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

Can The Nordic Countries Understand Each Other?
Lets see!
🇳🇴 @saragrewes
🇸🇪 @sofia_ljungstrom
🇩🇰 @azemiiin
🇫🇮 @finunni

[@vinterglitter]

Hello! It’s Sofia 🌼 thank you for watching~ it was so lovely filing with my lovely Nordic sisters ♡ please be kind in the comments ❤️

[@brunokubin]

Sofia, your accent is beautiful! Hope to see more of you here in World Friends 😊

[@vinterglitter]

@@brunokubin thank you! ☺️

[@thereseeklund1332]

Hejsan! Får jag fråga vilken stad du kommer från? Jag är uppväxt i Uppsala och jag tycker att ditt sätt att prata och tonen liknar min egen så mycket, inga överdrivna " i" :n eller " y " :n eller "ä " :n, bara väldigt tydligt men samtidigt avslappnat!

[@Ice_V]

Hi! You are welcome! Your language was the easiest to distinguish for me☺❤🇸🇪 Thanks your country for such wonderful bands like Ace of Base (my childhood) and Abba⭐❤🎶

[@vinterglitter]

@@thereseeklund1332 Hejsan! ^^ jag kommer från en liten stad i Gästrikland, men har vuxit up med farföräldrar från Stockholmstrakten samt med "kusiner" från Uppsala, så helt fel har du ändå inte. :) tyvärr har jag aldrig riktigt haft dialekt från min hemstad eller från min mammas sida, har liksom alltid pratat så här haha ska i så fall vara mina "sch" ljud på ex. någonstans! haha :)

[@Illjwamh]

Finnish is a completely different language from the other three. Might as well ask a Canadian, a Belgian, and a French person if they understand Hungarian.

[@italixgaming915]

It's actually funny that you mentionned Hungarian because that language is quite close to Finnish. These are Uralic languages, like Estonian. This family is completely different not only from Germanic languages but also from Indo-European languages.

[@romanv.8395]

Yeah, a really silly idea of the producers to include Finnish and not Icelandic, for example. Like we already know the result without even watching it. The Finnish girl is very sweet and lovely, though!

[@Illjwamh]

@@italixgaming915 If by "funny", you mean "deliberate", then yes 😀

[@someguyfromfinland4239]

​@@italixgaming915 hungarian is not close to finnish, at all. Technically they're related but it's almost impossible to notice.

[@kilipaki87oritahiti]

Many Finnish people know and speak Swedish, and they are also good at English so no issue there. I’m Norwegian and I have Finnish friends.

[@xenoren660]

Guys, no one said that Finnish would be similar to Scandinavian languages....I think the point of the video was just to compare the languages of the Nordic countries because despite the language differences Finland is also a Nordic country! And I think it was actually pretty cool because Finland is often excluded and many people probably didn't know what Finnish sounds like or how different it is from these other languages. Next time we need Icelandic and Faeroese included as well :)

[@kilipaki87oritahiti]

No point in including Icelandic and Farose as no one would understand, tho they would understand us as they learn Danish in school. Farose is the closest to Norwegian and Danish, as it’s a mixture of Norwegian, Danish, and Celtic. They are too distant and closer to Old Norse, and the rest of the Scandinavian languages that where once dialects evoke into separate languages influenced by each other as well as Dutch and German. At least this rings mostly true for the Danes, which is why most of us struggle with them. People also forget that the Finns do speak and understand Swedish, at leas the older generation. Funnier id they did a Baltic Finno Ugric video with Suomi, Estonian, Karelian, and the indigenous Saami as they where once one people prior to migrating from Siberia Asia during the last Ice Age: Proto Finns.

[@julianbrisner4560]

But what is the point of putting Finland in a group with the rest of us? We have literally nothing in common with Finland or Finnish people. They are more similar to Russia than any of us.

[@xenoren660]

@@julianbrisner4560 The point was to compare the languages of all Nordic countries?? (even though Iceland was still missing) I thought it was pretty interesting because even though the language is different they are all neighbours and have similar cultures and know a lot about each other, also it was interesting how much the Finn understood Swedish because of her education. It's really not that serious :) And no, Finns don't really have anything in common with Russia. Finland is a Nordic country, not Slavic.

[@julianbrisner4560]

@@xenoren660 but... why? If you are going to include Finland you may as well do all of Europe. Would you compare Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese? Don't you see that the combo makes no sense... Finlands culture is no where near Scandinavias culture. They are more like Russia than anything. And most Scandinavians (except for Swedes that lives close to the Finnish border) knows more or less nothing about Finland. At least not the way we know about eachother in Scandinavia. Another example of how idiotic it is to include Finland is saying you want to compare English - British E. - American E. - Australian E. .... Aaaaaand Italian English... IT MAKES NO SENSE 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@julianbrisner4560]

@@xenoren660 you can tell me all you want that they have nothing in common with Russia but they do. At least more than Scandinavian countries 🤣 they have just as idiotic laws as well. If you ask people in general in Scandinavia if they feel anything for Finland the answer would be no. If you ask them if they feel anything for their Scandinavian brothers/Sisters the answer in general would be yes. See its nothing wrong with Finland or Finnish people. I'm sure most of them are Nice people, but to put them in the same group as Scandinavian countries is foolish and makes no sense. But since you are so educated, what similarities do you mean Finland has to Scandinavia?

[@finunni]

Hi this is Lotta! Thank you everyone for watching and commenting ❤ This video was so much fun to film, realized I should have studied Swedish more when I had the chance 😅

[@kaderbueno6823]

Kiitos from France 😊

[@kaderbueno6823]

And also suomi tavata torille 😃 I used to see this on Facebook before when an article was referring to Finnish since then I identify myself as one of you whenever I see a Finnish post lol

[@sulosky]

Hei Lotta! Thank you for being part of this. You made us Finns look so nice :)

[@landsgevaer]

I am a fan of everything nordic, but Finns are such a cool people.

[@kossamuu5000]

I wish they would’ve taken someone who knew a little finnish like a swedish person

[@user-hq9xx5rx4z]

Swedish, Norwegian, Danish are Germanic languages from Indo-European language family. Finnish is from Uralic language family. They are completely different. I do love finnish pronunciation. It's so beautiful.

