Can Nordic Countries Understand Each Other (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian)

[@adipy8912]

I'm Norwegian and to me Swedish is easy to understand when spoken and Danish is easy to understand when written.

[@znail4675]

That makes sense as the main issue with Danish is the pronunciation and accents are totally different. Icelandic is even worse as written it looks similar to older Nordic languages, but spoken is very hard.

[@Sweeney541]

I'm Danish, and I've always heard that we kinda have two languages because the way we speak is very different from the way we write. I've been told that the way we write is fairly similar to Norwegian bokmål, but we have a lot of silent letters, double meanings and different pronunciations in the way we speak. I do't know if it's still the case, but at some point it was said that Danish is one of the hardest languages to learn because of this "double language". Even harder than languages using different alphabets like Chinese or Greek

[@Lucieff]

As a Dane, I feel the same way... Swedish is easier to understand, Norwegian is easier to read...

[@Chipsklovnen]

I can relate to this as a norwegian

[@instxnctx]

Så sant

[@amandalong220]

Hej! Swede here! In the future, I recommend using the native speakers to help proofread the subtitles. There were some spelling errors which they would be able to help correct. For example: the word for dog is not "hunt" like the subtitles say, but "hund"; to paint is "att måla" not mala; strong/spicy is "stark", not sterk.

[@MrSnaffe]

Agree

[@lucasskovgaard3526]

A couple mistakes in the Danish ones too

[@dumbtallderp]

I believe it was the Norwegian that said spicy, right? And in Norwegian it is sterk. So that one might be correct

[@izzahdion4651]

i think "sterk" also true, which means "strong", cause it's a german/dutch word. and german/dutch is also a nordic language. cmiiw

[@kimsalomonsson4384]

@@izzahdion4651 It's the same in swedish. German and dutch aren't nordic languages, but germanic languages. Swedish, norweigan and danish are north germanic languages.

[@misubi]

Scandinavian languages sound so pleasing. Like a less violent German.

[@ole7146]

😂

[@MarcLeonbacher-lb2oe]

Anglo-Saxons 🤦‍♂️

[@hallifaxv]

🥲😅

[@gareginasatryan6761]

Haha. I’m always amused that English is Germanic but doesn’t sound like it. It’s very distinct and a foreigner can immediately recognize its sound without knowing it. “I parked my car in Harvard Yard”.

[@MarcLeonbacher-lb2oe]

@@gareginasatryan6761 English has mich Germanic basic vocabulary und has preserved the Old Germanic dental fricative ("th"), the only Germanic language besides Icelandic that still has it.

[@LWT1331]

To be fair the danish girl spoke in a much clearer way than you would normally hear in a typical day-to-day situation.

[@Huso9922]

Noticed when I just went to Denmark, (norwegian myself). The problems with danish isn't the words they use, rather the "kartoffel / potet" sound they have.

[@anisnej10]

@@Huso9922 same with swedes. like simply the number seven. "hryv". The throaty rasp and frog sound. it's pretty ironic overall, how obsessed swedes are with danish when their language is equally gutteral. lol

[@fabianlindberg7051]

@@anisnej10 Lol what? Seven in swedish is pronounced "Schu"

[@anisnej10]

@@fabianlindberg7051 nope. spelled like sju, pronounced like hru or hruv. there is no S. it’s gutteral

[@fabianlindberg7051]

@@anisnej10 how you get a R in there is beyond my understanding

[@theflyinggasmask]

As a Dane i always find it painful that i can understand Swedes and Norwegians, but they never understand me... I honestly find Swedish and Norwegian easier to understand than some Danish dialects.

[@DimitriMoreira]

Well, imagine that you're at the viking age still and everyone is a "Dane". This way all of them are dialects 🤣🤣🤣

[@metamon2704]

Honestly it's just a lack of effort on their part.

[@emilflarsen2]

To be honest, the danish girl Sofia is speaking very slow and clear to make sure they understand her. I do the same when speaking with scandinavians since we speak so fast.

[@bjoardar]

@@metamon2704 "Lack of effort"?? Dude ... I understand Danish pretty decently if it's spoken slower and with annunciation, but once you meet someone who speaks Danish fast paced and with some mumbling, then it's like having a 2-way conversation with someone throwing up in the toilet. "Lack of effort" my a$$.

[@metamon2704]

@@bjoardar Lack of effort as in not being conditioned to the language, once you've heard it several times it becomes much easier - if you dismiss it right away and switch to English you will never understand.

[@douglaspate9314]

Hi! A Scot here. I learnt Swedish when I was 16 and upped the level when I was 19. I have spoken it very, very regularly (including with a Swedish business partner, for 15 years until 1996-2011) I moved to Denmark in 1991, married already to a Dane, and really only spoke Danish for the 6 years I was there. My business took me to Norway so regularly that I ended up adapting my Danish using a Swedish pronunciation and incorporated Norwegian words. My Norwegian contacts accepted my efforts as Norwegian. I still watch Eurosport cycling for Norwegian events in Norwegian. I always smiled when Swedes, Danes and Norwegians get together as they end up speaking English. Whereas I the English native speaker adapted to each language as required.

[@ole7146]

I've meet many Swedes / Norwegians over the years inside and outside Scandinavian with whom I spoke Danish and they Swedish / Norwegian, but never English. I recon though that the majority of young Scandinavians tend to speak English to eachother more or less right away.

[@amykillick5509]

I am From England. I want to learn a Nordic language. But I heard they are a bit tricky to learn. In your opinion what is the easiest of the 3 to pick up and speak? My preference was danish but after I watched this video it put me off a bit.

[@MvsicAdd7ct]

@@amykillick5509 I would say, for an English native, probably Swedish would be the better choice. Because Norwegian has the rolled R sound that, unless you're Cornish or have learned a Romance/Slavic language, it might be difficult for you. BUTTT, in my opinion, Norwegian is the most beautiful sounding one, and the easiest of them all to pronounce and understand. The biggest difference in all 3 is the pronunciation, but the grammar is the same (I think).

[@slickmechanical]

​@@amykillick5509 I'm learning Bokmål Norwegian to be able to speak with Danish friend. As an English speaker I find Danish much harder to pronounce than Norwegian.

[@IQzminus2]

@@amykillick5509 Swedish / Norwegian and Danish are all rated as the absolute top easiest languages for a native English speaker to learn. So pick one and it should be very easy as far as learning a new language goes (which still is pretty hard) Learning a Nordic language will also funny enough make it a lot easier for an English speaker to read old English (pre-Shakespeare). As there was even more overlap between Nordic languages and English back then.

[@RichardJohansson]

When i was a a kid we went to Denmark on vacation (I'm Swedish) and my dad was asking a local a question. The Dane didn't understand so my dad spoke more slowly and articulated very clearly but the dane still didn't understand. So then my dad removed all the consonants and moved it back as long as he could to the throat and the Dane understood right away 😂

[@SilentHotdog28]

That's fucking hilarious haha. The words are mostly the same, but the pronunciation is different haha.

[@Sigfreð]

The sad part is that I've been the local in that situation, usually with people from Skåne. It works perfectly.

[@billburrcorner2727]

To speak Swedish just pinch your nose or have an extremely debilitating cold and you'll sound just nasal enough to be thought a native

[@EDuGoIHuvvet]

Haha, that's awesome! 🤣 I'm also a Swede. And I live close to Skåne, so I generally visit Helsingör once a year. But I can barely understand a word 😅 I went over with a friend like 9 years ago, and we went to a restaurant to eat. The waiter asked us something, and I didn't understand at all, because it went so fast. So I asked him to repeat, and he did, but at the same speed. I looked hella confused and was like "eeh... Förlåt? En gång till?" ("Sorry? Come again?") He repeated himself a third time, slower and clearer, but I just couldn't understand! I looked at my friend, who had a hard time not laughing, and she just grinned and said, "Han frågar om vi vill sitta inne eller ute." ("He's asking if we want to sit inside or outside.") I wanted to sink through the floor 😂 I really should've understood the last time, but I was probably too stressed out to focus 🙈 It's been about 9 years, and she still loves to tell that story. So I'll probably never live that down 🤣

[@Geo-nw9ug]

I remember on holiday somewhere i spoke danish to swedes and they didn’t understand after a few tries i said it with a swedush accent and then they could finally understand

[@naakkavinttikoira8811]

I'm Finnish and out of these languages I've spent most time on learning Swedish, then Danish and I've also started to attempt Norwegian. This was maybe the clearest Danish I've ever heard and thanks to that, I was able to follow! I feel proud of myself because spoken Danish has usually been really hard for me to understand.

