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¯\_(ツ)_/¯ While not the official language, you can oftentimes assume people will understand English in Sweden. My observation in Florida is you find more peopl
by jbarberu 7y ago
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ While not the official language, you can oftentimes assume people will understand English in Sweden.
My observation in Florida is you find more people who don't speak English here than in Sweden.
- TallGuyShort 7y agoIn parts of central Europe, I've found it easier to just speak English even when I know what I want to say in the native language. Lots of people from other countries who are also there getting by with English only, and people are so used to speaking English with foreigners that they're not used to hearing their own language in a foreign accent.
- NicoJuicy 7y agoIn North western Europe everyone speaks English. The exception is France sometimes. Eg. Flemish people normally speak Dutch, French en English. Sometimes, you see a Wallonian ask direction in dutch and they "hate" you, because you respond in French and they want to learn Dutch. Fyi, hate is a too strong word of course. But you see them thinking: oh come on, respond in Dutch because I'm learning it and your not helpful for that.
- MagicPropmaker 7y agoI try to learn enough of a language to be polite (Hello, Please, Thank You, How Much, "I don't speak ____") but I found I could make myself understood in much of Europe with English. The only exception was Spain, but fortunately, I do speak Spanish conversationally.
- NicoJuicy 7y agoYeah, Spain/Portugal/Italy isn't that into English in my experience. Only commercially
- dotancohen 7y agoI'm sure that everyone in Sweden speaks English. But posting the message in English gives the impression that the native (and therefore supposed "default") language is not good enough for some purposes. In my country we would post such a message in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. Is there some aversion in Sweden to having the same message posted in multiple languages? Are the street signs posted in Swedish or English?
- wingerlang 7y agoStreet signs are in Swedish last time I checked. Anecdotally I felt like I spoke more English than Swedish last time I visited Stockholm.
- Kiro 7y agoEnglish is preferred for technology. Most people set their operating systems, phones etc to English.
- ClassyJacket 7y agoInteresting, I have 3 Swedish friends in Australia and they had their phones on Swedish IIRC.
- Kiro 7y agoI guess I only have anecdotal evidence, skewed by the fact that my friends are mostly techies but still.
- wingerlang 7y agoI've got the opposite anecdote, my mostly non-techie family all use Swedish language.
- lostmyoldone 7y agoI get so confused when I have to use a computer or phone with Swedish, have had it set to English language for decades.