[@murmelityyppi7207]

We pretty much dont even have a pronouncation here. We say words like they are written

[@Hrng270]

@@murmelityyppi7207 Yes that's the big difference between finnish and estonian to other germanic nordic langs like danish, swedish, gernan etc🍷🍷🍷🤙🤙🤙

[@akumayoxiruma]

@@murmelityyppi7207: True, though one can pick out some dialects by how people pronounce a and ä, how they pronounce the letter s (especially in foreign loan words) and how they stress: Most Finns stress the first syllable only but some also stress the third or a later syllable (if a word has four or more; e.g.: SEItsemänkymmentä vs SEItsemänKYMmentä; PItäisitkö vs PItäiSITkö) and as Lotta said, some rise the tone in questions at the end which is an Indoeuropean feature.

[@Rasytojas1980]

Finnish has many Swedish words History?

[@emmamemma4162]

@@Rasytojas1980 Yes, some of the oldest loan words in Finnish go way back to the Proto-Germanic languages, and then there have been new words added from Swedish and other Germanic languages up until recent times. There are thousands of loan words like that, but they are usually adapted to suit the rules of the Finnish language, so sometimes they are hard to spot.

[@annalaehdesmaeki6533]

I was born (and raised) on the west coast of Finland, so my native languages are both Finnish and Swedish. Now, living in Germany for multiple years, I had no troubles understanding each one of the nordic people speaking. I enjoyed this episode a lot. Thanks, tack, tak & kiitos!

[@--julian_]

which one is harder?

[@annalaehdesmaeki6533]

​@@--julian_ Danish is the hardest for me to understand - because of the special pronunciation of the words/different pronunciation of the consonants. they sound kind of "thick". Swedish and Finnish are easy, as both are my mother languages. Norwegian is very similar to Swedish, almost a dialect from southern Sweden combined with some special words from English - Anglo-Saxon... kinda

[@--julian_]

@@annalaehdesmaeki6533 ooh interesting! what about Icelandic? maybe harder than Norwegian?

[@Mewwom]

I wasn't born in Finland but I have lived in Finland for 8 years sometimes I forget some word or two but I still love the place 😊

[@Hrng270]

🤗🤗🤗🤍🤝🍷🤙

[@Gameviewsblog]

That was the softest and easiest Danish dialect to understand i've ever heard, and i'm Norwegian. understood everything perfectly. Norwegian is Danish words pronounced as if spoken by swedish people, so generally we understand the other two easiest and they each understand us better than each other

[@sgtgiggles]

I heard somewhere that danish now is completely different from danish 60 years ago.

[@Jonassoe]

@@sgtgiggles Movies and shows from the 60's are still easily understandable to modern audiences, but two things have happened: 1, the middle/upper class "High Copenhagen" accent has gone extinct (not because its speakers have all died out, they have simply stopped speaking it for socio-linguistic reasons), and 2, the fake "stage accent" featured in old films isn't used anymore, since modern directors and actors prefer more naturalistic acting. It's similar to how American movies used to use the Transatlantic accent. These two factors combined made Danish in movies and TV sound very different from today, but I don't think the language spoken by regular people would have sounded that much different.

[@nasenmann2011]

It's so embarrassing for me as a German not being able to understand more than just a few words. Just a tiny little bit of Swedish but that's it. Finnish sounds absolutely stunning by the way, really enjoyed hearing it. 😊

[@Demons972]

well as someone learning Swedish i visited my family in Germany recently and i was surprised how much German i could understand because of my Swedish studies, you can also understand a little bit of Norwegian but Danish and Finnish you won't understand a single thing unless you study the language, Danish sounds like a dude with a hot potato on its mouth and Finnish is just a sound.

[@thewildbruce5612]

@@Demons972 I'm a Swedish speaking Finn, so I could understand all four languages. Although Danish was the hardest one to understand. 🙂

[@Demons972]

@@thewildbruce5612 yeah i once had a small convo in Swedish with some Danish dude and he could pretty much understand 60% of what i was saying but i had no idea what the hell he was trying to say so i asked him to speak in English lol

[@thewildbruce5612]

@@Demons972 Lol. If I had talked to him with my dialect, I don't think he would have understood what I was saying, as it sounds like a combination of Swedish, English, a little bit German and maybe some parts Finnish, lol! 😂

[@Demons972]

@@thewildbruce5612 Bro even i have a bit of a hard time understanding Swedish dialects sometimes because i live in Central Ostrobothnia but i speak standard Swedish from Sweden lmao

[@JomerTB]

My two favorite parts in the video were the facial expressions of the lovely Danish lady trying to understand what the lovely Finnish lady was saying, and comparing side-by-side the phrases of each language. They are all similar except when it gets to Finnish, it's something completely different which made me chuckle. I understand Finnish comes from a different family of languages so that makes sense that it is so different.

[@broadbandislife]

Fenno-Ugric (or Uralic, take your pick) vs Indo-European so yeah. Though as a curio detail historical linguists theorise the two families may have originally emerged, way the fuck back when in Stone Age, more or less contemporaneously and in the same region (about the Volga to southern Urals zone) as there are traces in both of an extremely ancient layer of shared vocabulary referring to species of trees etc. that paleobiology tells us were prevalent in the area in the approximate timeframe in question.

[@VNExperience]

This was such a cool video! As a Finn, I was surprised I could understand 80% of what our Nordic friends said. It helped to have learned Swedish and Norwegian a long time ago so that may explain it. More of these, please!

[@jannepeltonen2036]

It was nice to see a Finn in here :D At some point there were so many people around here interested in Korean culture that I wondered why I hadn't seen this country represented on this show before :D

[@ItsTeaganXhorses]

This is the best video so far!! I love the Nordic languages, especially Finnish. I loved it! I understood the Swedish, and I’m working on Finnish.

[@oh2mp]

I am a native Finnish speaker. I understood almost everything in Swedish, and this time I was surprised that I understood almost everything in Norwegian too. But Danish... no way.

