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Nobody claims they all speak Finnish well, but the Swedish spoken in Finland is influenced by Finnish and typically includes some loans from Finnish.
by tuukkah 1y ago
Nobody claims they all speak Finnish well, but the Swedish spoken in Finland is influenced by Finnish and typically includes some loans from Finnish.
- laurent_du 1y agoThe person I was answering to literally claims people are bilingual (Swedish + Finnish).
- tuukkah 1y agoBeing bilingual is a fuzzy concept: to many, it includes people who speak a language less well, but perhaps enough to get by. For example, in a bilingual environment, it can be enough to understand two languages and to speak one.
- laurent_du 1y agoI have never heard someone say "I am bilingual" when what they meant is "I studied another language in school and can somehow understand a few sentences". To me, and I believe, to most people, being bilingual means speaking two languages fluently.
- tuukkah 1y agoPersonally, I'd only call native-level speakers bilingual, but this has caused misunderstandings.