English in Sweden Posted by Katja on Feb 17, 2011 in Swedish Language
In Sweden there is English everywhere. On TV, posters, bus stops, in shops, on the back of food packaging and basically any other imaginable place.
It is really only children’s videos that get dubbed to Swedish. Most other media is just played in English with Swedish subtitles. This makes Swedes’ ears very accustomed to English. When you hear English everyday you gradually get so used to it that the pronunciation becomes less difficult. And when people don’t have to ask you to repeat yourself when speaking your self-confidence grows, turning English-learning into a good experience.
Young people (and a growing number of older people as well) use a huge amount of English in their everyday life. While chatting, Facebooking, searching online, playing online games etc. and that is only the computer aspect.
A rapidly increasing interest among Swedes is reading books in English. There are a lot of people who don’t want to wait for international best sellers to be translated to Swedish and therefore read the books in English instead, immensely improving their English while doing so.
As especially young people are growing more and more confident in their English skills, English classes become easier and easier for students. Though on the contrary for English teachers, it becomes more and more difficult. Teachers can often not speak as fluent English as many of their students, though grammar and rules however can be a completely different story. Countless teachers religiously cling to the lessons they have used for years, mainly grammar lessons.
(At this point I would just like to give all these teachers a slight thought. Who wouldn’t be scared if all of a sudden your students were much more fluent than you at your own subject…? Whether the reaction is a rational and best reaction is a matter of opinion.)
Build vocabulary, practice pronunciation, and more with Transparent Language Online. Available anytime, anywhere, on any device.
Comments:
Kendra:
I think you mean “to speak fluentLY.”
Natasza:
Grammar rules change as well and words often acquire new meanings, something that several years ago would be considered a mistake is now a part of everyday and often even academic English. If teachers don’t keep up with it, they’re simply not good, and that’s regardless of their nationality.
Anon:
Its great that Swedes are interested and able to communicate so well in English. But there is a bad side, mainly for foreigners and ex-pats who live in Sweden.Trying to learn Swedish is hard enough as it is without having the difficulties such as tv shows, songs etc in English.
Swedes won’t even let us “invandare” attempt to speak Swedish and make the necessary mistakes to improve. I have met people who have lived in Sweden for up to 15/16 years and still can’t understand a basic phrase because everyone wants to speak English even if they come from Iran and don’t understand a word o English.
Living in London most of my life I’m used to hearing funny accents everywhere and mispronunciation in my mother tongue (English) but would never dream of speaking German to an Italian whose English was broken.
Jeff:
Where are the students speaking better English than their teachers? Where are the teachers clinging to grammar lessons?
I’ve met none of either category.
These days, it’s a bit popular to say that classes “suck”, that language teachers focus on grammar, that you’re better off learning on your own, that you can’t learn anything in school and so on. While I prefer studying on my own (any discipline), I still have great respect for good tutors.
Katja:
Ok, don’t get me wrong here, there are TONS of great teachers out there, but the point I want to make is that young people are getting more and more confident about using english and therefor surpassing many older teachers who refuse to take the time to learn new (and often better methods of teaching) english. That often resulting in throwing a lot of grammar rules in the faces of the students who challenge what their teachers say or even correct their teachers.
stevia:
Katja,
This is really interesting! When I went to Stockholm I found english everywhere. Everybody spoke it, tv was in english with swedish subtitles and no one (well, very few people) had accents. I had been learning swedish but found that my confidence was very low because I hadn’t really spoken to anyone. Eventually I broke down and just spoke english. I’m still disappointed in myself and very regretful. Next time hopefully I’ll have the confidence to speak swedish.
Natasza:
Good look with your Swedish, stevia! 🙂
Very few people had accents? I’ve been listening to Swedish people (from various regions) speaking English for the past 3 years and I haven’t heard a SINGLE person, whose accent wouldn’t be immediately recognizable as Swedish and who wouldn’t make those typical Swenglish mistakes…
Stevia:
oops! Let me clarify. When I was in Stockholm last August I did find the Swedes extremely nice. I would attempt to speak Swedish and they wanted to speak English. Eventually I broke down because it was easier for me and my pronunciation was off.
I think in the higher tourist areas found very neutral sounding English because everybody has more chance to practice. I have notices that the farther north in sweden you go the heavier the accents are.
Jeff:
The Swenglish accent(s) MIGHT be more neutral than other languages. It’s easy to fake a German/French/Russian version of English, while the opposite can be difficult – there are loads of Swedish accents. So, while some Swedish speakers may in fact have a more neutral accent in English, I think that speakers of the aforementioned language might also think that every Swede speaks super-English “since they don’t sound as bad as us”.
However, I still cringe when I hear Swenglish accent – and that’s EVERY DAY.
Emma:
When I started watching TV-shows without subtitles a few years ago I actually learned more English then I’ve ever did in school. It’s right that they only learn you the grammars in schools but they should focus more on the pronunciations. I also started to read fantasy books in English a few years before that and now I can read English books just as fast as I read Swedish books.