[@tessjuel]

You get used to Danish. It's simply how you speak Norwegian after twelve beers. ;-)

[@sk70091]

Me too. I was very proud of myself when I understood some Swedish bits that the Norwegian and Danish girls didn't get haha

[@Hrng270]

Try to learn bokmal and old norse its gonna help you to understand many nordic germanic idioms in deepest true. @oh2mp

[@oh2mp]

@@Hrng270 I actually understand written bokmål quite well, but speech is harder.

[@Hrng270]

@@oh2mp 👍👍👍If you are learning bokmal today, use modern danish and modern norwegian, to conquer bokmal, be patient with you, First the write, when you Domain ALL write, training ALL speech, you gonna get It.👍👍👍

[@LittleThings98]

This was soooo interesting ! Thank you so much for this

[@pinkbabycrocs5577]

As for Lotta (Finnish), i understood nothing but her saying her name and the number eight in the first part, but then completely understood the sentences about her dog. I'm Estonian, so minulla=minul, koira=koer, kaksi=kaks jne. Lumi means snow btw, very cute :) As for the other languages, it's interesting that 'moor' is also a word in Estonian, but it's mostly used in literature to describe an old lady, not a mother. I understood like half of the Swedish stuff but very little Norwegian and Danish.

[@rasseranch9393]

Tere. 😃 it's koira btw

[@anttisaarilampi]

Tere Soomest, ma armastan Eestid (sorry, it's probably wrong) We also have "muori" in Finnish for an old lady 🇫🇮❤️🇪🇪

[@squidcaps4308]

Estonians understand Finnish better than the other way around. There are some differences in pronunciation but i think the most important thing is that Estonians watch Finnish TV and media, and unfortunately.. we don't do the same in reverse. It was already happening in the Soviet era which is also why Estonians were more informed what was really going on with the world than the rest of USSR.

[@mikahamari6420]

Tere, sa saad hästi aru. 👍 My native language is Finnish and after learning I can now understand Estonian pretty well. Especially about familiar subjects I could read Estonian texts from early on, after learning some basic words that differ between Estonian and Finnish. Similarities are so huge that even small amount of learning helps that much. But all nuances and getting grasp of different speech rhythm between languages, it has taken more time and will still take. I learn every day something new. Here Lotta is speaking with slight accent, but I don't believe it will make understanding for Estonian speaker any harder. One big difference between Finnish speech and writing is using shorter forms like *oon* instead of *olen* 'I am', which is written exactly the same as in Estonian. Old basic words like numbers, body parts and words for animals like *koer* - *koira* 'dog' are common, shared vocabulary. And as you said, *lumi* 'snow', it is exactly the same in both languages and tells about our very close relationship here up North.

[@ralepej]

Yes, and spoken Finnish is more similar than witten Finnish to Estonian. Like numbers yks, kaks, kolm, neljä, viis, kuus, seitsemän, kaheksa, yheksä.... (in Estonian they are üks, kaks, kolm, neli, viis, kuus, seitse, kaheksa, üheksä. Actually in Finnish there is also more shorter versions of numbers "yy,kaa,koo,nee,vii,kuu,see,kasi,ysi... Its was little funny when i was on doctor on Estonia and he asked in Finnish something like how well-being I feel myself on degree one to ten and I said "kasi tai ysi" he firt undestood that I said one or two :D It would be sometimes to see video were is example Finnish, Estonian, Karelian, Kvens and Seto speaking person to just show to world also other Finnic languages.

[@Nezabudka3]

Interesting how all these Nordic people are so mellow / chill / relaxed 😄 Demonstrates the character of the region :)

[@Noah_ol11]

The lady of Sweden is so good , bring her more often and also the lady from Finland

[@thereseeklund1332]

I'm swedish and I once met a danish man who stayed at the hotel I work at and let me tell you when he tried to speak with me in danish I couldnt understand a SINGLE word! He understood pretty much everything I said, but I literally couldnt understand ONE word lol, so I asked him to speak in english instead haha I was so embarrassed

[@lxportugal9343]

What's your country?

[@WarriorsCats777]

Her last name is Swedish so I’m guessing Sweden lol

[@thereseeklund1332]

@@lxportugal9343 sweden

[@lxportugal9343]

@@thereseeklund1332 Thanks

[@gorgioarmanioso151]

Var han gammal? Jag bor i Jylland nu och pluggar där, i början förstod jag inget ahhaha, men nu förstår jag 80% av vad de säger och gamla människor förstår mig ..men unga .........

[@apetass123]

If you want to do something similar in the future, I'd suggest you choose a person from the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland. They speak Swedish (finlandssvenska), but they have their own dialect with some differences in vocabulary and grammar. I think that would make more sense in this context.

[@user-pn5hc2lk7z]

I really like this group of people! Quite amazing how intelligent they're when it comes to analysis languages and accents ❤

[@o_d1559]

Finnish sounds lovely to me :) Well, all nordic languages do anyways.. but Finnish is my favourite

[@herrbonk3635]

Finnish is not germanic though (or even indo-european). So it has virtually nothing to do with the other Scandinavian languages, with the exception of culture and lots of loanwords from Old Swedish and Low German. These words are somewhat hard for an outsider to recognise though, because of the agglutinative syntax of the Finnish grammar.

[@o_d1559]

@@herrbonk3635 yes, I know, and I understand very little, only from what I learned when I was working there for a while. But it sounds awesome to me :D The Germanic languages are easier to understand for me as I am from one myself :)

[@thegaytay4327]

​@@herrbonk3635 Funny how you think you have to explain this to them but don't even know Finland isn't part of Scandinavia

[@herrbonk3635]

@@thegaytay4327 Whoosh...

[@thegaytay4327]

@@herrbonk3635 Literally what are you trying to say? You said "the other Scandinavian languages" as if Finland is part of Scandinavia

[@MikkoRantalainen]

Finns use frequency of sound but it's used within a syllable and to mark end of the words. If you listen carefully, you can hear the pitch of the voice going slightly up at the start of each syllable and going down until the next syllable. And the last syllable of each word is overall pronounced with slightly higher pitch than the previous syllable. That allows pretty fast speech output because you can make out the syllables and words when you're familiar with the pitch changes. However, the changes in pitch are much smaller than e.g. the raising pitch at the end of question in RP English.

