Thanks to Laura from Couch Polyglot for letting me do this! There will be a much longer "director's cut" coming to my Patreon soon, and remember to check out Laura's channel here: ru-vid.com/show-UCHowOK8RrPns_-m1LPfoqEw
It's so cool that you, as a native speaker of English who speaks Swedish, pick up on the very subtle cues of Swedishness in people's English. As a Norwegian, it's always exciting being able to tell whether someone is Swedish or Norwegian based on their English. And it's especially satisfying getting it right if their English is very good!
I used to have a Norwegian neighbour, and aside from his name, there'd be absolutely no way of guessing where he was from. He sounded just the sliiiightest bit foreign - like, you could tell he wasn't Australian but that's all you could tell. Most people assumed German (so he told me).
Hi Lamont, I can only say "WOW" and TACK! 🙂 Your video is amazing, I am very glad you made it! I just sent it to Oskar too, I am sure he will love it as well. I think it will also help me to stop saying "deT" hehehe, but I am glad I brought Oskar to the dark side too 😂Tack så mycket och vi ses snart 😊
I have a suggestion for an intermediate level language learning resource to do a video on: the Goosebumps series, by R.L. Stine. I'm currently learning Russian and I've been reading and listening to them for months. May seem like a strange suggestion, but consider the following: -They're short (audio 2-2.5 hrs per book) -There are dozens of them -Translated into many languages (30+ I believe) -Entertaining (at least to me) - much more so than most graded readers -Very simple plots, so it's difficult to get lost -Lower reading level than Harry Potter, but high enough to tell a good story Just something to consider. Love your channel... I've been waiting for you to make a new video so I can write this comment... sorry if it's a bit of a non sequitur with respect to the current video.
Although she struggles with pronunciation and remembering words, she demonstrates to be a real polyglot. Most self-proclaimed polyglots on the internet, when you see them speaking the language it's only "hi, are you from x country? I like x country's language. I love learning languages, and I've been learning x country's language for x long". And that's it. You never really see them actually having a conversation about topics. It doesn't need to be a philosophical discussion, but at least just converse, talk, whatever, like a normal person. No, it's like they only memorize some phrases. But doing what she is doing is really rare in the polyglot RU-vid.
Hey Lamont, you had 2 lessons with me a while back, and I just dropped by to watch your video. About the German grammar point, it's actually common that even my German-native students make that same mistake, and I think you are right about it being a mistake deriving from English. I, however, think they make it because they are exposed to a lot of English-based learning material for Swedish. The second thing, about Oskar and Pewdiepie's English sounding the same, is because their Swedish is the same and that melody you are describing is the "Göteborska" slipping into their English. Great video!
It didn't occur to me about where Oskar is from but yeah I have noticed it among others from Göteborg, good point! With the other point: well, it's cut out of this video but interestingly, Laura actually learns her Swedish from German resources. Who knows why these things happen but I think it might have to do with thinking of "Heute/idag" as a separate thing to "jag ska köpa en ny bil" (or whatever). Like, you need to be an experienced speaker before automatically thinking "Idag ska jag köpa en bil" because even if you already speak a language with that pattern, you are still breaking the new language into separate blocks, so it's too complicated for you to remember that those ideas are actually expressed with reference to each other, if that makes sense?
@@daysandwords That's a very interesting take, I think you're really on to something there. Maybe we start by learning the smallest blocks, building to more and more complex ones. If we speak another European language, perhaps we have an easier time thinking of SVO as one block, even if Swedish (and German) tends to break that structure quite often.
"Bryr mig inte. Håll käft." (Short and abrupt, rude. Someone, most likely young, who is very focused on something different, or in general wants to be left alone would use a phrase like that. Literally: "Care me not. Hold jaw."😅) Or more well polished: "Det är ingenting jag bryr mig om. Kan du vara snäll att vara tyst?" (Literally: It is nothing I care me about. Can you be sweet/nice to be quiet?")
