Table of Contents
- 1 Why Scandinavians are so good at English?
- 2 Does everyone in Scandinavia speak English?
- 3 Can you live in Scandinavia only speaking English?
- 4 How do Scandinavians feel about English?
- 5 What is the best age to learn English in Scandinavia?
- 6 What are the differences between Italian and Scandinavian languages?
Scandinavians speak English well because it’s very similar to their native languages. The similarity includes not only related vocabulary, but also grammatical structures.
Norwegian, Swedish and Danish all have their roots in Old Norse and a speaker of one has a default capability to at least understand the other two languages. But the Scandinavians’ language ability doesn’t stop there. Virtually all are fluent in English too.
As a tourist, you can experience almost everything Scandinavia has to offer if you speak English fluently. If you want to live here, however, I very strongly recommend learning at least the basics of the local language. It is expected and people will think less of you if you don’t.
Can I go to Sweden without knowing Swedish?
So in one word – No! You don’t really have to know Swedish to come to study or even work in Sweden. But why not take this opportunity to learn the language and improve your communication skills.
Why are Scandinavians so successful in language learning?
The biggest contributor to the success of Scandinavians in language learning is their consumption of English media. Scandinavians watch a lot of movies and TV series from America in English, whereas Italians dub almost everything from America into Italian.
Scandinavians tend to accept this readily and are happy and willing to embrace English in their education and culture whenever they can. They see that it is ultimately beneficial to them long term and are happy to take any chance to practice it, even if it is just watching an English language film or TV show.
In most Scandianvian countries, youngsters start learning English from the age of 7 or 8, and carry on right through until leaving age, providing nearly a decade of solid learning. Moreover, English is often treated as a core subject, with lessons several times a week, perhaps daily in some cases.
A speaker of one of these languages can understand a lot of the other languages without having to study. On the subject of English: anything between 80 – 90\% of Scandinavians speak English, compared to Italy’s 10-20 \% (I tried to find data on this, but and I kept seeing 30\%.