish. The reason is that before Norway got its own television, it showed Swedish television. And even now the Norwegian kids channel has television with Swedish children in them, talking in Swedish. However, Swedish television did not show Norwegian television until recently.
Hello Tyler !! In our TV channels they often send programs/series made in our neighbouring countries too. This way one gets more used to hearing the other languages. The 3 languages in this video all have the old Norse language as basis. The English language is really like a younger "cousin" to the Scandinavian languages. The German and Dutch languages are also like "cousins" to our languages too, but more of the same age as the Scandinavian ones. ( Very simplyfied explanation this I know )
My experience with Swedish in general is that I mostly understand what's being said. There are sometimes some words I would have to look up or something today, but by and large, it's close enough that conversations could be had easily.
As for Danish, I had no problem understanding people in Northern Denmark when I went on a family vacation about 35 years ago, but on the other hand.... me and a friend would watch the Late Show with David Letterman on a Danish TV channel, which showed ads, and..... I had NO idea what they were saying most of the time in it. The whole "potato/frog in the throat" thing was so strong in those that we just sorta made a game out of trying to make heads or tails out of what they were actually advertising.
It all depends on where in our countries we live. I'm from the south of Sweden and have never had any problems understanding Danish or Norwegian. While most people from the more northern parts of Sweden often have problems understanding Danish (and my accent if I don't pronounce things in a more neutral way). 🤷🏼♂️
The interesting thing is that Swedes, and Norwegians understand each other quite easily, although there are a handful of words that seem to have no common origin at all. On the other hand the Danish, and Norwegian written languages are very similar (due to the very long union we were in), so based on that one would expect Danes, and Norwegians to understand each other very well. In fact I had a Danish manager once, and he told me that he really liked reading Norwegian because it was simply Danish, but written the way it sounds. That should be taken with a grain of salt, but there is some truth to it as well.
As a Norwegian I don't have any problems understanding either Swedish, or Danish, unless they are speaking VERY quickly, mumbling, or they have one of the really strong dialects. In fact as part of the Norwegian language curriculum we read Swedish, Danish, and even Icelandic poetry, and short stories. You were expected to be able to read it out loud in the respective languages. Not sure if this is still a thing.
There is a bit of a shift going on where younger people struggle more with the other Scandinavian languages, but I still claim that on average there is not really any major problems with mutual intelligibility. The extra time they take when they present what they "picked up" from the other speakers seem to be mostly for dramatic effect. I assume that all of them understood pretty much everything that was said. A lot of the words used are the same in all three languages, although some words are preferred over others in some countries, and the pronunciation can be a bit different. The differences in word preferences is often so small that you can have greater differences within the same langue due to dialects. Using the example of the word "hund" (dog) it is written the same way in all languages, and there are some minor differences in pronunciation, but it is in common use in all countries. However my Norwegian dialect uses the word "bikkje", which doesn't seem related to "hund" in any way.
For historic, and cultural reasons it is said that on average Norwegians understand Danish well, and Swedish very well. The Swedes understand Norwegian very well, but not as well as Norwegians understand Swedish (let's call it very well -). The Swedes struggle a bit more with Danish, but they do understand them for the most part. The Danish understand Norwegian well, but struggle more with Swedish than the other way around. DISCLAIMER! This is a surface level analysis, and you will find MANY examples that put this conclusion to shame. I will however say that there is some truth to it. The Danes, and Swedes have been at war with each other a ton of times, which can cause both knowledge about the other country (know your enemy), but also a desire to distance themselves from them. Both of them have also been "fairly large" empires at times, which often causes an inwardly focus. With no direct land access to the other two countries the Danes have looked more to Britain, and continental Europe, while the Swedes looked east, and west (Norway, Finland, and even Russia). Norway spent more than 500 years in union with Denmark, and Sweden respectively. Although it was called a union, it basically meant that Norway was under foreign rule for a very long time. Over time the Norwegian language changed, and moved closer to Danish because of the union. Around the 1200s Icelandic, and Norwegian were mutually intelligible, and Norway even ruled over Iceland, and the Faeroe Islands for a time. These days you can likely find Norwegians that can understand some Icelandic writing, and even a tiny bit of Faeroese, but you would be lucky to find someone who can understand much of the spoken language. To me that is a bit sad, and it is one of the reasons why I want to learn Icelandic properly.