[@etierik]

Yeah, I found it intersting that she called her language monotone because it didn't sound monotone to me.

[@graceneumann3544]

I learned Swedish in university and have a pretty good grasp of it. I’m heading to Denmark in a couple weeks so started looking at Danish…reading common phrases I was like “oh looks familiar, I have a chance!” Then I heard those phrases pronounced and I said “I’m sorry…what!?” It’s crazy how they can look similar (to no native speakers at least) and sound so wildly different!

[@joeltarnabene5026]

You'll get the hang of it. For a native Swede, just staying in Denmark a couple of weeks helps a lot. You get used to it, basically. Maybe it will take a bit longer for you as a non native speaker but you'll figure it out, eventually.

[@Felixxxxxxxxx]

I'm Swedish and speak Norwegian and it took me about 2 years of working in an environment where I interacted a lot with Danes before I started to understand it well.

[@Darkurge666]

Yea Danish pronouncing words is indeed like if they're talking with a hot potato in their mouth. They just leave out all the konsonants and you're left with moaning... 😂

[@whatever9554]

I liked that they also included finnish - and altough the language is of course super different from other languages included, finnish does also have lots of words that were originally loan words from swedish, so with some luck it is actually kinda possible to figure out SOME of what is said, though very little, if one knows swedish, danish or norwegian.

[@ole7146]

I know the word "olut" and it is a very important word!

[@No444F]

@@ole7146 amen

[@ChuvaEscura]

itd be nice to bring in an estonian, hungarian and/or someone from the uralic language region in russia to see the similarities with finnish language

[@gerald4013]

Hungarian : no similarities. The Fennic and Ugric branches separated from each other millenia ago. They don't have much in common anymore except the fact they are agglutinative languages. Even the words that are etymologically related don't look alike most of the time because of the many phonetic changes...

[@MigthyDucksz24]

I would think saying finnish and hungarian is similar would be the same thing as calling swedish and romanian similar. They arent similar just beacuse they are in the same language family.

[@gabrielgabriel5177]

Finnish, karelian, vepsian, ingerian are somewhat close but estonian is little bit different and hungarian totally different

[@ellem8990]

@@gerald4013 but isn't that kind of part of it? Like showing the similiarities or lack there of, within languages that are related (in this video it's geographical tho)

[@Jigurdinec]

​@@gerald4013 just as the Slavic languages split. who is still on the Balts. Hungarians are linguistic relatives of the Khanty and Mansi, but the Hungarians have complexes because of this.

[@alexandriat5929]

Thank you for doing this video from Colorado USA. I like that Finland was included . Oh my goodness the languages have new sounds in words for my American ears, interusting.

[@harrychalfin5835]

The fact that they can all speak perfect English makes me want to learn another language.

[@molly702]

Which language do you want to learn?

[@Hrng270]

Harry i understant you, really in nowadays that's for hodiern linguists english is a neolatin lang too.😉🍷🤝🤙

[@myathegrandma]

Me too! I started learning Dutch since I heard its quite easy for English speakers to understand

[@bakeraus]

It's wonderful they can all communicate in English because knowing 3-4 languages just to have a conversation would be horrible. I'm learning Finnish now which is challenging but if you went with Swedish, Norwiegen or Dutch they are Germanic language group you will find it much easier.

[@Hrng270]

Its beatiful and incredible, nordics people love speak neolatine idioms including english, asians idioms, esperanto idioms and conlangs idioms. We neolatines its inverse, we love speaks conlangs idioms nordics idioms, oceanides and asians idioms. This cultural trade is deep is magical, that in the ancient past man had already one world idiom on the world,weall are connected by code langs.💛💛💛💛🌻🌻🌻🤙🤙🥂🥂🥂🤗🤗🤗⭐⭐⭐⭐🤝🤝🤝

[@lana2harry]

Love this series! We need an Arabic dialects version too! ^_^

[@tristan7253]

Nordic people, you’re all incredible I love you ! ❤ I’m learning Finnish and it is still hard for me to understand the language perfectly… In that video it was the first time that I understood everything from a Finnish native speaker I’m so happy ! Kiitos paljon Lottalle ❤🇫🇮

[@statueofgod_]

Onnea opintoihin :)

[@erikleite839]

Nice video! 🤩 A little clarification: Swedish ‘rita’ (draw) is not ‘skrive’ in Norwegian, it’s actually ‘tegne’ (also teikne, tekne). ‘Skrive’ means ‘write’, so I understand the confusion with the similarly clinging ‘rita’ and ‘write’. As for ‘tegne’ (draw), I believe it has its roots in German ’zeichnen’. Greetings from a Norwegian currently in Germany! 😊

[@yogajedi3337]

Teckna-Rita finns också på Svenska.

[@justsomejusstsome8994]

Yeah thats what I thought too. Im Dutch but our languages are still similar. Tegne in Dutch is "Tekenen" and "Skrive" is "Schrijven". You see just how similar it is?

[@yogajedi3337]

@@justsomejusstsome8994 Yes, I was surprised I could understand so much written Dutch language published in Dutch newspaper.

[@justsomejusstsome8994]

@@yogajedi3337 Thats awesome. Our languages are related eitherway, and many people here are of scandinavian blood. I am too. In a way our countries/languages are long lost siblings haha

[@KHAEISTIREDxx14]

i relate to the Danish girl lmao "I think so, I just have a problem memorizing everything."

[@phbuss]

The background music is too loud, it's hard to hear them speak sometimes.

[@Pedro-cv9rk]

A cool suggestion for an upcoming video. Two Portuguese speakers, one from Portugal and one from Brazil and see if they can understand each other.

[@vommir.]

True, been living in Portugal for a year and what I see is that most can understand each other well.. Unless a Brazilian just landed in Portugal, it might take some time to accommodate with the accent and expressions. To make it really hard just bring someone from the Açores haha!