[@IsakRH]

I think the reason you might've understood Danish better in this video is because the danish girl spoke quite slow compared to when danish people speak to eachother. I'm guessing that the swede and norwegian also spoke pretty slowly since i understood most of what they said although im usually pretty bad at understanding swedish and norwegian.

[@kk440635NORWAY]

Is learning swedish mandatory for everyone in Finland? If I remember correctly I have heard it is a co-official language in Finaland, but finnish is the main official and the dominant language

[@naakkavinttikoira8811]

@@kk440635NORWAY Yes it is! So that's how it started for me, English and Swedish at school. But I was always fascinated by languages so I didn't leave it there!

[@oskarihastbacka6593]

@@kk440635NORWAY It isnt co-official, but official, just like finnish

[@kk440635NORWAY]

@@oskarihastbacka6593 thank you for your answer :-)

[@SorensenDK]

I'm from Denmark... If we Scandinavians want to understand each other in our own language, speak clearly and keep a little more distance between the individual words, then it usually goes well :-) .

[@PikaLink91]

Enig, jeg forstår sagtens svensk og norsk hvis de bare sænker tempoet lidt.

[@Drakiren]

​@@PikaLink91 Norska är lätt, men danskan är svårt, i alla fall när det kommer till att höra vad ni säger. Att läsa danska och förstå är lätt. men när det kommer till tal tror jag mer att småland och skåne har lättare, än säg Stockholm och uppåt. Roliga är att vi lär oss lite danska/norska genom skolan eller gjorde det när jag växte upp. Jag antar att dem gör det idag med, men osäker.

[@PikaLink91]

@@Drakiren Og jeg har det lige omvendt. Jeg læser fint både norsk og svensk (jeg forstod det meste af hvad du skrev), men at forstå jer begge ordret kan være svært. Det hjælper heller ikke at danske børn får meget lidt svensk og norsk ind under huden idag - det er engelsk i stedet. Selv så jeg en del Pippi og Emil da jeg var lille, men begge var med en dansk fortæller, så det var meget lidt af original sproget jeg hørte. Jeg ville ønske jeg var bedre til begge sprog, for jeg synes at både svensk og norsk er meget smukke sprog.

[@WlatPziupp]

@@Drakiren Jeg forsto svensk uten noen problemer da jeg var barn, og dansk ganske godt, fordi vi hadde 5 tv kanaler og to av dem var svenske. Noen år etter jeg slutta å se svensk tv ble det mye vanskeligere å forstå. Jeg kan fortsatt lese med svensk stemme i hodet men det er veldig mye vanskeligere nå enn det var som barn, og om jeg prøver å snakke svensk faller jeg ut av det etter en setning eller to

[@Magnusandmessi_thecats]

Hvis vi er fra danmark så tal dansk😡!

[@the_oslovian]

I am Norwegian and understood every word in this video 😊 Not sure why they have problems. Danish can be tricky, but this one speaks very clearly. The written Norwegian and Danish language is very similar. Swedish and Norwegian are similarly spoken. 😊

[@fragfen77]

Kamelåså?

[@the_oslovian]

@@fragfen77 "Vi fårstår ige hinanden!"

[@somerandomguy4240]

@@JasonMenayan That is just not true. They're similar, but they're not the same.

[@somerandomguy4240]

@@JasonMenayan For some people, depending on the dialect. Personally, I have a very difficult time understanding both spoken Norwegian and Swedish. I barely understand anything they say.

[@somerandomguy4240]

@@JasonMenayan No, I'm not the exception. I would think I know a little more about it than you. You know, personal experience and all that. Are you really going to tell me how it is, without speaking any of the languages yourself? Really? Come on, buddy.

[@saburo6042]

Even as a german I could follow what they were saying (especially the Danish) pretty well honestly. it's just Germanic languages really. Tyskland is with you all.

[@Magnus_Loov]

Danish? That's quite surprising! I thought Sweden was the country that had the strongest German influence with a lot of words from the Hansa years. But that may have affected Denmark too. Also, Danish is usually universally harder to understand since thy skip most of their consonants. German seems to be the opposite to me with a clear pronunciation (more like Swedish in that way).

[@FanFictionneer]

I'm a Dutch-speaking Belgian and I too could understand a fair amount!

[@saburo6042]

@@Magnus_Loov Might be cause I spoke with Danish people before and never the other two. But it's really just a couple of words.

[@saburo6042]

@@FanFictionneer I can imagine. Dutch is easier for me to understand than these tho. I live pretty close to both the Netherlands and Belgium too.

[@melahusar]

To be honest I could understand some words too and I know German on a basic level

[@crabapple1974]

As a swede that has worked a lot in Norway and seen a lot of swedes come there to work, my experience is that for us it is like learning a dialect, first week it is pretty hard but after a week you "hear through" the pronounciation and it is pretty easy. There are a lot of words that have very similar origins. There is also a lot of dialectal variation on what words to use in norwegian. Written norwegian is actually pretty logical, it is written more phonetically than swedish is. It is much closer to how we (both norwegians and swedes) pronounce words. For example "stasjon" vs "station". So I have never any issue with written norwegian be it bokmål or nynorsk.

[@Smulenify]

I remember when SKAM was pretty big there was an article explaining how it'll take about two weeks of listening to get used to the other Scandinavian languages (possibly a little longer for Swedes to get used to Danish). There are Norwegian dialects I struggle more with than Swedish or Danish, and I know a lot of Norwegians that struggle with my dialect unless I slow down and pronounce things more clearly. I have more luck understanding Faroese or Icelandic than I do Sætesdal dialect.

[@MyNilebo]

Swede here. I think the dialect of both norwegian and danish spoken in this video are much more easily understood than a lot of other dialects. To me they all (all 3) had very typical "movie-friendly" dialects, the kind you'd hear in a scandinavian movie/series, not too "broad" as we would call it in swedish😅👍🏽

[@aribath]

That's for sure, they are capable to understand each other and that's the point ☺

[@KayJay01]

Interesting. The Norwegian girl doesn't have a stereotypical Norwegian movie-accent (eastern, Oslo-area dialect). She's from further north (Notice how she says "æ" instead of "e" or "jeg", as well as ending plural nouns with "a" instead of "er"; for example "sanga" instead of "sanger"), it sounds like either Helgeland, Nordland or Troms to me (all part of Northern Norway)

[@kunilsen2519]

@@KayJay01 It's still pretty close to the "movie accents".

[@KayJay01]

@@kunilsen2519 Not really…? Northern and southern dialects are quite different

[@kunilsen2519]

@@KayJay01 Yes, but at least to my ears the dialect used here and the "movie" dialect I often heard on tv sound quite similar. I'm far from a dialect expert though. Just thought it sounded similar.

[@steinovehaugnes3922]

I am Norwegian and have no problems understanding both the Swedish and the Danish girl. I am surprised when a Swede or a Dane don't understand me, especially when they ask if we can switch to English. But maybe I had more exposure to Swedish and Danish growing up than the other way around. We only had 3 TV channels when I was a kid, one Norwegian and two Swedish, so I also watched Swedish programs for children. In the summer we often went to Denmark on holiday, so I was also exposed to Danish. I think Norwegians are generally exposed to more variety in the language because we have so many dialects. I find that some Norwegian dialects are more difficult to understand than regular Swedish or Danish. I know there is dialects in Swedish and Danish that is hard do understand as well. But in Norway the dialects is used on radio and TV it much larger extent. Sweden and Denmark produce more music, films and series than Norway, so we are also exposed to Swedish and Danish through radio and TV. Swedish and Danish films and series are shown on Norwegian TV with original sound. I grew up with films/series like "Pippi Långstrump", "Vi på Saltkråkan", "Emil i Lönneberga" and "Matador". Because young people today have a much larger selection of channels and watch many more films and series with English language, they are less exposed to Swedish and Danish. Instead, they grow up with a better understanding of English.

[@reineh3477]

I agree, I think it has a lot to do with exposure. We only had two channels (Swedish) when I grew up. One of them showed Fleksnes (Norwegian) but besides that I don't remember any Norwegian or Danish tv programs. Some Danish music have been popular though so I got a little Danish from that. We (Sweden) had Astrid Lindgren who wrote a lot for children so maybe they thought we didn't need any programs from our neighbours. And yes there are some Swedish dialects I find harder to understand than some Norwegians.