Fast forwarding to more modern times, Norway was mostly unknown on the global stage, whereas Danish, and particularly Swedish music, movies, and books were readily available in Norway. This is at least part of the explanation as to why Norwegians understand our neighbors better than they understand us, and each other (although the differences are really NOT that big). Where I work I speak with Swedes, and Danes every single day, and there are practically no issues. Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians live, and work together to the point where you basically forget that we are from different countries. As most siblings we squabble, and fight, but in the end we have a lot of love for each other.
As a Swede with Danish roots also I understand Danish pretty well, if it's not spoken too fast and with a lot of dialect. Norweigan is harder. Maybe understand 90% spoken Danish, at best 70% Norweigan (depending on dialect). It takes more of an effort. Written language takes more time to read, maybe understand like 80% of both. Understood every word of what was being said in this video, they spoke clear, slow and used easy words. Fun to watch! It's almost like we are three different dialects, since I understand Danish almost better than some Swedish dialects. 😂 And yes, we can watch TV and movies from our fellow countries, listen to music and so on - it's great to have these lovely cultural siblings! 😊❤
Some linguists claim that they actually are the same language, and the only reason they are classified as different languages is that it it three different countries. Because of that we have three different writing standards. It is also common for the smaller languages to understand the other languages than the other way around, and that goes for any language group. It gives sense, since there are more speakers of Swedish than Norwegian or Danish. Then you have Icelandic, which is very hard to understand for all of us, but they can understand some of our languages.
@@ahkkariq7406 Icelanders understands us Scandinavians somewhat because they have to learn Danish in school. Otherwise I am sure they would struggle as much as we do with their language.
@@johnnorthtribe I¨m sure they would have understood some of other Scandinavian languages, even if they had not learned Danish in school.
@@ahkkariq7406 The same as I understand some Icelandic to some extent. But neither would be able to speak like we in Scandinavia do with each other. I once lived in a student corridor while studying. 10 rooms sharing a big kitchen. 3 of the rooms were occupied by 3 Icelandic guys (exchange students). None of them understood me (Swedish) and I did not understand them so yeah, they do not understand Scandinavian languages without studying it.
@@johnnorthtribe Well, I never said they would understand at the same level as other Scandinavians. My first comment is based on knowledge I have from learning about other peoples scientific research.
Danish sounds like norwegian but extremely intoxicated
10:54 Yes. We grow up watching eachother on televisiom, visiting eachothers countries and so on. I actually have a memory from my childhood on holiday in Bulgaria. And their were tons of Sweedish, Danish and Norwegian kids around. And we all got along great. Never used a second language, we played tag and hide and seek. Just being really good friends.
For english speakers, I guess hearing someone with a thick Scottish accent is the closest.
Norwegian here...and understood every word everyone was saying.... I think it depends. When i was little we only had one Norwegian tv Channel....and two Swedish.... So ..😅 .
Danish is easy, just have to concentrate.
When camping in Denmark my son then about 6 years old played with a Swedish boy and didn't know.
i am old ( 57) and when I grew up we had only 1 tv channel, so if we would se the swedish shows, we just had to learn, and qvikly the swedish languide. Basickly we have heard swedish and danish all our lives ;)
Growing up we would go on holiday to sweden and denmark relatively often, and everyone would just speak their own language and we would all understand each other. :) And we watch a few tv-series from both sweden and denmark, particularly crime/mystery/thrillers, which the nordic countries are actually quite good at creating. Would definitely recommend Broen for instance!
This was a really interesting video 😊
I am a Swede and understood pretty much everything the Norwgian said and most of what the Dane said, but the Dane did speak more clear than most.
The way we tend to piece things together is from the fact that even though the words may be not be there same, they are often derived from words with a somewhat similar meaning... Soo a word in Swedish may sound similar to a very old word for the same thing in Danish, or other way around.
As a Dane, I kinda sorta kinda understand german in the same manner.. by guessing what the words mean from context and old fashioned danish words.