[@leopartanen8752]

Maybe include one from Angola or Mozambique too

[@Pedro-cv9rk]

@@leopartanen8752 yes!! of course.

[@lxportugal9343]

Dude... it's the same language It would make more sense to put an portuguese, an spanish, an italian and a french

[@Pedro-cv9rk]

@@lxportugal9343 it’s not 100% the same language, dude. Brazilian Portuguese and Portuguese from PT have some differences in writing and speaking. I’m from Brazil and I have pt friends. It would be cool, for example, to explore the slang of each country, etc.

[@darklightillustrations]

That was very cool. I have to add: In Finland they have "spoken finnish" and "written finnish". My mother is from northern Finland where the old people still speak "written" (mostly), or at least they talk to me like that, and I can understand pretty much. But in Southern Finland amongst young people I'm completely lost. It's almost like a different language and it's so fast! :D Funny, I had a white cat that I also called "Lumi".

[@VilleHalonen]

Interesting video! A small suggestion for the future, if I may: the soundtrack is a bit too loud compared to their voices. It'd be nice to be able to focus on their voices more. Thanks!

[@TheLillaRev]

As someone who is learning Norwegian because i'm moving to Norway, i am impressed with how i understood some Swedish and a little Danish! Learning one language really does open up doors for other languages!

[@haraldmarkscheffel8513]

Thats the same to me with Danish and - a little - Norwegian. I learn Swedish since "twå år" and my wife and I we are in Sverige about 2-5 weeks a year. So we can understand and speak a little bit. But I am astonished that I can understand a little bit Danish and a little less but a little Norwegian.

[@sdestiny414]

The girl from Denmark has such a pretty face, so so beautiful and natural 😍

[@CamvanAken]

How absolutely fabulous. As a native Afrikaans speaker, I was delighted to find myself understanding quite a bit of everything barring Finnish but the Finnish word Kaksi (also name of a much loved album of Hedningarna)

[@JUMALATION1]

As a Swedish speaking Finn I think I understood more than the average person, but some words are still a bit difficult in Danish to be fair. Norwegian is however surprisingly easy to understand, especially when spoken slowly. I have lived in Sweden twice so I'm used to Sweden-Swedish though.

[@hollish196]

Can I say congrats to Finland on their new membership? So glad for you; guess you can tell where I am on this matter! Really liked this video. I love hearing the distinctions between languages. And yes, speed is a huge matter for understanding! Studying Polish and French at the same time, and speed is crucial to comprehension!

[@SusannaItalianteacher]

It's so fascinating hearing all these different sounds... Gosh, if it's difficult to understand each other! 😂 I got nothing from their speeches!

[@qzer1rules2]

Makes more sense to invite a Icelandic speaker and exclude the Finnish one.

[@tbh..35]

I love how softly they all speak 😭😍

[@reineh3477]

As a Swede I thought this Danish woman was quite easy to understand, I even understood a few Finnish words. Norwegian was as always easy.

[@mari97216]

If it was a different Norwegian dialect it might be more difficult. The «oslo» dialect is the easiest for foreigners mostly

[@reineh3477]

@@mari97216 it is. But I also understand Bergen dialect if the speak slower. Ålesund is harder, I really need to focus.

[@vikinnorway6725]

@@reineh3477 i live in the ålesund area and even People from oslo can have a hard time somethimes, i really dont get it but, people from oslo has problem understanding many dialekts in Norway, kinda funny tho😂

[@Heimdall01]

@@vikinnorway6725 : Tenkte på det samme. Jeg er trønder bosatt i Østerrike. De som lager programmet burde finne en sogning, eller en annen vestlandsdialekt, til neste gang. Oslodialekt/Finmark er jo det som ligner dansk mest, så jeg ser nesten ikke poenget med å sammenligne det med dansk.

[@rural478]

@@mari97216 Would have been the same with swedish too tho right? they have crazy dialects just as norway

[@essisaloheimo3700]

As a finnish person I'm so proud of myself that I understood most of the swedish! 🤩🤩

[@yentl]

The video I’ve been waiting for!

[@wesdonze2014]

This was interesting and enjoyable- coming from England I have been to all 4 countries - I was able to pick up some of the Norwegian and Swedish - I have friends in Norway who I have visited and stayed with. The Danish was more difficult - I know the accent but not the words. For me Finnish is totally different - but when I was on a train in Finland the announcements were in Finnish and Swedish ( sometimes English too) and I was able to understand the train announcements in Swedish as well as a few other languages

[@evaaaa14]

Am I the only one or why Sofia looks like younger version of Sabrina Grdevich from Ginny & Georgia? And awsome that you got a finnish person to this video! Greetings from Finland 🇫🇮

[@reineh3477]

I think Finns can compare traditions with Scandinavians but in a "how much do they understand?" video, it would be more interesting to have Finland, Estonia and Hungary in the same group. Greetings from Sweden

[@Bookish_emy]

It's the first time I'm actually hearing Finnish and it's a beautiful language! I'm used to read weird sentences full of aa and oo so it's nice to hear them lol

[@Khomuna]

That Danish girl's expressions were amazing, she's so cool!

[@IndigoRoses7]

I just love listening to Swedish and Norwegian languages being spoken (part of my heritage) but now listening to native Finnish and Danish...they truly are all unique and beautiful in their own ways. Beautiful ladies also!

[@NickJoyhill]

That's interesting. As a Dutch person, I understood everything she said in Swedish! I knew our languages were similar but I didn't expect to understand everything without having learnt a thing.

[@broadbandislife]

Doesn't hurt that Swedish was substantially influenced by Dutch and Low German in the Middle Ages and Early Modern periods due to merchants from those parts dominating Baltic trade those days (think Hanseatic League etc.).

[@bjornnylander8754]

Lol...after ive had a few beers i can understand dutch , maybe not every word, but i understand what ppl talk about :) Swedish and Dutch seems more close then Swedish and Danish.