[@vanefreja86]

Yes! We had Swedish channels at home and I would sometimes watch them. I've lived in Norway for a year and was exposed to many different dialects. Difficult in the beginning, but know I understand them pretty well...maybe apart from a very, very strong Trøndersk. 🫣😅🤗

[@Colaburk]

Nice essay man

[@steinovehaugnes3922]

@@Colaburk 😂

[@Madsematisk]

Yo you wrote an entire text

[@paulaswaim8434]

That interesting "i" sound that many Swedes make gives her away as a Swede. The other two don't do that sound. Very awesome video. I'm currently learning Norwegian because I prefer its sound over the other two languages.

[@hughjarrett4736]

@@paulaswaim8434 Yes, the “i” sound in Swedish is very different from Norwegian and Danish - it’s similar to the “i” in the French word “bille”.

[@user-xu4bm9vf]

albanian 😏

[@NariAKGMari]

For me as a Dane it's all about speed. If you just speak slowly i will get most of what your saying but swedish people need to sing their language and have no time for slowing down lmao. I feel like that the Danish girl was speaking very slowly and articulate so they would understand her better.

[@freeflow_er89]

@Grauling Really! For me it's the same with Danish people. Usually standing like a questionmark. Saying "sorry", can you repeat that. But usually have to add "slower" the third time.😅

[@PikaLink91]

She would pretty much have to, otherwise they'd laugh at her like they always do. But I agree, I'm Danish, and Swedish and Norwegian really ain't a problem if they slow down a bit.

[@peterwhitey4992]

She was trying to speak slowly, but then in some parts, she turned several words into one, like "Hvad kan du så godt lide at lave?" became "Hvad kadusågolialav?". No wonder they couldn't understand that. Plus "så godt" is really meaningless and just making it harder to understand. I think that's pretty typical in Denmark. Things like "Kan du" almost always become "kadu".

[@nickel7065]

True. The Danish girl, being from Copenhagen, spoke extremely clear Danish. That's not what Copenhageners normally sounds like.

[@word20]

I am Danish and read Swedish and Norwegian already in school in early classes. I have seen Swedish television since I was a small child and the famous Norwegian stand up comic person. When I was about 9 or 10 years old, I already understood Swedish, and later it was no problem understanding Norwegian when I was, a couple of days in Oslo. Normally Norwegians and Danes understand one another without problems and Danes understand Swedish, but it is hard for Swedes to understand Danes. The biggest difference between Danish and Swedish is the melody or pronunciation, and you need to understand that sometimes the words has a different meaning. Then there is the number system you need to learn.

[@PikaLink91]

I watched Pippi and other Astrid Lindgren movies as a kid, from which I picked up a bit of Swedish. I say a bit because, as you might know, in most versions a Danish narrator was voicing over the characters, so you only ever really heard the Swedish when the narrator wasn't talking. While I found this an amusing way to make it accessible to Danish kids, instead of straight up dubbing over each character, today I can't help but regret that I didn't just watch these movies in their original languages. I mean my mother grew up with both Danish and Swedish TV, so she knows both fluently.

[@no.6660]

Why is it that every time the word Scandinavia is mentioned it’s used to refer to the Nordic countries but when the it says Nordic countries it seems to refer to Scandinavia?

[@karolinadesu7224]

As an Icelandic person i find this extremely entertaining 🙏😂

[@herrbonk3635]

@@Halvor1970 Must be true (non bokmål) Norwegian? You are the people that colonized Iceland/Island after all.

[@saerunofarc]

Same!

[@osasunaitor]

Icelandic is my favourite Nordic language. It sounds the oldest and purest of them all, like taking a trip back in time to the age of Sagas and Viking myths. It's a shame they didn't add a 4th Icelander speaker to the comparison

[@herrbonk3635]

@@osasunaitor You mean without all those pesky French (and Platt) derived words we swedes speak :)

[@HesseJamez]

You might understand Faroese & Nynorsk better?

[@adenauerlemos7926]

As a Brazilian, I think the differences are very similar to what happens with languages ​​derived from Latin in Portuguese, Spanish and Italian. French and Romanian is already a little more difficult.

[@matirei3266]

I agree (i'm argentinian) french is like a distant cousin and romanian is the crazy neighbour

[@Magnus_Loov]

The Nordic languages are closer than that though. Lots of common words (most words), very similar grammar etc compared to, say Italian vs Portuguese. I don't think you could share a prime time TV-show like we do between Sweden and Norway (named "Skavlan") where the host speaks Norwegian. The main problem we have is that Danish spoken can be a bit hard to understand for us Swedes and Norwegians. Actually, I think the difference between Brazilian Portuguese and the one from Portugal is probably more like the diff between our languages...

[@BrunoGomes-ne9eo]

Francês é muito desconectado kkkkkkkkk E romeno é uma mistura de italiano com russo e búlgaro, mas mesmo assim eu acredito que é mais fácil enteder o romeno, viu kkkkk

[@alexandrorocca7142]

I speak Italian and I recently heard two ladies speak Romanian. They told me that because I had no idea what it was and I asked. To me, Spanish is much easier to understand than Portuguese.

[@adenauerlemos7926]

@@Magnus_Loov Maybe you're right. I'm Brazilian and I understand very well the Spanish of America and I sometimes have difficulty understanding Portuguese friends. The example you gave is actually correct, we couldn't have a TV show in common. Portuguese speakers understand Spanish well, but the opposite does not happen.

[@oksanaliubokhonskaya3095]

I'm from Russia. It's interesting talking. I'm learning Swedish and Danish. In Swedish, words are often similar to Russian.

[@AlexKall]

Interesting, I had no idea.

[@oksanaliubokhonskaya3095]

@@AlexKall The word "Russian" is of Scandinavian origin from the word "rower".

[@MrAskmannen]

As a norwegian ive gotta say that spoken Danish is absolutely incomprehensible. Written danish and norwegian are basically the same

[@MK-il5tk]

As an Austrian who is fluent in Swedish I could understand almost everything. Even the Danish, which was surprisingly easy to understand 😄

[@tomeng9520]

@azzarus Han / hon dricker vatten 🤣 🧊

[@hassegreiner9675]

I found her easy to understand as well, but then again, I'm Danish ;-)

[@datapeter]

The danish girl speaks exceptional slow and well articulated, she is probably trying to make it a bit easy for the other two to understand her. Danish can be pure hell to understand when someone speaks fast and more guttural, they can skip over so many sounds, especially consonant, that you are lost if you don't know the full context. I say this a swede with 15 years in Denmark, stull struggling from time to time.

[@DieAlteistwiederda]

@azzarus we aren't fluent but German is, well, a Germanic language and those three here are North Germanic languages so they are relatively closely related. I speak German and English fluently and also some Spanish and when I listen to these three languages here it's constantly like I'm hearing something either closer to English or German and my brain just makes sense of that somehow. The more languages you speak the easier this is because your brain becomes more used to just filling in gaps and finding patterns.

[@novayu666]

You speak german. That's like cheating

[@KeepCalmAndEatCupcakes]

I'm Dutch, and it's fun to hear the very similar accent between Danish and Dutch. Danish definitely sounds the most 'normal' to me. I've tried learning all three, and Danish is the easiest overall, Norwegian has the most straightforward pronunciation, and Swedish drives me mad with its unexpected pronunciations...

[@ole7146]

In reality you can say that Danish is a north Germanic language (just as Swedish, Norwegian) but the soundscape of Danish leans more towards the west Germanic languages. I've actually mistaken spoken Dutch, heard from a distance, for Danish more than once abroad on holidays until I realize its not, but many basic words of Dutch / Danish are also quite similar. I'm from east Jutland by the way.

[@kevinward3088]

Danish sounds closer to Twente dialect. My ex girlfriend from Hengelo (Ov) called Denmark " De tweede Nederland " after visiting Aarhus , very strikingly similar to each other.

[@Aarvaagen]

I feel like doing this video with three people older people (in their forties or fifties) would be very very different. There would be very few mix-ups and errors compared to in this video. My family has Norwegian friends, and we just speak our own language with each other.