As a Norwegian from Northern Norway, I understood everything that was said in the entire video in all 3 languages, but the Danish way of counting is completely incomprehensible to me…..
In writing, Danish is VERY similar to Norwegian, if you read the same article in both languages, a lot of sentences will be 100% identical. Pronunciation, on the other hand, differs significantly. I understood everything the Danish girl said, but I wouldn't have if I hadn't paid close attention. As we see here, Swedish can be identical too, but I think the main difference between Danish and Swedish (for me, a Norwegian) is that I've never found any spoken Swedish word completely unintelligible. That has been the case, for me, with Danish.
I always explain to friends overseas that me speaking norwegian and listening to swedish and danish is KIND of similar to an American listening to australian, british etc. The languages have a similar origin but branched out. In america there are a lot of accents that include words that are unique to its area and it would be the same with our languages where even though our languages have a germanic origin and have borrowed from eachother throughout unions we've had through the ages, we have unique words and pronunciations of letters based on our location.
When I was a child in Norway, there were a lot of Swedish children's programs, not dubbed, but with Norwegian subtitles on Norwegian TV. Therefor we learned Swedish at a very young age. Danish TV programs were for adult, also not dubbed.
So for me, English became my fourth language (at school from age of 10 and a total of 8 years), Germen my fifth (4 years), starting at the age of 14 . I later studied Lithuanian and Latvian at university in my thirties.
I still watch a lot of Swedish and Danish programs on TV almost daily. English I get through TV news, on line news, entertainment shows and of course her on CZcams.
My German, Latvian and Lithuanian has been horribly neglected by me, so I'm pretty rusty by now.
When you meet someone from a different Scandinavian country, we unfortunately often use English these days. But if we speak slowly and make an effort to avoid the worst dialects and try to be be clear we often pick up each others languages quite quickly. A few hours or maybe a day or two and you'll get along just fine. We still won't understand everything but usually you can get the meaning from the context.
As a Dane I can understand most of both Norwegians and Swedes if they don't speak too fast (and of course depending on their dialect). I can read most of it without problems too and have read books in both languages. We sometimes watch shows from Norway or Sweden on TV with danish subtitles, so we get to hear it and as a child there were a lot of TV-series build on the children's books by Astrid Lindgren in Swedish, but with the original sound regularly turned a bit down and retold in Danish.
Norway has in the past (viking era to the middle age) been ruled by both Sweden and Denmark back and forth. Thus the language has been influenced quite heavily by those countries. Also due to the agreements between the countries they have shared books, music and other cultural medias which has influenced the development of language. Thus we have many similar words.
@Tyler, If you think of the thick scottish accent and compare it to australian, New York-ish, texan and oxford-english. And then add another 2-30 years of divergence you get about the same situation as with the nordic languages. We actually have dialects in all three countries that are almost intelligible for the rest of us.
By the way. If you have not seen the Swedis/Danish series Broen, do it. It`s great. Yes i did see it without captions and understood everything.
As a Norwegian I understand all three easily. I am married to a Dane so Danish is very normal to me. Swedish is just easy to understand. I think the prenounciation in Danish that makes it more difficult to understand for many.
When I communicate with a Swede or Dane I write or speak in Norwegian and the other way around. I never use English with Scandinavians. Besides I speak and write English,, German, French and Spanish fluently. A Swede or Dane can work in Norway using their own language. It is normal in Norway that when you go to a restaurant that the waiter communicate with customers in Danish, Swedish or English. The same applies to a doctor or nurse. A popular saying is that Norwegian is Danish with Swedish prononciation. To be accepted as a true Norwegian you need to speak Norwegian and English, but you wil be expected to understand Norwegian bokmål, Norwegian nynorsk, all Norwegian dialects, English, Swedish and Danish. In pulic service you must be able to write and speak both bokmål and nynorsk.
