I've lived in Norway for the last 32 years and from my English vantage point Norwegian and Danish are definitely dialects of the same language. Swedish is the

I've lived in Norway for the last 32 years and from my English vantage point Norwegian and Danish are definitely dialects of the same language. Swedish is the one that has made the most progress to becoming a separate language because of the large amount of vocabulary that is not shared with the other two but it is still not really distinct. All three have essentially the same grammar and syntax. I can converse with educated, well spoken, Swedes because the pronunciation is very similar to Norwegian even though spelling, vocabulary, and usage often differ. On the other hand I struggle with Trøndersk which no one claims is a separate language from Norwegian, and Danish is almost impossible in conversation because the pronunciation is so different from Norwegian but reading it is very easy. These three languages are much more similar than Dutch and English. I think you need a more telling example.