{"id":263,"date":"2009-09-18T23:59:26","date_gmt":"2009-09-19T03:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/?p=263"},"modified":"2009-09-18T23:59:26","modified_gmt":"2009-09-19T03:59:26","slug":"why-do-we-learn-swedish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/why-do-we-learn-swedish\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Do We Learn Swedish?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhy bother learning Swedish?\u201d<\/em> someone asked me recently. \u201cEverybody in Sweden speaks perfect English,\u201d<\/em> the person continued, \u201cso what\u2019s the point?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Hmmm\u2026 yeah, really?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that one of the first things that a visitor to Sweden will notice is that almost everyone speaks English here. Maybe not perfect English, but English that is easily understood and very fluent indeed.<\/p>\n

I have seen scores of people who had spent time learning Swedish before their first trip here only to arrive sorely disappointed. Whenever they tried to say or ask something in Swedish, the answers came back at them in English.<\/p>\n

One travel writer from Arizona, who had been invited to Sweden for a press trip, was quite stressed about her lack of Swedish skills. She didn\u2019t believe me when I told her that she\u2019d be fine speaking only English. She insisted I provide her with some basic phrases and expressions, because she\u2019d been to Europe before, she said, and \u201cnone of them spoke any English.\u201d She went to Sweden and I can only assume she had a great time, because she never got in touch with me after that.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that Swedes speak excellent English. I believe that the fact that their TV programming is not dubbed but subtitled has a lot to do with it. Swedish kids are exposed to English early on, and frankly, they don\u2019t have much choice if they want to watch \u201cThe Simpsons\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Then yeah, why learn Swedish at all? Especially if you\u2019re just visiting the country for a couple of weeks? Or months? After all, it\u2019s not like France or parts of Germany, where without some knowledge of the local lingo you are totally lost (like that lady on the news not so long ago who got locked inside a town hall building for the night in some French village).<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re planning to live in Sweden, then it\u2019s a different story. Or is it? I know of people who\u2019ve been living in Sweden for years and the only thing they know how to say is \u201ctack<\/strong>\u201d and \u201curs\u00e4kta mig<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that brings me to today\u2019s question. If you don\u2019t mind, could you share with all of us YOUR reasons for learning Swedish?<\/p>\n

PS> And yes, a Swedish boyfriend or wife are very good reasons, indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhy bother learning Swedish?\u201d someone asked me recently. \u201cEverybody in Sweden speaks perfect English,\u201d the person continued, \u201cso what\u2019s the point?\u201d Hmmm\u2026 yeah, really? It\u2019s true that one of the first things that a visitor to Sweden will notice is that almost everyone speaks English here. Maybe not perfect English, but English that is easily…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[930,3446],"class_list":["post-263","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture","tag-english","tag-swedish"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}