[@P-Mouse]

that wouldn't be very "World Friends" demographic

[@Mrlonefighter]

It's a huge difference in Norway at least, how well you understand Swedish and Danish. Teenagers in Norway today are not exposed to Swedish and Danish that much, while my parents 50+ grew up with Swedish TV channels etc. Also a lot of Danish and Swedish movies and series was shown on TV and songs on the radio. People growing up now mostly watch American or British entertainment, and in general there are so many options for international stuff. I have noticed the younger generations of Swedes, Danes and Norwegians have to swap over to English now, to understand each other, while the older generations understand each other much more. But the younger generation has also a much better grasp of English, and barely have an accent while speaking it fluently

[@PikaLink91]

@@Mrlonefighter In a way it's sad, yes, that todays generation gravitate more towards English as their common language (between countries) rather than try to make an effort of understand each others native tongue.

[@WreckedRectum]

@@Mrlonefighter You don't have to be 50+ to understand this without struggling, I'm in my mid 30s and I understood everything said here perfectly fine and most people my age would too, maybe some needing 2 minutes to mentally switch gear with a Danish speaker, but after that it'll be fine for most. However, I have noticed people about 10+ years younger than me more often struggle. At some point the kids stopped consuming Swedish and Danish media, I guess because Norwegian media either got broad enough for everything in addition to English media taking more of a center stage. My younger brother is around 20 years old and does OK-ish with swedish but struggles bad with Danish. A bit sad.

[@emmybm15]

I'm from Northern Norway and I can speak and understand Swedish both written and verbal. I can understand Danish if it's written down but I have to really focus when it's verbally 😅❤

[@SilentHotdog28]

Just ask them to speak more formally and remove the slang.

[@tigerman1978]

Your dialect probably doesnt help neither on understanding nor being understood by danish? More formal bokmål is a lot easier for danish to understand than dialects. To a lesser extent also for swedes I guess

[@PikaLink91]

I'm from Denmark and I am the complete opposite. I understand written Norwegian and Swedish fine, as it is just Danish but where you spell the words the way you actually pronounce them, but verbally you have to speak slowly and I need to focus. To give a written example, when Danes write "græs" we pronounce it "gras", so in this case we write it one way... but then pronounce it another way xD

[@Nothing-kv5om]

Jeg er også fra nord-Norge :)

[@skimt7818]

@@PikaLink91 That's the same as in Norwegian, but that's because our written language does not really represent any of the languages that we actually speak. There are four main language branches in Norway, and none of them has a written format, which is a shame if you ask me. We call them dialects instead of languages probably because we're trying to keep the country unified, I guess, but they're all languages in their own right, still alive and well from the petty kingdoms of the viking age. Real Norwegian (from Hálogaland region): "Ek ska 'kje lat sám ek kajn, mejn skrif vé sán 'æhr, fær vi t hafs all majn." Fake Norwegian (from Danish): "Jeg skal ikke late som jeg kan, men skriver vi sånn her, så går vi alle mann til havs." English: "I shall not pretend to know, but if we write like this, we will all end up in the ocean." Like someone else noted earlier, some Danes have a problem understanding the way I speak, and I can understand why. They are mostly exposed to East-Norwegian. We use different words (some considered outdated), have a reverse tone, we shorten our words, and we palatalize a lot. I mean, there's hardly any Norwegians even who know what "lárva" (pronounced "løurva") means, even though they use the word all the time in "Lørdag" or "Laurdag" (Saturday). It's dirty clothes that needs washing. It's the day you wash your clothes. So, if I say "Fó áf dék lárvan", I'm saying "Få av deg lørvene," meaning "Get undressed (the dirty clothes)". It's not Sami, nor is it influenced by Sami. It's just Old Norse that persists in more conservative regions of Norway. 🙂🙃😊

[@normahS]

I'm Norwegian and i've been imitating Swedish and Danish since i was young. I can understand both very well. When i was young though, my mother took me to Denmark, then Sweden and i thought "Languages are easy!". Then we drove to Finland. Uusi, uusi, Hiukset! :-D

[@saftevand]

Younger Scandinavians probably have more difficulties understanding each other as they didn't grow up watching other Scandinavian TV-channels, as a Dane I've never had an issue understanding neither Swedish nor Norwegian and I think most Scandinavians can easily communicate if we talk slightly slower and use the synonyms that are similar across all three countries. Writing this, I can actually see Sweden from my window 🙂

[@alawson8915]

That's wonderful. 😊

[@prageruwu69]

hur yngre menar du? jag är en svensk zoomer och jag har förstått norska (och danska, fast inte lika mycket) sen jag var liten.

[@saftevand]

Det är ju en generalisering, men jag läste någonstans att yngre skandinaver går över till engelska snabbare och upplever det också vara dag

[@TainDK]

@@prageruwu69 han gav et godt svar i sit oplæg - nemlig at de ikke så andre Skandinaviske TV kanaler. Jeg husker da Danmark kun havde 1 kanal, dengang var der også Svensk og Norsk på den danske kanal - fx kan jeg huske "Børnetime" hvor der 1 gang i ugen var en udsendelse med personer fra alle 3 lande (+Finland) og hvor de snakkede på deres eget sprog - Ingen forstod hvad den Finske person sagde før en af de andre gengav det xD men de var repræsenteret =D

[@TainDK]

@@saftevand Det giver nu også god mening fordi børn i dag starter med at lære Engelsk i første klasse, vi startede i femte klasse tilbage i 90'erne og selv jeg kan finde på at ty til Engelsk for at gøre mig forstået fordi det sprog er indlært... Jeg kan sagtens forstå og tale engelsk, jeg kan nogenlunde/lidt/næsten forstå men på ingen måde tale Svensk eller Norsk. Jeg husker tilbage i 90'erne hvor vi var på Ferie på "Costa del Sol" (syd Spanien) og at min mor sad i en bar og var kommet i snak med en Svensker - Min mor forstår udmærket Engelsk, men har det svært med at tale på andre sprog (samtale), så Svenskeren og min Danske mor sad og snakkede med hinanden på deres modersmål - Bartenderen blev pludselig virkelig imponeret for han - en Englænder - kunne tydeligt høre at de snakkede hver deres sprog og at de havde en samtale. Han spurgte om de i virkeligheden kunne forstå hinanden eller om de bare var så fulde at han burde stoppe med at give dem mere at drikke xD

[@SuperJuul81]

Often young Scandinavians find it hard to understand each other , but once they get older or just with a few hours of exposure, it very quickly becomes easy.

[@fredriknumse8991]

And also helps if each part speaks slowly, whereas here in the video they spoke in a more normal speed.

[@oskich]

It's all about exposure. Also it helps a lot when you expand your native vocabulary as an adult, as most words that are different in the other two languages are just synonyms in your own language...

[@jissoandlisa635]

Thats not true

[@oh515]

I understood everything. Cheers from Norway.

[@Casey_Ezaziel]

I'm also a Germanic language speaker and I was surprised how much I understood

[@Eyebear]

As a Faroese person I understood everything in this video. But i think they spoke very clearly and slowly. I think if they were talking like they do to other native speakers, it would be harder to understand :)

[@rikumatikainen6547]

This weirdly relaxing video. Smooth speaking tones. For a Finn atleast it sounds pretty mellow :D good stuff

[@birrextio6544]

I'm Swedish and have never had any problem to speak Swedish in Norway or Denmark. I don't understand Danish so well but they understand Swedish good enough. In Norway everyone seems to understand Swedish and I start to understand almost everything they say after a few days. But there are traps, example rolig and orolig means different things. One interesting thing is that in Norway and Sweden we use pitch modulation to differ words that have the same spelling but more than one meaning, that can't be heard by people from other places.

[@DraslyThe1]

urolig* but I know what you mean, we also have some words that are completly similar but means two whole different things

[@yuh6008]

omg true so basically i went to a swedish school for a while not knowing any swedish and i know rolig as calm but people kept asking me if something was rolig nd i got so confused.

[@tigerman1978]

Yeah well, you guys breathe acid (syra) so theres definetly some traps :p Not that being told by swedes that youre weird (rar) couldnt be taken the wrong way either...

[@birrextio6544]

@@yuh6008 The strange thing is that in Sweden we say orolig when we mean not calm, worried, so something is messed up here.

[@Neophema]

@@birrextio6544 The original meaning of the word "rolig" is calm. You just messed it up, but retained the correct meaning in the word "orolig". :) Same thing with "rar".

[@Robinicat]

What is truly amazing is that you all speak English so well. I am from Quebec, Canada so I speak French and English. I learned German in school. Still, that you can speak English so perfectly amazes me.

