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Not Sweden, but I spent 2 weeks in Iceland and was astonished that everyone there spoke pretty much perfect English. We ate dinner one night at a restaurant in

Not Sweden, but I spent 2 weeks in Iceland and was astonished that everyone there spoke pretty much perfect English. We ate dinner one night at a restaurant in a tiny village in Northern Iceland. Our server was a young man who spoke absolutely perfect American English. We asked him if he had spent much time in the States. He responded that he had never left his village - not even to go to Reykjavik. He had learned all his English just from watching American media and listening to American music. I was absolutely floored. On another note, my daughter spent 9 months in Sweden as an au pair. I asked her, when she came home, if she learned any Swedish. She said she learned a few words, but everyone spoke really good English so there was not really an opportunity to learn Swedish.

LanceH 5y ago
> in Iceland and was astonished that everyone there spoke pretty much perfect English On my visit there seemed to be a pretty sharp division based on age where people over 60ish have a good chance of not speaking English. Maybe lower as you move away from Reykjavik. Virtually everyone under 40 speaking English, across the island. Oddly, while I've always considered my brother and I to look a lot alike, everyone would speak English to him and then immediately switch to Icelandic for me (which I don't speak).
yazaddaruvala 5y ago
I had a very similar experience in Iceland. Surprisingly, the same Icelandic youth that spoke to my siblings and I in fluent English couldn’t spell. I was floored when after an hour chatting with one of them they couldn’t spell “frog”. Not because they should be able to spell in English, but because I couldn’t understand how someone could be so fluent in a language without being literate. Clearly it’s very possible.
- where-group-by 5y ago
  Was it a case where they didn't know how to write it down, or did they have a problem with saying individual letters? The latter seems much more likely as different languages usually small differences in pronunciation of some letters.
  - yazaddaruvala 5y ago
    Specifically I quizzed him on saying the letters. We were just stuck at a bus stop and having some fun. Not really a pencil and paper type of situation.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  You can be perfectly fluent in a language without being literate in any language; for a long time, that was the norm for even first languages, so obviously its possible. And English, with its extremely complex (frequently irregular, but even where not strictly so still not simple) mapping between phonetics and pronunciation probably has bigger gap between spoken and written proficiency as a first language than languages with a more simply phonetic script.
dctoedt 5y ago
> my daughter spent 9 months in Sweden as an au pair.... Decades ago my wife spent a semester abroad in The Netherlands. She said she never learned any Dutch because everyone wanted to practice their English with her.
- ch4s3 5y ago
  Yeah, the Dutch are usually quite English proficient and happy to speak English with you. I was reasonably conversant, and could read a newspaper when I was there 6 years ago. I only spoke Dutch with a few immigrants, and some folks who I let talk while I answered simple questions. As soon as I hit a word with a tricky "g" sound they would switch to English, sometimes mid sentence. It was quite impressive how quickly my mispronunciation identified me as a native English speaker.
ardit33 5y ago
This is normal for smaller countries. eg. Most 80s and 90s kids raised in the coastal/western part of Albania know Italian. The reason is simply TV. Albania had just one government channel during the communist times, and after communism fell we had maybe 3 good ones, and a bunch of locally small ones. Italian TV was the only way to see some good tv, and since Albania is next to Italy, pretty much all the kids of that generation know italian, this is especially since Italians dub/voice over the Hollywood movies shown. After 2000s, English started becoming mainstream, and local TVs did start becoming much better, and they do show movies in English (with subtitles), and don't generally dub them. So, know English is slowly overtaking Italian as a foreign language, with German becoming a popular third foreign language.
TMWNN 5y ago
>He responded that he had never left his village - not even to go to Reykjavik. He had learned all his English just from watching American media and listening to American music Relevant: "Friends is the most popular way to learn English. 26% of those who watched television to improve language skills cited the 1994-2004 series in a survey, compared to 7% for The Simpsons and 6% for How I Met Your Mother, and were more likely to want to study in the US."(<https://np.reddit.com/r/television/comments/5vqtsa/friends_is_the_most_popular_way_to_learn_english/ https://np.reddit.com/r/television/comments/5vqtsa/friends_i...>)
deleted 5y ago
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LanceH 5y ago

> in Iceland and was astonished that everyone there spoke pretty much perfect English On my visit there seemed to be a pretty sharp division based on age where people over 60ish have a good chance of not speaking English. Maybe lower as you move away from Reykjavik. Virtually everyone under 40 speaking English, across the island. Oddly, while I've always considered my brother and I to look a lot alike, everyone would speak English to him and then immediately switch to Icelandic for me (which I don't speak).

yazaddaruvala 5y ago

I had a very similar experience in Iceland. Surprisingly, the same Icelandic youth that spoke to my siblings and I in fluent English couldn’t spell. I was floored when after an hour chatting with one of them they couldn’t spell “frog”. Not because they should be able to spell in English, but because I couldn’t understand how someone could be so fluent in a language without being literate. Clearly it’s very possible.

where-group-by 5y ago
Was it a case where they didn't know how to write it down, or did they have a problem with saying individual letters? The latter seems much more likely as different languages usually small differences in pronunciation of some letters.
- yazaddaruvala 5y ago
  Specifically I quizzed him on saying the letters. We were just stuck at a bus stop and having some fun. Not really a pencil and paper type of situation.
dragonwriter 5y ago
You can be perfectly fluent in a language without being literate in any language; for a long time, that was the norm for even first languages, so obviously its possible. And English, with its extremely complex (frequently irregular, but even where not strictly so still not simple) mapping between phonetics and pronunciation probably has bigger gap between spoken and written proficiency as a first language than languages with a more simply phonetic script.

dctoedt 5y ago

> my daughter spent 9 months in Sweden as an au pair.... Decades ago my wife spent a semester abroad in The Netherlands. She said she never learned any Dutch because everyone wanted to practice their English with her.

ch4s3 5y ago
Yeah, the Dutch are usually quite English proficient and happy to speak English with you. I was reasonably conversant, and could read a newspaper when I was there 6 years ago. I only spoke Dutch with a few immigrants, and some folks who I let talk while I answered simple questions. As soon as I hit a word with a tricky "g" sound they would switch to English, sometimes mid sentence. It was quite impressive how quickly my mispronunciation identified me as a native English speaker.

ardit33 5y ago

This is normal for smaller countries. eg. Most 80s and 90s kids raised in the coastal/western part of Albania know Italian. The reason is simply TV. Albania had just one government channel during the communist times, and after communism fell we had maybe 3 good ones, and a bunch of locally small ones. Italian TV was the only way to see some good tv, and since Albania is next to Italy, pretty much all the kids of that generation know italian, this is especially since Italians dub/voice over the Hollywood movies shown. After 2000s, English started becoming mainstream, and local TVs did start becoming much better, and they do show movies in English (with subtitles), and don't generally dub them. So, know English is slowly overtaking Italian as a foreign language, with German becoming a popular third foreign language.

TMWNN 5y ago

>He responded that he had never left his village - not even to go to Reykjavik. He had learned all his English just from watching American media and listening to American music Relevant: "Friends is the most popular way to learn English. 26% of those who watched television to improve language skills cited the 1994-2004 series in a survey, compared to 7% for The Simpsons and 6% for How I Met Your Mother, and were more likely to want to study in the US."(<https://np.reddit.com/r/television/comments/5vqtsa/friends_is_the_most_popular_way_to_learn_english/ https://np.reddit.com/r/television/comments/5vqtsa/friends_i...>)

deleted 5y ago

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