[@yentl]

Lots of words are similar in Dutch and Swedish like “tandenborstel” and “tandborste”

[@adak]

Oh wow! I love languages and like to listen to music from various countries, and I've seen that Swedish artists have Norwegian listeners, etc. So this crossed my mind "Do Norwegian, Swedish and Danish people understand each other?" I read a bunch of discussions, found out how it is, but it wasn't really clear to me. That was two years ago. And now I'm here watching this video that appeared in my recommendeds :D This is what I looked for back then, but it didn't exist. It made me excited that this video made its way to me after two years since I searched for this topic. I love this. 😂

[@broadbandislife]

My mother speaks fluent Swedish and travels a lot around Scandinavia; she tells me she has very little trouble getting by even in like the Faroes as the three are close and mutually intelligible enough a kind of pidgin "Skandinaviska" arises naturally in conversation. ...though Danish is the one that causes the most difficulties. Then again the supposed unintelligibility of spoken Danish even to the Danes themselves is bit of a running joke in the rest of the Nordics ("Danish isn't a language but rather a throat infection" to quick-and-dirty translate one Finnish snark) so yeah.

[@rural478]

Haha i am a norwegian, we love swedish rap and swedish and norwegian singers often collab. Was at a concert recently, even tho the song had 2 different languages everyone knew it and sang, very fun

[@stefanallirol-molin8323]

Fun fact: Tolkien based the language of the elves in his books on Finnish. Especially the pronunciation part.

[@Felixxxxxxxxx]

True the language was based largely on Finnish and Welsh.

[@juhanisirkia3618]

Languages, there are two of them. (If not more.)

[@englandcalling22]

Finnish is an amazingly beautiful language.

[@HertWasHere]

Do Finnish vs Estonian 🇫🇮🇪🇪

[@kas4751]

Team Finland here!! Because I work for a Finnish company :) I visited Finland for work and I think most would agree that when you hear Finnish language in conversations for the first time, you would not associate the sound of it being "beautiful" or "flowing". However, that changed when I heard somebody sang this one song (open mic karaoke) on a ferry and realized that it can be a beautiful sounding language. The song in question is Säännöt rakkaudelle by Anna Puu. Yes, I actually walked up to the person and asked her for the name of the song and congratulated her for her beautiful singing :D

[@artofstormdancing3319]

Finnish have very little variation, many foreigner says that Finnish sound monotonic. Singing suits Finnish well because we use lots of vocals so it flows very nicely.

[@gabrielgabriel5177]

I think finnish is quite weird for most people and either people love it or think it is ugly

[@blubbson]

I've found that if the person speaking the language is attractive enough, any language will sound beautiful. Just saying. (I do like Finnish, though)

[@fififornow8031]

This is fascinating

[@annarasmus8737]

Yes, we can , especially if you're as me- a finnswede. A swedish speaking finn, born and raised. I understand all these languages and can make myself understood in them too.

[@lissandrafreljord7913]

Comparing Finnish to the other three Scandinavian languages is like comparing Greek to the Romance languages. While culturally in the same bubble, linguistically, they are very different. You are better off having an Estonian trying to understand Finnish. And of course, French and Danish are the odd man out of their language group.

[@thebenis3157]

Linguistically it's like comparing English and Arabic or something, Finnish has genuinely nothing to do with the Scandinavian landscape

[@Divig]

But it is rather nice that it is included. People outside of the Nordics commonly think that all of us can understand eachother.

[@lissandrafreljord7913]

@@thebenis3157 Well true. At least Greek is IndoEuropean like the Romance and Germanic languages.

[@italixgaming915]

No, there are much more similarities between Greek and Romance languages, all of them are Indo-European languages. Finnish is an Uralic language, so it has absolutely nothing in common with Indo-European languages.

[@PaulVinonaama]

@@italixgaming915 Except a great number of loanwords.

[@ruivinha246]

Now I want to learn Finnish! It's sounds so cool and melodic.

[@gabrielgabriel5177]

Please learn it. We like if our language would come more known

[@ellem8990]

It's a tough one, but you can find it on duolingo now and that's at least a start, even if it won't be able to teach you everything

[@totoafrika5568]

Good luck with that:D:D

[@shindersingh8413]

​@@ellem8990 I was moving to Finland and trying to learn Finnish....but it's completely different from English... But I am enjoying.........

[@ellem8990]

@@shindersingh8413 yeah, finnish has no relation to most european language. Most european language are in the indo-european family, which is also plit into germanic, romance languages etc. Finnish isn't even indo-european, so that's why it's so different. Good luck, it's definitely not easy.

[@galdur666]

Yeah. I understood all of them, and to add to that I speak Icelandic, lived in Norway, Sweden and other foot in Denmark all the time, Finnish partner and short finnish course tought me relativily okay Finnish. Nice video.

[@sabinajoh]

As a northern Swede, I wish I knew Finnish because we’re so close to the border and there’s a lot of overlap between the populations. I would say many of us are more or less ’mixed’ with Finnish

[@budadi]

Yeah same, I work regulary in Finland, Tornio and Oulo so it would help to know something lol. One time I was in Harjavalta for a couple of days and worked with a 50+y who didnt speak english haha! :)

[@TheFrkSofa]

So interesting! And poor Lotta, Finnish being so completely different, haha. Very cool language though. People might already have pointed it out, but when Azemin says "mother" in Danish, she says "moder" not "mona", even though I can see it sounds like mona :)

[@azeminkyungmin5154]

Hi🇩🇰 That's absolutely correct, thank you🤣🤣🙌🏼

[@troyrowe7670]

Y'all should do a video of Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish. They are all from the same language family, but icelandic is quite different grammatically to any if it's other northern Germanic counterparts

[@sirbum1918]

That was a really kind Norwegian dialect and easy to understand.

[@draclauria2812]

I loved this, their languages are so beautiful. Should do Norwegian with Polish 🎉 I came on here to listen to the differences and wow, I now see how complex the languages are

[@Arseny150]

I am Russian and I study Finnish. I know simple words, like 'koira', but I understood very little what Lotta said. She speaks so fast.... Pidän suomesta!

[@patrik78145]

The Danish girl was very easy to understand. I live in Malmö about 10min by train from Denmark but I still normally struggle with Danish. But this girl gave me hope😊 Norwegian is as always easy, you just need to learn the most common word that we don't have in Swedish.