I'm Norwegian and what I've learned is that because Norway was owned by Sweden and Denmark respectively in periods of history we learned our occupations languages, and our own was influenced by it. Also a lot of TV programming in Norway is also in the form of Danish and Swedish series and crime series (soaps). A lot of musical artists also sing in one of the three languages so you learn to sing along. So we're constantly exposed to the languages and over time as you get older you pick up more and more. These TV series are obviously texted, so you get it subconsciously whether you want to or not ;) As a woman in my 40s I understand what each of them are saying as well as I understand you Tyler =)
Swedish and Danish are actually closer related from their roots, but because of danish colonization, Norwegian changed and looks a lot like it
Norwegians and Swedes understand each other very well when they speak to each other and Danish is a little different when we speak. But Danish and Norwegian are very similar written languages, almost identical. Swedish and Norwegian are slightly different written languages😊
As a dane, I grew up watching swedish TV like "Pippi Longstockings" in swedish with a slight danish dub. It helped me understand swedish much better. Now I watch swedish TV once in a while without dub/sub and I understand 80%-100% :)
12:10 The question asked her if she did anything special for the New Year’s, and she responded with an action
In the past, the Danes learned Swedish by having access to the two Swedish TV channels TV1 and TV2. All of western Denmark was able to get the signals, and that included the entire Copenhagen area. The Danes themselves had on only one channel DR1. But that was the time before satellite dishes, internet and pay TV......
What I find most difficult is to filter out the "language melody" so that you can hear the words more clearly. Once you cross that threshold, it's much easier. The same thing when it comes to Indian English, you need a while for the brain to readjust.
Englishman here. Been living in Norway for almost 30 years. I live in a coastal town where we can take a 3 hr ferry to Denmark and we are often in Denmark. I have no problem understanding Swedish and Danish but if a Northern Dane doesn`t slow down a notch (like all three of these girls do), I, and my native speaking wife have a difficult time understanding. Funny, because the written language is very similar to the southern Norwegian dialect. We understand Swedish, no problem but very often the Swedes will revert to English and my Norwegian friends find that insulting. One thing that isn`t mentioned is the fact that there used to be a lot of Swedish children's programs aired on Norwegian TV. We live far away from the Swedish boarder, so I would stick my neck out and say a lot of the people in my generation and earlier listened more to Swedish via the TV and thats why they understand it easier.
Hei, Tyler. Thanks for yet another great video. If you want to experience how we, in the Nordics, feel when we listen to the other nordic languages, you should really watch the video below. The Scots language (not Scottish english) goes way back and contains more Germanic words than english. It's quite easy to understand for a Norwegian sometimes because of word similarities (Child: Barn/Barn, Church: Kirk/Kirke, Know: Ken/Kjenne and the list goes on) czcams.com/video/tYwcjJ7Eaps/video.html
I'm Danish.
We've been taught both English and German as obligatory languages in grammer school for at least 50 years. French or Spanush will often be available as electives.
English is taught by standard in highschool and often other languages are available as electives severel books, papers and lectures were in English when I was in university. We also have to include an appendix of our thesis in a resumé form, when submitted.
I went to a regular public schoom,started Engludh in the 5th geade, German and elrcted French in the 7th grade.
These days, my 5 year old will start English next year, in the 1st grade, German in 5th grade and I will deginately suggest her taking an additionel language.
The reason Dsnes and Norwegien often fi d it hard to underdtand eachother is that our languages have a lot of the same words but they mesn different things or, if the Norwegien speaks Bokmål, is much more sing-songy than rigsdansk, which is the standardised Danish.
We do, however have a lot of dialects which I think help some. I'm from the island if Fyn (Funen) and we speak quite ding-songy in our dialect, cut off ends of words etc. I find that many of us understand Norwegiens quite well, where as people from Sønderjylland (Southern Jutland) syruggle quite a lot. They struggle with rehular Danish for that matter.
In regards to Swedidh I find it easier brcause there are less similarities. Although a wotd like "roligt" is a tricky one. It neans funny in Swedish, but calm in Danish 😅
Anyway most Scandi's are bilingual, many are polyglots like mysekf and doeak several languages. In my case,; Dsnish, English, German, French, some Norrønt ("old Norse", completed a course in uni) and I can get along fairly well in Norwegien and Swedish. It's really not un-usual here :)
I remember when I was little, there was a TV program for children where you had a presenter from each Nordic country,
Norway, Sweden, Denmark and (or occasionally visited by) Iceland/Finland.