[@sawa_banara9649]

The problem with modern Danish spoken today, is that we undermine so many syllables and sounds, and therefore pronounce them much more differently than how they’re spelled 😂

[@_Iconic_]

Ikr. I sometimes get problems speaking danish, because of things like that. (Btw, I'm from Denmark.) So, I understand the ppl having trouble learning danish

[@PikaLink91]

Exactly right!

[@HesseJamez]

As a German I can understand written Danish quite well, but your pronunciation seems to have nothing to do with your ortography. Almost worse than English. We can only guess how a word is spoken. Norwegian seems more phonetical to me.

[@ulrikaandersson1463]

As a swede with family that lives in Norway I think one of the problems of understanding norwegian is that we have a lot of words that are the same but they have slightly different meanings. ”Kläm/klem” means ”squeeze” in swedish but ”hug” in norwegian and ”rolig” means ”fun” in swedish but ”calm” in norwegian. It makes for some fun conversations sometimes when the brain thinks it knows the word and then realizes that the sentence got weird and then remembers the difference in meaning.

[@SebHaarfagre]

You forgot "glass" 😁😁 In Norway we drink from it, in Sweden you eat it, apparently ;) (or maybe this is just a Finnish-Swedish thing)

[@FrederikJolle]

hug would be kram in danish and rolig is the same as norwegian (calm)

[@ulrikaandersson1463]

@@SebHaarfagre Yes in Sweden we drink from "glas" and eat "glass" - ice cream.

[@lastofux]

Random comment here: Klem means both squeeze and hug in Norwegian. It's contextual. "Jeg klemte hånden min" = my hand got squeezed. "Jeg klemte deg" = I hugged you. "Jeg klemte tingen" = I squeezed the thing.

[@Cllocopine]

I'm swedish and I can understand both pretty well if the other person is talking slowly and clearly. But I live in the south of sweden which used to belong to denmark and our accent is also more similar to danish AND my grandma moved to denmark and lived there for the rest of her life so I was always there to visit her as a kid and grew up hearing the language. Because of that I have sooo much nostalgia for hearing danish like it just feels like my childhood and my grandma and like a second home to me and I love the language so much. Whereas almost every other swede I know thinks the language is really ugly sounding.

[@hemmper]

I'm Norwegian and my teacher said that for us Swedish is easier to understand when you're listening and Danish when reading. I think that's true.

[@vaiki]

I grew up in northern Sweden and yes, we understand Norwegian very well, except maybe the Vestland dialects. It's also obvious that people in Norway and Sweden must have migrated more in an east-west direction than in a north-south direction because northern Norwegian dialects and northern Swedish dialects are very similar, mid-Swedish dialects and mid-Norwegian dialects very similar etc. We from up north in Sweden have easier to talk with people from Nordland and Troms/Finnmark (northernmost "fylkes"/counties in Norway) than southern Norwegian areas. Danish is very foreign to us up north. We can kind of make sense of what a Danish person is talking about if they speak slow and don't use slang. It is easier for us to understand older Danish because modern Danish has evolved quite much the last few decades I think.

[@SilentHotdog28]

At least you can communicate in some manner, which is pretty kool. I guess it's similar for U.S Americans trying to understand the various U.K and Australian Accents. The more exposed to it you are, the better you will understand.

[@vaiki]

@@SilentHotdog28 Not the same at all. US English, UK English, Aussie English are variants of the same language. The Nordic languages Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Icelandic are all different languages though closely related (you can Google for maps/charts how the languages are related). The differences are more like the differences between Spanish, Portuguese, Italian (and French to a degree) if that makes sense? And yes, of course we can communicate but Swedes and Danes or Swedes and Icelanders usually end up using English instead.

[@znail4675]

@@vaiki I was at a meet when I was younger where there were people from all Nordic countries, including Iceland. The language interaction was kind of interesting as everyone understood Swedish, including the Finnish and Icelanders. None could understand Icelanders though, so they had to speak English, as did the Finnish as that language in not related to the others. Norwegians and Danish sometimes had to clarify with English.

[@vaiki]

@@znail4675 Yes, Icelandic is very close to Old Norse which all North Germanic languages stems from (the language of the Vikings). Since Iceland has been isolated from the rest of Scandinavia and Europe for centuries they have managed to keep a lot of the Old Norse vocabulary. They also keep the Icelandic language unique by not importing new words from other languages so, for example, the words for television and computer is "sjónvarp" and "tölvu"... very different from any other language. In Finland, Swedish is one of the official languages so many Finns know Swedish and depending on which area in Finland they come from it may even be their first language. Swedish is spoken in some of the coastal areas of Finland closest to Sweden.

[@Neophema]

That's what's called a dialect continuum.

[@Jōnin-no]

This is so person dependent. I understood everything both Swedish and the danish person said. I’m Norwegian.

[@Aftenstorm]

The Danish girl speaks very carefully and very understandable, you can see that she is trying to adapt. Anyway, generally. If a Norwegian, Swede and Dane just tryi to listen to eachother and avoid speaking english, it takes like 2 weeks to understand the other languages.

[@charlottevanlangevelde1114]

Im Dutch and am learning Swedish, there are so many similarities between Swedish and Dutch (and written Danish).. Some words are basically the same. So it was easy to follow, Norwegian however even though similar to Swedish was impossible and Danish was doable (but maybe that’s because I watched all seasons of Rita twice 😅)

[@mr.alishahzad]

ANY GIRL SINGLE MOM WHO MARRY ME AND TAKE ME IN UR COUNTRY

[@David_Watts]

The perfect 'Trifecta' ... Love that these countries are close but different! SO INTERESTING! I think it's far more interesting than just dialectal differences.

[@EeveeTinna]

I recently passed C1 Danish level, so I could understand her Danish perfectly, as she also spoke clearly and slowly so they can understand her. Some people even today I cannot fully understand if they really talk fast and mumble. I could understand some Swedish and bit more Norwegian, but because they didn't really talk fast. I mostly have problems understanding spoken Swedish comparing to spoken Norwegian, but in writing I can understand both pretty okay. Was fun :)

[@jenny_sports6460]

This would be great with Dutch and German. These languages are also very similar but sound completely different.

[@mortalwombat2001]

I second that.

[@dernettekerl7665]

I would say as a german myself i could prolly understand a fair amount of dutch

[@dernettekerl7665]

@counselthyself many languages in western europe have some similarities. Thats because most of our european languages were developed out of the same germanic language. Some similarities have stayed

[@HesseJamez]

Belgian Flemish sounds more like German and is easier to understand for us.

[@myindigoblues5796]

Danish sounds more like German. This is so cool, how they can talk to each other and reply in their own language. Very impressed. Thank you 🙏❤

[@patriciashuttleworth7688]

I’m Brazilian but I spent most of my life in Denmark. I’m naturalized Dane. I understand Norwegian better than Swedish even if I’ve been more often to Sweden than Norway, but I’ve noticed that Norwegians understand the Danish language better than the Swedes. Also, written Norwegian is almost identical to written Danish. Similarly, Portuguese speakers understand Italian, Spanish and even French but the Italians, Spanish speakers and French do not understand Portuguese! Portuguese is the Danish of the Latin languages 😉😂 0

[@OzzI-DKPL]

Im from Poland, speaking Danish. Norwegian is very easy to understand both speaking and written as you say, but Swedish is almost impossible to understand for me. The way they sing every word makes it very hard. For example when we say painting (Male) Swedes say (Maaaaaaalaaaa) and thats just one word, when speaking a whole sentence about something it all just mash together and become one big song with no space in between

[@marv2129]

I think the Portuguese-Spanish communication is quite understandable as long as it's spoken not so fast 😅 actually, I used to chat with a brazilian friend of mine and we realized English wasn't necessary because we could make use of our lenguages to chat (it's fascinating how similar our lenguages are). But I agree that Italian and French are totally different and the understanding could be quite hard.

[@vincentstef5708]

So is Romanian.. Romanians can understand all Latin languages even Portugese but they understand it less

[@PikaLink91]

I'm Danish, and I can attest to this. Written Norwegian is easy to understand and nearly identical to Danish as you said.

