Comment by lucb1e | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lucb1e | Hacker News Reader

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> I know that selling bike safety ideas to the Dutch is like selling ice to the Innuit

Lol! That's the best saying I've heard in a looong time :D

It's interesting that you love the Netherlands as a Swede. From my point of view, it's always the nordics (iceland, norway, sweden, finland) that have the insane happiness, social mobility, etc. ratings, and I love (at least the mental picture of) warm homes in a cold, snowy, foresty climate/environment. If y'all spoke English (or Dutch, I guess) over there as a primary language, I'm actually quite sure I'd have moved there, at least for a couple years. (Currently living in and learning German(y) and I find it very hard, so for me the language is kind of prohibitive unless I'd be sure I wanted to move away from my current life and fully commit to fitting in somewhere new.) Living for two months in Finland didn't destroy that mental picture at all, and though I was impressed with the English being absolutely impeccable from anyone under 60 years old, the colloquially used language is clearly a local language. A local hacker space was very welcoming, but many things are in Swedish/Finnish because that's simply what everyone there speaks.

I'd be interested in this 'long story' if you are willing to share it!

I'm not going to go into the various forms of grass-is-greenering that could apply here, but of course (?) I'm aware that a lot of Dutch like coming up here too for vacationing and such.

About English, that's kind of a point of pride up here (English was taught from age 11 when I was that age ~35 years ago, but these days it's from age 7 and my oldest kid is starting to have classes and understand more and more).

I would say that you can get very far using English in Sweden, both in business and in private. Probably quite a few Swedish people's English will start to fail if you e.g. open a random kitchen drawer and ask them to name all the things, but still. You can get by.

See also references like [1], I'm pretty sure I'm not making this up just to rose-tint all the blue and yellow. Or something.

[1]: https://studyinsweden.se/blogs/2018/03/26/people-in-sweden-s...

As a Dutch person I learned some Swedish and some German (both not very well, but enough to go around) and I found Swedish significantly easier. It feels more similar to Dutch/English in terms of grammar and flow. Just one data point, but maybe useful for you to know!

as a dutchman, i once stumbled across some swedes in a bar.

With enough beer, im convinced we would be able to speak the same language at a certain point.

Both the Dutch and Swedes (and I guess it goes for Norway and Denmark as well) generally speak English. So much so that my colleagues from other countries find it a problem in that they get very few opportunities to learn Swedish; because everyone just switches to English when they are around.

Yes, I know this effect everywhere. Currently at work in Germany (to be fair: also because it was previously just not practical; I should ask for speaking more german now), or when my girlfriend studied in the Netherlands she said the same. When I was in Finland, people spoke English really really well, but when I looked for an internship, there was not much available in the first place, and that which there was, all required speaking either Swedish or Finnish. (Probably this is better in the capital area, I wasn't near there.) But even if people speak it very well as a secondary language, you're still limited in making friends or finding jobs, even if casual interactions (e.g. stores, school/work friends) try to be helpful and speak english unless you absolutely insist on using your broken version of their language.

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