As a Dane I have no problem understanding or reading Norwegian and Swedish. I think our languages are 90% the same, but the pronounciation can throw us off. Often we have alternative words that are the same but just not used as often, and that helps.
As for a similar experience as an american speaker, try listening to scottish english
You can compare it with the relation between English and some pidgin English languages, e.g. Jamaican English. Most words are quite similar, but others are very different.
As a Norwegian I understood everything. It's very much about how much you've been exposed to the other two languages. Of course, Norwegian may have some dialects that may be hard for the other two to understand, and when it comes to Danish it's often very much about clear pronounciation. I mean, most of us can watch, say, Danish news with zero or few problems, but some dialects or very fast speech may be more challenging.
Well they were very nice speaking slow and being particularly in their pronunciation. Which helps a lot. I always struggle with Swedish where Norwegian is way easier for me. I do get why the Norwegian and Swedes struggle to understand danish, we’re notorious for speaking very fast and being “lazy” with our pronunciation, often we swallow half the word - and the fact danish is “throaty” doesn’t help at all. Most word are the same but it’s the pronunciation that differs the most.
norway: understands both
sweden: understands norwegian and a little danish
danish: understands both
Danish do not understand Norwegian 😅
As a Swede I understood everything of all languages. Including the English. I prefer subtitles on TV shows and movies, I also like to watch media where other languages are spoken (with subtitles). It's helpful to learn small parts of even more languages. Educational. Danish sounds like they have porridgel in their mouths! 😂
I am an older Dane from Copenhagen originally, and I understand Swedish almost 100 % both in reading and listening, and I understand Norwegian almost as good as long as it is Bokmål, as written Bokmål is based on written Danish. Nynorsk is difficult to understand.
Basically, the 3 languages all stem from Old Norse - the language spoken in Scandinavia around the viking age about 1000 years ago. They are mutually intelligible meaning they are very similar, but still different languages.
If you, for example, only spoke Swedish (no English at all) and where randomly placed in either Norway or Denmark, you could make yourself understood very well and get help to go back to Sweden. You could go and talk to anyone and if both parties take it a bit slow and listen well, you will understand like 90% easily.
For me, as a Swede, it helps to get into the proper "mode" when listening to either Danish or Norwegian, knowing what language to expect makes it easier at least for my brain to process the difference in pronunciation and grammar. Both Danish and Norwegian use a lot of word that Swedes would classify as "old", as in word we don't really use, but we know what they mean.
So for somebody that only speaks English, I guess that (in a way) could be comparable to a modern day American visiting England in 1800's or early 1900's, especially if the English people spoke a distinct and sort-of difficult to understand dialect. Hope that helps.
It is fun. I woke up at a Swedish hotel and asked the receptionist if they had a newspaper and she looked at me very matter-of-factly and said they did not, but she would be happy to call me a taxi. She understood everything I said, except the word "avis", which in Norwegian and Danish means "newspaper" and in Sweden means a car rental service.
I'm Norwegian and I understood all that was said actually. I think the three countries here benefit from the fact that the dialects within the different nations vary greatly, so we are brought up with having to listen carefully and think hard when we encounter dialects thar are very different to our own. This gives us an edge when listening to the two other languages.
I'm English, but grew up and have spent my whole life in Norway. When trying to explain Norwegian/Swedish/Danish to my English family, I usually compare it to American, British, Australian, Scotish, Irish, etc. It's a massive over-simplification, but it helps get the general idea across :P
As for the similarities, Norway and Sweden are closer in spoken form, since we share a landmass and border. But Norway and Denmark are closer with written and the words we use, since Norway was owned by Denmark for a long time, and we use their written language.
I am from Sweden but I am also half Germany fro me is Norwegen easy to understand, but Danish has a few words that are similar word to Germany.