[@MarkyTeriyakiShorts]

I love all three languages. I feel like our countries are similar, but yet so different

[@ninaadrenaline]

Norway has the word livrett, pretty similar to the Danish version. Norwegian bokmål written language is basically Danish, because the Danish ruled Norway for a while. That's also why we got two written languages, nynorsk is a way to de-danify the language. Although it seems to have failed and have really low popularity nation wide

[@mittelego1098]

As a German, it was interesting to see that a lot of the words were also quite similar to German. "hunt" - "Hund" "frukt" - "Frucht" "synge" - "singen"

[@Ailasor]

yeah.. we say hund too.. im not sure who edited this video.. but it has alot of errors..

[@kristianstrm2375]

Norwegian here, we say 'bikkje' instead of 'hund' in my region. Dunno why, but there it is. In general, Norwegians are better at understanding the other Scandinavians, and one reason is believed to be that we're already used to dialectal differences in our own country.

[@kasahara501]

@@Ailasor Yeah, these subtitles are quite odd.

[@Luredreier]

"hund" is the Norwegian spelling of "dog". Not "hunt", so a bit confused why "hunt" is on the left hand side of that list of yours since it looks like you've used the German words on the right. Also, the Swedish girl also used "hund", she just pronounced it very differently, but it's still the same letters.

[@morningcalmrisingsun]

Yeah, but it's also similar to English in that regard. Hunt, Fruit and Sing. :)

[@Mike8827]

Remarkably similar . I’d say the differences between each Nordic language are about as big as between 2 dialect groups of German , f.e. Rhine Frankish and Bavarian . Yet for historical / political reasons , the former are seen as languages, and the latter as dialects .

[@mortenmerstrand5473]

I am Danish, I lived in Sweden for 2 years and in the beginning, all Swedes spoke English to me so I had to ask them to speak Swedish otherwise I would never learn, now I am fluent in Swedish. Norwegian is easy if they talk a little slower than normal ;)

[@PenguStudios]

As a Norwegian I can say that Swedish is easier to understand when being spoken to and Danish is easier to understand when it's written

[@malenaboy]

I have studied Swedish at university before and Norwegian and Danish only through Duolingo but most times I am able to get by meeting new people from those countries with what little Swedish I can speak now after having formally studied 7 years ago.

[@JaneDoherty-mp7co]

I like how this video is about the subtle auditory nuances between languages and there's piano blaring in the foreground and there's some sort of fan in the background.

[@ashfromthesky]

Interestingly, our level of comprehension also has a lot to do with which generation we are part of. I know that my parents were exposed to Norwegian and Swedish a lot more than I have been, so it feels a lot more natural for them to understand and maybe even imitate and adapt to them than it does for me. Danish people in my generation have a tendency to resort to English, because we feel like it takes too much brain power to listen hard enough to fully understand Norwegian and Swedish lol

[@PikaLink91]

We Danes are in general quick to "give up" and resort to English, like you said. Which really aren't doing us any favors and our neighbours really aren't that hard to understand if we just had a bit more patience.

[@akemenos]

I don’t find it hard when they speak clearly, but I’ve also gone to Sweden alot

[@ivanovichdelfin8797]

You must do the same with Spanish, Italian and Portuguese all together, please. It would be very cool.

[@sebskiboi9413]

It would never work, they aren’t as close as the Nordic languages

[@natalio9215]

@@sebskiboi9413 actually they're pretty similar

[@jaysimoes3705]

Already done elsewhere, the results are pretty similar. It does seem all three can communicate pretty well with oneanother as long as the Portuguese slows down a little bit.

[@ivanovichdelfin8797]

@@jaysimoes3705 Yeah, los portugueses dependiendo where they come from have or not to slow down. Por ejemplo, el dialecto de Timor-Oeste, Macao o partes de Brasil can speak fast and despite that we are able to entender all.

[@trollfeminist7323]

It would work ! I’m Portuguese , I can understand Spanish and my boyfriend is Italian , and we can understand each other in our native languages

[@schlurpie]

i'm still learning danish, and i'm happy that i can understand danish fairly well, and also a bit of the swedish

[@Neophema]

I understood everything, no problem. Usually I struggle with Danish a bit, but she was speaking very slowly and clearly. Swedish, however, is a walk in the park. :D

[@therealronswanson]

spoken danish can be tricky but reading both danish and norwegian is very easy as a swede. Norwegian and Danish is more similar to each other but all 3 languages share probably around 85% of the vocabulary, with some spelling differences. Then there are certain words meaning entierly different things, for example "rolig" means funny in Swedish whilst it means "calm" in Danish and norwegian. Frukost/frokost means breakfast in both swedish and norwegian but in danish breakfast is "morgenmad" whilst frokost means "lunch" in Danish.

[@HesseJamez]

"Frühkost" means "early meal"(by word) in German - though we don't use this term, it refers to "breakfast".

[@therealronswanson]

@@HesseJamez yes, german aswell as english stems from the same language tribe as Swedish/Norwegian/Danish (north germanic) i never studied German in my life but alot of words is so similar you can make out alot of the context reading a german text. an example of this is in German,English and Swedish: Sicherheit = security = säkerhet

[@xxxxmimi]

This was super cool! I also had no idea the 3 languages were at least 50-60% mutually intelligible!!

[@andreasiversen3440]

More like 90%+

[@Sarana.]

As a Finnish person who grew up learning Swedish and then lived in Norway for a while and picked up the language from just hearing it, I used to make the comparison that Norwegian is like Danish spoken by a Swede. In my experience the vocabulary is more similar to Danish, but the pronunciation is more similar to Swedish. Norway and Sweden both are large countries and obviously have several dialects but overall that is how I found it. When in written form I often cannot differentiate between Norwegian and Danish, but I can pick out Swedish easily since the vocabulary and spelling is slightly different. Since learning Norwegian I’ve found it easier to understand Danish, like it was pretty easy for me to understand what was said in this video, but if it’s a fast paced conversation between two Danish people then I will definitely understand what they’re discussing but not necessarily all that they’re saying. Funnily enough learning to understand Norwegian dialects (especially the west coast ones) has also made it much easier for me to understand Skånska, which I used to believe was impossible 😅

[@Ozzianman]

"Danish spoken by a Swede" West Norway?

[@alliona502]

As a person who speaks only English and did German at school, Danish seems the most similar accent wise and I picked up on some words she was saying. Swedish and Norwegian has more complicated accents.

[@jonathanlange1339]

I agree. She sounds very german.

[@Deus7447]

I watched the animated classic Valhalla (1986) in Danish recently. What a treat! As a french canadian, danish is one of the more outlandish language I ever heard. I love it!

[@jannepeltonen2036]

I was visiting Norway in October and we ended up chatting with the proprietor in a small Nepalese restaurant we were having dinner in. After learning that we were from Finland, he commended our Norwegian. But neither us knew Norwegian, we were speaking Swedish with a few Norwegian words thrown in (e.g. 'vand' and not 'vatten' for 'water')... So yeah, almost mutually intelligible :D

[@SebHaarfagre]

Hehe... we write "Vann" not "vand" :D (Danes write "Vand" though I think)

[@PikaLink91]

@@SebHaarfagre Which is another great example of how we Danes write words one way buy pronounce them differently, just to fuck with foreigners xD Norway writes "vann" and pronunces it "vann", Danes write "vand" but orally ignores the D and says "van". We have a LOT of silent letters and other traps like that xD

[@Adrian13rams]

As a norweign learner, love this 😊 someone should write a book on this ❤️

[@Johnny-xu7kb]

Few years ago I encountered a saying from a linguistics professor that i found to be quite spot on. He said that Sweden and Norway pretty much share pronounciation, but Denmark and Norway share dictionary. So "Norwegian sounds like Danish spoken by a Swede".

[@AlexKall]

Well said by the professor, pretty spot on!

[@elitestarquake3597]

I am English. I don’t know any Swedish, Norwegian or Danish but when Sofia was talking I understood when she said she has a dog. I do speak a little German so that was probably where I got “Hund” from, but all our languages have a common ancient root. I love that!

[@FredrikAnderssonMe]

You do have hound in English, which is the same word but somewhere along the way ended up meaning more specifically dogs used for hunting.

[@Magnus_Loov]

@@FredrikAnderssonMe Or hell-hound...

