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Someones does?


Jellyfish

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A few years ago I decided to learn some Swedish on my own and it turned out pretty well. When your native language is German there are a lot of similarities so you get easily into Swedish which is a pretty simple language the way it is used to day.

I managed to learn the language so much that I could easily read news and write some basic sentences. I don't understand much though when someones speaks Swedish.

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I am a native Swedish speaker and I must say that I do NOT understand German at all, hehe. I actually had three German customers (in my boyfriend's market) today, and for some reason they insisted on speaking German.

That was a little off topic, I know. If you want to write in Swedish, or learn something new, just let me know. =)

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Well, lol, it has been some time and I don't think I can do it just now. Isn't it that a lot of Swedish people speak German or at least know so much that they can communicate?

Maybe from the older generation, but I would not say that it is a general thing among the younger ones. German is a subject you can choose in 6th-7th grade, however, since many new modern languages (like Mandarin) have been added, most people tend to choose those ones. I don't think I know anyone in my age (22) that can speak German more than just a few phrases.

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Maybe from the older generation, but I would not say that it is a general thing among the younger ones. German is a subject you can choose in 6th-7th grade, however, since many new modern languages (like Mandarin) have been added, most people tend to choose those ones. I don't think I know anyone in my age (22) that can speak German more than just a few phrases.

Well, then the old relations between Scandinavia and Germany may not be as tight anymore. You can choose Mandarin in 6th grade?

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Well, then the old relations between Scandinavia and Germany may not be as tight anymore. You can choose Mandarin in 6th grade?

Mandarin is usually a subject you can choose in 'High School' (years 10-12), but I cannot say that there are NO schools that offer it from an earlier grade. The most common languages from grade 6 are German, French and Spanish, and from my own experience and from what my friends have told me, French and especially Spanish, are mostly chosen over German.

I am not saying that no one is choosing German, however, it is not so common anymore as it was before when German was an obligatory subject (many, many years ago).

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  • 4 months later...

As a swede learning German I totally agree with you! The languages are very similar and I think it makes the learning process a whole lot easier. There are also a lot of words that are basically (or exactly) the same in both languages so it makes it quite easy to understand German even though i haven't actaully learned it properly yet. However I find it much easier to understand written and spoken (slowly) German than it is to speak or write German myself.

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  • 2 months later...

Swedish is a pretty easy language, definitely. I think it's almost more close to English than to Germany, although I have studied only little Germany. But my point is, once you know English, it should be pretty easy to learn Swedish. (Not sure about people whose native tongue is English.)

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Even as an English speaker I find that it doesn't take a lot to be able to read German, to a level of understanding the basics of what is being spoken about. So many similarities and when you learn suffixes and prefixes so much just comes naturally due to cognates.

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  • 4 months later...

Swedish is almost as easy as norwegian. Both native speakers can speak and understand each other, but they seem to have some issues when they stumble across a danish speaker.

Not sure about German tho.

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