I watch Norwegian TV SHOWS for example SKAM it is easy to understand, but when we watch films from other countries it is in the original language with subtitles
there is a lot of different dialects in all of these countries, some of them can be pretty difficult to understand 🤔I’m from vest Norge and I understand both languages pretty well as long as they don’t have a thick accent / dialect.. And if you are Norwegian in Denmark don’t ever try to play bingo because their numbers are a complete different then ours eks. halv tres and halv firs 😅
Not halv firs - halvfjerds (70) 😉
@@ellenstergaardgravesen1011 yeah 🤔 I think that’s one of the biggest difference in our languages 🥰
11:00 Norway has a few Danish and Swedish channels that are either part of the base TV Channel Package or is selectable as an additional channel.
Aside from that, I know that there has been Swedish kid's/family series shown on Norwegian TV for at least 50 years or so, as one of my uncles grew up with fond memories of watching Pippi Langstrømpe and Emil i Lønneberget on TV in Swedish, and even today with Norwegian dubbed versions of those two, he still prefers watching them in Swedish.
So, Swedish media has definitely been around for many many years on Norwegian TV, though I can't really speak of how long Danish has been on Norwegian TV as I haven't heard much of that.
Its easy to understand the sweeds and the danes, soo easy for a norwegian :P
16:25 This has been the case throughout the entirety of this video, pretty much, at 14:45 the Norwegian was answering to the Swedish how much she understood of what the Swedish had said.
As a Norwegian I can say that to listen to either Swedish or Danish it just sounds like Norwegian, but with a heavy accent. Also Norwegians usually understand Swedish and Danish the best, since Norway have so many accent scattered across the country. Myself I have grown up with Norwegian, Swedish and Danish tv shows.
It’s not the dialects it’s the fact you watched tv shows :)
Danish and Norwegian writing are almost the same. Swedish and Norwegian writing are not. But spoken most Norwegian understand Swedish easier then danish😊 but if u ask a danish to slow down it’s almost same as Norwegian, but they don’t fully pronounce all the letters in words we in Norwegian do
Norway and Denmark share the same alfabet, hej from Odense 🇩🇰
As a Dane, like how swedish and norwegain people say it sounds like we have a potato/frog in our mouth, i feel the same about hearing them speak. Like some words are very clear, its sounds just like danish but with a different accent. And then some other words just sound like absolute mumbling. Like speaking with food in your mouth.
I think the reason danish sounds different is we use the soft "d" a lot. Like in mad, bad, had and so on. Whereas mad - mat ends very harsh and upruptly in swedish/norwegain, in danish it kindof softens out. Like it dissapears from your mouth softly. I dunno thats just how it feels to me.
And yes. It is absolutely common to listen to swedish and norwegain music in Denmark. They have some bangers!
Also fun fact: Back in the danish hayday we actually used to "own" sweden, norway, finland, iceland and some other smaller areas around our borders. We have since shrunken down to just be the half-island jylland, the isles fyn, sjælland, bornholm, lolland, falster and some other small misc islands and we still "controll" Greenland aswell. They have self-rule rights but we are under the same monarchy - the danish royal crown. So us all sharing a country and reign for a while likely impacted our ability to understand each other aswell - although none of us understand finnish or icelandic... But because of our past, our royal houses being intertwined, and because of trade, scandinavia still feels like one unity.
Just a little extra fun fact: In Denmark, english is taught very very early on. I cant remember the exact age, but definitely preschool. We are also taught german (since we do a lot of trade with germany and have a lot of tourists from there and also often visit them - mostly to shop at the border since its cheaper 🤪) but thats not until much later and only required for 3 years and then after that you can choose to continue the course or find something else to study. So we suck a lot more at german than english. I for one only know like child level german. enough to survive, but not enough to have an actual conversation. We also have the choice to learn french or spanish if we want to, but very few choose to do so, because its just so hard to learn when you are already a young adult/old teenager. But we definitely are spoiled with choice!
For me whos from southern Sweden, Malmö to be specific. I grew up hearing danish a lot because theres a bridge that connects Copenhagen and Malmö so many Sweds and Danes live on one side and work on the other.
I had danes/half danes as friends or classmates for my entire childhood.
Norwegian and Danish are basically the same language. It’s the Danish pronunciation that messes things up. Swedish is more of a different language to Norwegian and Danish, but spoken in a way that’s easy to understand.