[@jannepeltonen2036]

@@FredrikAnderssonMe The Hound of Baskerville :)

[@loveglobalmusic]

There are lots of similarities in these three languages ,although the Danish dialect can differentiate a bit but its easier for us to understand the Danes who live in southern part of Sweden as neighbors cause we got used to hear and learn the different terms they have in Danish. And of course we also understand Norwegian cause its more closer to Swedish. I had no problem to understand both Sophia and Benni though😊

[@Jensen1959]

Thank you for sharing. I am an American of Scandinavian decent. My Maternal Grandmother was Norwegian and I believe her family immigrated from a place called Hedemarken, Norway sometime in the 1800's. My Dad was Danish, but born in America. His Parents settled in an area referred to as "Dane Valley", in Eastern Montana USA. I can neither understand or speak Norwegian or Danish but wish I could. Very Interesting video. I would love to visit your countries someday.

[@totalbrootal]

I'm American, I studied a lot of Swedish for 1 year but haven't kept up with it for multiple years sadly. I was able to understand at least a gist of nearly everything the Swede said and some of the Norwegian and Danish, more than I expected. I like how closely related all three languages are to each other.

[@veronicajensen7690]

so now you know why it is these 3 countries that are the Scandinavian countries, where as Nordic is the 3 Scandinavian, Finland, Iceland, Faroe Island and Greenland, it makes sense when you see how related the language is

[@buurmeisje]

I'm Dutch and I speak German as well, and I could follow most of what was said, not everything, but honestly more than I thought I could.

[@peterfunfstuck8094]

German speaker here too - I felt the same. Especially (surprise, surprise) the Danish girl was fairly easy to understand. I guess I struggled the most with Swedish.

[@sixxdog]

They're all pretty similar. It just takes a little effort. Swedish stands out the most, as danish and norwegian is pretty much the same words/vocabulary. It the pronuntiation and the placing/grammar that differs.

[@Rugby7259]

In some parts of western Norway, we say “Fruit” just like the danish says it 😁 (5:33) I think the Norwegian language has been shaped by both Swedish and Danish, due to the Kalmar union. That’s also probably why we have so many different dialects 😄

[@johnchen3599]

I don’t get why people would say that Swedish language sounds weird because in my opinion it sounds very beautiful

[@sighupcmd]

The thing about Nordic languages I like the most (beside how they sounds) is the talking speed. Compare with south languages :)

[@kk440635NORWAY]

I am norwegian, I understand swedish and danish very well, like 99% Danish is more similar to norwegian than swedish, but the accent is so extreamly different from norwegian, so because of the very different accent, some Norwegians think swedish is easier to understand, I myself understand Danish better, since they have more similar words, however the swedish accent is more similar to norwegian accent. When I talk to Danish and swedish people I speak norwegian, and they answer me in their language, and we all understand eachother, but sometimes I have to talk more slow and clear, and I sometimes have to speak standard norwegian (bokmål) instead of dialect to be understood, but not always. Faroese is somehow also a bit understandable for norwegians, and icelandic is a little bit understandable Fruit in Norwegian is «frukt» and in Danish «frokt» but in my norwegian dialect from west Norway its also called «frokt» 😅

[@SistoActivitatemAtm]

Isnt bokmål essentially the Oslo dialect, or is there a lot of differences?

[@kk440635NORWAY]

@@SistoActivitatemAtm its pretty much the same. Its the language we use for writing and reading, maybe Oslo dialect have a few more unformal Words that don’t exist in bokmål

[@Mike8827]

What about insular Scandinavian ( Icelandic, Faroese )? Can West Norwegians understand them more easily ?

[@kk440635NORWAY]

@@Mike8827 I understand Faroe maybe 70 % , and icelandic maybe 55 - 60 % :-) I am from west Norway. I understand Danish and swedish 98 - 99%

[@Mike8827]

@@kk440635NORWAY hmm, so that means, while (west) Norwegian has been west Nordic at one time in the past , the influence from Danish has been so strong that it now can be considered mostly East Nordic. Thanks for the insight ☺️

[@WhackyRavenLand]

I'm norwegian (english father, norwegian mother) and my partner is swedish (finnish father, swedish mother). My mother also has a danish brother with two children, those being my danish cusins. I understand swedish perfectly fine with the exception being some specialised or rarely used words, yet I do struggle with danish unless the danes speak slowly. Finnish = Not a goddamn chance (though I'll persuade my father-in-law to teach me some day) :p

[@Interestinggirl-in2ne]

For us Norwegians, it's like this: It's really easy to understand oral Swedish and written Danish, but not written Swedish and oral Danish.

[@hansc8433]

I’m Dutch and I understand all three languages without any issues. It helps that I studied Scandinavian languages at uni :-)

[@jaysimoes3705]

I never studied any of these and still understood like 80%.

[@Activated62]

You must've learned a whole lot on your own then, because as a Norwegian I understand maybe 1 word in a 100 of dutch, got a few dutch friends

[@jaysimoes3705]

@@Activated62 Just pay attention and be flexible and see what words are similar. But spoken it tends to be a lot more difficult surely at first. I watch these clip with some frequency so it might have helped, you could be right there. My wife has no interest in this subject yet she could read a Nrwegian article without too much problems.

[@emagnusson6479]

When swedish people understand norwegian better than danish. And some of us live 20 minutes from the danish capital🤣

[@VikingInvaders]

Swedish and german share simularities with eachother just like danish and english does. Example Fönster Fenster Vindue window

[@Peter_1986]

I am from Sweden, and I have been to Norway several times - I usually travel there from Dalarna - and I often forget that I have even travelled to a different country; it feels more like hearing some kind of Swedish accent than hearing an actual different language in terms of intelligibility, and it is very easy to speak with them.

[@gorgioarmanioso151]

agree

[@gorgioarmanioso151]

Then travel to skåne and Denmark lol

[@jenda1198]

I think for us who live in Central Europe and speak a Slavic language, for example Swedish and Norwegian are quite difficult languages. But I would like to learn one of those languages.

[@marcpennington8455]

They all speak English well…I wonder.: If, for example, the Norwegian girl and the Swedish girl were to meet somewhere and wish to communicate, would they speak their respective languages to each other, or would it be easier to understand if they both spoke English to each other like they’re doing in this video? Like if they were just chatting over coffee or something… (?)

[@m.b.6744]

As a german native speaker I can understand sometimes what the scandinavians talking about. Germanic language 👍🏼

[@TrungCyf]

Tyskertøs

[@Garlicbread627]

@@TrungCyf hahha säg inte så där

[@johnnyrosenberg9522]

I'm Swedish and I've never heard anyone referring to Danish pronunciation as having a frog in their throat. I've heard people say it sounds like they speak with porridge in their throat, though.

[@wiiboiwill]

I've heard frog more than porridge!

[@EeveeTinna]

never heard either of it, just a potato, or that it sounds like throwing up 🤣

[@fordhouse8b]

Hot potato is what I grew up hearing.

[@binkao2938]

I only heard porridge & hot potato, never frog

[@isakoolsson]

@@EeveeTinna same here

[@girlfromgermany]

These are very interesting videos! Love them and subscribed!

[@StorKejsaren]

As a Swede, I find understanding Norwegian is very easy, easier than some Swedish dialects even. Danish is not too bad either, after a couple of minutes listening to Danish I have no problem understanding what she says, the most difficult part to understand is the Danes crazy way of counting which doesn't seem based on the decimal system 😅

[@dromedda6810]

Fjärs

[@OLBastholm]

Danish numbers above the 40s make absolutely no sense. The order of the numbers (fx enogtyve) also follows the German reverse order, which probably adds to the confusion.

[@mikkelryehansen3772]

As a Scandinavian myself, I actually believe that there is a lot of prejudice involved when it comes to being confronted with other Scandinavian languages (particularly Swedish, Danish and Norwegian). I think that people seem to believe they just can't understand a language, while they do understand another. But actually we know more than we think, and are able to understand more than we think, which this video definitely showed. So well done😅

[@PikaLink91]

Agreed. The only thing that hurts me when watching these videos, is that both Sweden and Norway laugh whenever Denmark opens her mouth. As if Sweden and Norway are so close to each other in comparison that they have their own little exclusive club that Denmark isn't part of 😢

[@PikaLink91]

@@user-lg6zm5bz7l With teenage girls specifically I wouldn't expect any curtesy at all, cuz we all know teenagers are rude to the core. But with people in general I would expect to have some general decensy and respect to not laugh in other peoples faces. I mean, would you honest to god, if you spoke to a Dane right now, laugh in their face and say "OMG your language sounds so funny! Like you have a frog stuck in in your throat or something!". Even if something sounds funny or weird, it is not polite to laugh at other people's language, unless they are in on the fun. I mean after watching this video, if I was in the company of these girls, I would be outright afraid of opening my mouth and speaking my native tongue, out of fear of getting ridiculed and laughed at. It's not a nice feeling. I mean, I think a lot of other languages sound funny where I think "what on earth are those sounds you are making?" But I have the decensy and respect not to laugh, but instead be intriqued by the fact that they master a language I don't.

