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Comment by mbesto | Hacker News Reader

I've got tons of Swedish friends, some of who live in Oslo. They basically say that you can speak Swedish in Oslo nowadays because of how many Swedes have immigrated there. Why? Because there are better jobs and they pay more.

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The same is true in every major scandinavian country. I think it's a case of several factors conspiring:

1. There are more swedes in scandinavia than there are any other nationality.

2. Young people move to the cities to find work.

3. Youth unemployment rates are high across scandinavia.

4. Ease of mobility across the scandinavian cultures. Olso in particular is close to sweden, and swedes understand norwegian with very little effort (and vice versa).

Thus, you have young swedes moving into all of the larger cities in scandinavia, including Stockholm, Malmö and Gothenburg.

"3. Youth unemployment rates are high across scandinavia."

No, there's a clear difference between Sweden/Finland and Norway/Denmark.

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=z8o7pt6rd5uqa6_&...

I'd say the data backs my statement with the exception of Norway, but yes, especially high in Sweden and Finland.

and swedes understand norwegian with very little effort (and vice versa).

Debatable ;) But yes transitioning from Swedish to Norwegian and Danish is much easier than say, French to Italian.

And if all else fails, there is allways english.

My reply to another thread a while ago:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2910005

Copenhagen is pretty much the same - I think the past few times I've flown out of CPH, everyone I've spoken to in a service position at the airport (check-in, bar, restaurant, gate) were actually Swedish.

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