[@VilleHalonen]

I'm from Finland and the most unintelligible Swedish I've ever heard was from an old drunkard someone around Trelleborg at five in the morning. I used to assume that it was a combination of the local dialect and him being really, really drunk. Is southern Swedish much different from that spoken in Stockholm?

[@leifandersson8754]

@@VilleHalonenNot unless someone speaks with a local accent. Even though Scania has been part of Denmark longer time than Sweden the Swedish language got forced upon our ancestors after the annexation. But we understand Danish much better than other Swedes.

[@vikinnorway6725]

One sweedish word i allways find funny is icecream, you call it glass? We call it "iskrem" And we call glass for glas like a glas of water

[@leifandersson8754]

@@vikinnorway6725 Yes, it is strange with glass for ice cream instead of is.

[@patrik78145]

@@vikinnorway6725 Haha Ja då kan det bli galet 😂 Vi skriver GLASS för icecream och GLAS för glas(Windows)

[@bw6138]

This was cool! I love learning languages.

[@EdgarXPlay]

Cool channel, i enjoy watching it :)

[@areloTET]

How about comparing Standard Swedish to Finland-Swedish next?

[@veryc7437]

My only exposure to Finnish is through Ievan Polkka by Loituma (which I love and could listen to for hours, LOL), then Lotta steps up and doesn't disappoint. Finnish has such a unique sound quality. After some thought and re-listening, it reminds me weirdly of Japanese? I didn't expect that. It is something with the consonant-vowel groupings or balance within syllables, I think. Maybe a native speaker or linguist can help me out here?

[@Montis6]

What you're hearing/recognizing might be what's called vowel harmony, which you can read more about online rather easily. Though you could be also noticing that in Finnish, stress is always placed on the first syllable in each word, with a decreasing stress/pitch after for the rest of the word, causing a speaker's pitch to rise and fall repeatedly with each word. Perhaps there's a better way to explain it, but my English vocabulary when it comes to discussing phonology isn't that great, unfortunately. Japan has a more complicated system regarding the pitch-accent of words when speaking, but it can sometimes sound similar to how a Finn might speak.

[@sirius1770]

Finnish and japanese do have some similarities so you're not completely wrong, actually learning to pronounce and speak japanese was incredibly easy as a finn (let's not talk about the vocabulary itself and especially not the writing system, those are not easy)

[@theleg]

Should do one more where you try to understand someone from the Nordic Country you missed - Iceland. Good luck :)

[@OjStudios]

This made me think back to a video, like a small documentary of Finland where they spoke English with such a passion that when somebody spoke Finnish, I didn't understand it at first even though I'm a Finn. Part of the brain for understanding language is just so weird, even though it's the biggest one.

[@Maria7Maria]

I'm a Brit with English as my native language, but I studied German to university level and got a citizenship certificate level of German. I then lived in Finland for a while, and for the first few months I got around by reading the Swedish signs and listening to Swedish radio etc, because as a Germanic language it was easier to understand whilst being an English-and-German speaker. So I then ended up speaking very bad Swedish before I felt confident enough to try speaking Finnish 😂

[@michellekonynenberg-harris9093]

As a Dutchie, I can somewhat understand (guess) the Norwegian, Swedish and Danish. Finnish sounds a bit like the elves languages in movies, to me. Wonderful but uncomprehendable🙈

[@biosaari]

I'd love if you can add the other Nordic to this mix!

[@Merseyrock]

That was interesting, Sofia. Is Iceland a Nordic country as well? If it were, it would have been interesting to see a person from that country compare their language to the other four: I understand it is not so close to Swedish, but maybe more connected with Norwegian or Danish!? Certainly no common ground with Finnish. Anyways. That was a nice attempt to explore each other's language differences.

[@newjoyyork]

I’m learning Norwegian (4th language, Japanese is my first.) It’s awesome that Denmark, Sweden and Norway can understand each other pretty well. The pronunciation of their vowels gets me still, but I feel more confident knowing I could speak and get by in all 3 countries if I had to. Being half Polish, I’d ought to learn that next, but for some reason, Norwegian is calling to me?!?!?!

[@kiiakiia95]

well done Lotta!

[@SebHaarfagre]

I love Finnish, I really do, but one must understand it's hard to start from scratch :D There's virtually no connections to be made without knowing beforehand, guesswork becomes very hard. Edit: Also, practically, I think it could make sense to add in a Finnish-Swedish speaker along with the Nordics, and Estonian for flavour too :D (I know Finnish-Swedish well, and even within that dialect/semi-language there's dialects which can be quite noticeable, I'd love to see both a Swede and a Finn react and vice versa)

[@hunter10000]

I'm so happy that they included finnish aswell!

[@NorwegianNationalist1]

It makes no sense, has nothing to do with our Scandinavian languages

[@hunter10000]

@@NorwegianNationalist1 what's the point of having 3 almost same languages, finland is nordic and so is denmark, norway and sweden

[@NorwegianNationalist1]

@@hunter10000 It's only "nordic" bc of political reasons, they are more baltic if anything... they dont share our ethnicity, language, culture etc

[@emil3458]

@@NorwegianNationalist1 Well we are geographically apart of fennoscandia, we were also apart of sweden for quite some time and im not sure if you know that there is a sea that separates us from the baltics. I really don't see how we wouldn't be nordic, i mean we are nordic, we are situated at the northern part of europe.