[@jojolords4523]

As Swiss person I understand some words (there are some similarieties to Swiss German). But I understand about half of what they say.

[@jayiwa]

I’m Thai and have been trying to learn all 3 languages (plus Finnish). When I was young, a Norwegian SAS flight attendant told me that Scandinavian people could understand each other because their languages are similar. I find it interesting after watching this video (plus many others on the same topic) as well as my personal learning experience, how different they actually are, and the native speakers clearly don’t always understand each other. So basically that SAS flight attendant gave me a wrong impression of Scandinavian languages. I thought I could learn just one and would be able to speak to anyone in those 3 countries.

[@DaisyFromFinland]

Just keep on😊

[@TheErikjsm]

ofc you as a non native woud not be able to learn one and understand them all. we are exposed to eachothers languages fairly often through out our lives, so even though we might not catch every word we can indeed understand eachothers language. except finnish finnish is extremely diffiernt...

[@SebHaarfagre]

The people above are right. Exposure is everything! The attendant didn't lie to you but maybe didn't pay full attention to the context? It's kind of a paradox, to know which of the three languages to learn first, you must know how your learning will be set up. And to understand all three fluently you must be fluent in one of them (I guess that isn't a paradox) But learning all three at once will only confuse you. You need a foundation.

[@jayiwa]

@@SebHaarfagre you're probably right about my lack of foundation and learning pattern. I started with Swedish for various reasons, just like many learners. One reason being there are plenty of learning resources and courses available compared to the other 2. Then half way through I started Danish because I like visiting Copenhagen, and I actually like the sound of it, regardless how other people are mocking the Danish sound. Also as a Thai speaker, I think Danish is easier than Swedish to learn the correct accent. Later on I found out that I should've started with Norwegian if I intended to learn all 3 since Norwegian is the closest to English. So I took on Norwegian as well, and now it's probably too much already 🤣 That's where I am at the moment 😂 and to add a trouble to myself I'm taking on Finnish, which is a tough one. I've always known that Finnish is a different language family, but I just love all things Scandinavian 😉

[@marie-luiselubich3288]

@jayiwa depending on your age, the flight attendant was telling the truth. Until the mid '90s our countries' national broadcasting systems were monopolies so we were very limited in what was shown. DR, SVT and NRK, the scandinavian national broadcasters, shared their content with each other, so my generation were exposed to it in a similar way as the youth today is exposed to English. Furthermore, some areas in southern Sweden and in parts of Denmark were able to watch the other scandies channels - the way the broadcast antenna signals were back in the day had an influence on it. I lived in the southern part of the Danish island Zealand and in my area we had an antenna commune that broad casted SVT 1 and 2, NRK and the three German national broadcast channels. All this meant that I understand Swedish and Norwegian way better than my children does who have not been exposed in the same way since the way they watch television is radically different from when I was young. There are no monopoly, streaming and social media serves as their way of watching things, and flow television is a distant memory.

[@FanFictionneer]

I'm Belgian. I speak Dutch and I could understand some stuff too! But yeah, Germanic languages are similar.

[@gergoblasko6789]

I could watch these 3 ladies speaking all day.

[@danvernier198]

In Sweden we aren't really exposed to Danish or Norwegian media the way they are to ours so we get little to no practice hearing them. Despite that I could understand about 90% of the Danish and 99% of the Norwegian solely because of how similar to Swedish they are.

[@SimonEliasen123]

Danish media does not show Norwegian or Swedish content as well, just to be clear. I could understand most aswell, but I think exposure is the most important, e.g. spending a month in either country the understanding would go up to 97-98% I'm a Dane btw.

[@zoom5024]

@@SimonEliasen123 like someone else said in the comments. Anyone in Norway/denmark who is like 25 and above got alot of Swedish children shows and books etc. Because of Astrid lindgren, pippi långstrump, Ronja rövardotter, Emil i lunneberga, karlsson på taket, bröderna lejonhjärta. The list can be made longer, the same goes for Swedish TV channels but that was way earlier, both Denmark and Norway had 1 Swedish channel while Sweden didnt have any of theirs. And alot of Swedish musicians are famous in both of those countries.

[@morten3138]

@@zoom5024 Norwegian here. I also remember seeing a fair amount of cartoons dubbed in Danish and Swedish. I think it was on the channel TV 1000 and/or TV3 . Like the Adventures of the Gummi Bears. But yeah we definitely saw a lot more Swedish stuff. In addition to Astrid Lindgren movies I especially remember Vi på Saltkråkan. Denmark had great stuff like Olsenbanden and The Julekalender, but that was all remade in Norway.

[@hemmper]

It used to be true for the older generation in Norway that most of them were steeped in Swedish content from radio and TV. Because back in the 80s and before the Swedish radiowaves carrying radio and TV hit more than half the Norwegian population since more than half live close to the Swedish border. That's not true the other way around however, so the Swedes were not as exposed to Norwegian content (also, some might argue, the Swedes made better movies and music than Norway back then...). Research have shown that Norwegians have a better understanding of the other two languages and the TV/radio situation might be the cause. The younger generation is more exposed to English instead so I think our youths have less understanding of their neighboring languages.

[@northernswedenstories1028]

Not sure about that. I feel these days I watch more Norwegian and Danish tv shows that Swedish

[@dingus42]

As a Danish learner i was pleasantly surprised how much I could understand the Swedish and a bit of the Norwegian! ^_^

[@siuil2394]

Best trio of all times. Looking forward on seeing them often here

[@mortymann9610]

i can understand danish just fine, until they start counting, then i'm out

[@AlexKall]

I understand some Danish (not an impressive amount by any stretch of the imagination), but yeah as soon as they start talking numbers, I'm completely lost after the number 9 😳

[@poisonbomb1]

Frog? As a swede I've never heard of danish having frogs in their mouths, heard potatoes plenty of times just as the others said

[@xPandorasRevolutionx]

I've heard it plenty times.. though it's usually teens who say it or that it sounds like they are throwing up. Kinda sad, as a swede too I believe Danish has it's charms. :(

[@ozgurak1840]

I've started learning Swedish three years ago, and I understood the danish being spoken here a lot more than the half danish Swedish girl.

[@Bobcat9]

As an American viewing this, I find it exceptionally remarkable that all three of them speak English rather well. Not only are they able to comprehend a great deal of these neighboring languages, but they are able to express those differences and similarities.... in a third language, English.

[@Nicholas.T]

As an Australian, I found the same irony as you Bob ! Even though they may have had a very slight difficulty in understanding their neighbouring Scandinavian languages in some words/phrases… They were totally fluent in conversing with each other in (essentially) perfect English!! Which highlights 2 very important points- 1. How well the Scandinavian countries teach their populations English (at school). 2.That English is truly the “world” language.

[@Peter_Parker69]

Norwegian here. It's true, most of us younger Scandinavians speak English pretty well, but it's not particularly because of school but rather entertainment and interests. We don't dub English/American entertainment like many other European countries, but uses subtitles instead, and Scandinavian languages are structurally very similar to English (Germanic).

[@Nicholas.T]

@@Peter_Parker69 Seriously Peter ? Don’t all Norwegian children start learning English at school from the early age of 6 or so ?? Is it not compulsory to do so ? The thinking being that, as Norwegian is a minor language in the world, your government realises that your population needs to be fluent in English (the de facto world, universal language) to survive in the modern world ? I’ve just checked on Wikipedia, and indeed Norwegian school children do start learning English, in a compulsory manner, from Grade 1 (6 year olds) in the “barneskole”. If a child learns any language from 6 years old, they invariably will be fluent in that language (albeit with a minor accent). Peter, do you seriously disagree with that ??

[@Peter_Parker69]

@@Nicholas.T No you are correct. It's an important subject at schools. I should've been more clear: On many, me included, our heavily Americanized entertainment had a way bigger impact and taught us much more efficient and organically than school ever could. When teachers tried to make me memorize how to bend verbs for example, I could't understand what they were talking about. But when Homer Simpson made me laugh after school, his punchlines stuck with me forever.