[@NorwegianNationalist1]

@@emil3458 «Fennoscandia» is a geographical term only used by the nerdiest of nerds, 9/10 of Scandinavians have not even heard abt this. Being «situated» in the Northern Part of Europe makes you nordic? Thats it? Guess Russia is Nordic too then huh

[@audunaa1494]

I understand as a Norwegian , Danish and Swedish very well, by training your ears and the melody of how they speak. training and if you want to learn/know it`s easier! And maybe my local older way of speaking its more relaed to Swedish and Danish. Finland(and Estonia) has a very different and kind of internal language that is differrent from all others, exept maybe Sami related? a totally different type of language

[@ellem8990]

Yes, estonian and finnish are also related to the sami language, but also hungarian and some smaller languages like urdmut (spoken in russia). They're all part of the uralic languages, not sure eif they fit under the more specific "finno-ugric" family tho (I'm pretty sure they do)

[@bjrnarestlen1234]

Thanks for theese videos, I plan to use them on my immigrant students, so they can compare the scandinavian languages. I think that how much danish/swedish/norwegian a scandinav understands will vary greatly, depending on exposure. In general, grammar and vocabulary is so similar that you could argue that N/D/S are variations on the same language. As a Norwegian, there are Norwegian dialects that are just as hard for me to get as Swedish and Danish. Icelandic is something we are not so exposed to in Norway, so even though it is very close to Norwegian, I unfortunately have a much tougher time understanding Icelandic than Swedish/Danish :( Finnish (like Sami) are simply completely unintelligable for me. My Arabic and Ukrainian students are fascinated that I understand Arabic and Ukrainian better than I understand Sami/Finnish.

[@phoebebaker1575]

So interesting!

[@lovisalindstrom7920]

I like that Finnish was included since my country and Finland share so much history. There are people in both countries that speak in the other countrys language. However Finnish is much closer to estonian and hungarian, than nordic languages.

[@broadbandislife]

Finland has always been counted among the Nordic countries ("Scandinavian" is the grouping it drops out of because geography) so no biggie there. But as far as linguistics go the Scand languages belong to the Indo-European family (the North Germanic branch if you want to be specific) while Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian are part of the entirely different Fenno-Ugric (or Uralic) family. Also whereas Finnish and Estonian are to a high degree mutually intelligible (what now both tend to sound slightly comical to the other) owing to physical proximity and extensive contact over the ages, Hungarian has been spatially separated so long (and been influenced by entirely different neighbours and overlords, not in the least the Turkic Oghurs from whom "Ugric" is derived) that it takes a trained linguist to discern the relationship.

[@Detector1977]

It's just like different dialects. As someone from the south of Sweden I got danish television and visisted Denmark when I was I kid so I got used to it. You just have to concentrate a bit more to get norwegian and danish. Islandic on the other hand is difficult and finnish is much more related to the baltic countries(Estonia). The only reason finnish people understand swedish is cause Finland was part of Sweden for a long time and many still learn it at school.

[@ellem8990]

Not just many, it's a mandatory school subject (I wish it weren't). Also finnish is only related to estonian out of the baltic countries, so I think it might be a bit misleading to say that finnish is more related to baltic languages (also because finnish is related to sami, hungarian and other smaller languages, of which some are spoken in russia)

[@sgtgiggles]

I’m a little confused as to why Finnish was included. It’s in a completely different language family. The other languages have more in common with Farsi, believe it or not

[@VeryClearLanguages]

Very good video!

[@jatojo]

I love the good old misconception that if people speak slower, it's easier to understand what they are saying. It isn't, if you're not into the vocabulary. Swedes and Danes too often think that the mutual understanding is a matter of pronunciation when in fact every fifth or sixth word is different and has to be learnt. Also, it helps to have a broad insight into the vocabulary of your own language - then you would for example know that "stad" is also called "stad" in Danish (although it's somewhat old-fashioned).

[@blubbson]

Knowing vocabulary definitely helps, but as a Swede, I can tell you with 100% certainty that I have a much easier time understanding spoken Danish if they're speaking slowly. Gaps in vocabulary are rarely that much of a problem as you can usually guess the meaning of unknown words through context, even if there's going to be the occasional awkward misunderstanding.

[@jatojo]

@@blubbson I can only tell you that a Swede doesn't understand you if you ask for "gulerødder" no matter how slow you pronounce it. I've tested it several times.

[@potatofuryy]

⁠@jatojo Yellow roots? Though if that’s correct Ionly got it because I saw it written lol. Edit: Ok I got it wrong haha

[@jatojo]

@@potatofuryy Yeah, it's exactly what it means literally - yellow roots. :) Of course, more accurately, it should be orange roots. ;) In Swedish they are called morötter.

[@rural478]

Well it is easier if its taken slow tho. Having to break down a whole sentence is harder than hearing each word slowly

[@bambit08]

I love the sound of Finnish 🇫🇮 Kiitos paljon.

[@shushuyu]

"yeah x 4" thank you so much for that brilliant translation.😏

[@Benovip]

I am from Denmark, so I understood Danish, and with a bit of concentration I could understand Swedish and Norwegian as well, and since I've been living in Finland for almost 4 months, I understood what was said in Finnish, when she was speaking slower. Next time it would be cool to invite someone from Iceland

[@danniballecter7936]

I'm learning Danish and Norwegian. I understood none of the Finnish (not surprisingly, as that is not a Germanic language at all). I understood some of the Norwegian. Surprisingly, I understood more of the Swedish than the Norwegian (I'm blaming Norwegian dialects for this issue, haha). And I understood pretty much everything of the Danish.

[@MRLDsxn]

authentic norwegian ... oo fp

[@jrobeck1986]

As someone who’s been learning Norwegian for over a year and a half, I was pleasantly (or perhaps not so pleasantly) surprised to hear that I understood more Swedish here than Norwegian. Guess I gotta do more listening practice then lol

[@IndianScammer131]

As an Icelandic ( another nordic country THAT WASNT INCLUDED) person i feel betrayed that we werent included 😭

[@jannepeltonen2036]

The joke says that the Finn and the Icelandic person will be in some corner grunting to each other in English ;D

[@eisblatttonks7156]

As a German, I was able to understand most of what Sofia (from Sweden) said, and also some Norwegian, but when it comes to Finnish, I'm completely lost :D All I can say in Finnish is yksi, kaksi, kolme, and "hyvää syntimäpäivää" :D

[@SilentOnion]

Its "syntYmäpäivää". "synti" would mean "sin" :D

[@ellem8990]

@@SilentOnion "syntimäpäivä" is kinda funny though lol. Like I suppose if you're a bit prudish you could call the day someone was conceived "syntimäpäivä" xdd ("sinningday" for those that don't understand)

[@eisblatttonks7156]

Oops! :D thanks for pointing that out:)