Great video again! (I'm a Dane and I) Always find it fascinating watching your vids where you speak Swedish and/or watch other people speaking it. Admittedly my comprehension is quite bad, but it's so cool seeing a non-native from outside of the country learning by immersion, scheduling your own outputting practice and getting really good. I think Sweden and Denmark are in fairly similar situations regarding how few foreigners learn our languages without having already moved here. I've legit never heard anyone but natives and immigrants speaking Danish, so I'd love to see the type of Danish level that the immersion method could produce in someone from outside the border.
My feeling was, I was learning Spanish very quickly until, lets say B2, and I after this I have the feeling I only make very slow progress. Maybe that is just another indicator for that you cant't estimate yourself very well how fast you really learn :D I watched recently some of Lauras videos in Spanish and Catalan. And after this I noticed that she also has videos for people who want to learn German and I was curios. And her German is very, very well.
Tack. Yeah I don't pretend to sound completely Swedish (beyond a few words) but no one guesses I'm in Australian, even here in Australia - Swedes think I'm French (because of my name, which is funny because it's a Scottish name).
Your pronounciation is really good. Outside of the pitch being wrong on a few words your accent sounds a lot like a posh stockholmer haha. Extremely impressive for someone who learned the language as an adult.
genki 1 and genki 2 are text books use by universities to tech Japanese. Genki kind of means excited, heathy, happy, lively. Genki? how are you? Genki! I'm great.
What a fantastic video! This kind of content is super valuable to me as someone floating between these two levels (somewhere between B1 and B2). Your videos about learning styles and methods are also great, but I would personally love to see more Swedish-focused content, especially about common mistakes, tips and tricks to sounding more native, and content comparing native speakers and learners. Would be cool to see some content focusing on pitch accent as well!
Yeah I know (the dictionary says "förflytta (löst material) med skyffel el. spade, skovel eller dylikt; i syfte att frilägga markyta; särsk. med avseende på snö", so yeah, not quite ONLY for snow, but mostly) - but that doesn't matter, because it stills translates to shovel. All translations are that way. Try translating "Det spelar ingen roll." HAHA! That's easy! you say. "It doesn't matter." - Yeah, that IS the translation, even though that's not the technical meaning.
From what I can hear, there are three major things and one or two minor ones that make the difference here in the pronunciation of "basically": The first major thing is that the sound of the "a" in English is a fast diphthong, whereas the Swedish pronunciation had replaced it with a flat vowel that roughly approximates the midpoint of the diphthong. This is understandable, but unnatural-sounding. When trying to pronounce things in Dutch, I find that I encounter the reverse problem (and I imagine other Brits do as well when they're learning Dutch), as they often have flat vowels that are absent from English, but are close to the midpoint of a common English diphthong, so it sounds to a native English speaker as though these vowels are diphthongs when they are not and they mispronounce them. Secondly, the sound of the "i" seems to have been turned into a bit more of an "uh" sound, or a schwah I think it's called if you're being technically (or maybe it's just a really swallowed "i", hard to hear). I know English has a bad habit of putting schwahs everywhere whenever there are unemphasized vowels, but this is one of those times when you don't do that (it's less common with the letter "i", I think). The third is the completely unaspirated sound of the "c". When I pronounce it in an English accent, there is a very subtle aspiration after the "c" sound which separates it from the following "l" sound. This is completely absent from the Swedish pronunciation, and the two sounds run directly into one another. On lesser points, the "l" might be pronounced a bit too far up/back in the mouth, but it's hard to tell; and the pitch phrasing sounds weird as well, but since English doesn't have pitch accent that's not super important - if I pronounce it in an English accent with the same pitch as the Swedish accent it sounds like I'm being a bit stern maybe, but not foreign.
It is ironic when Oscar says good luck in finding an English translation for "skotta sig ur" since the expression is an ad hoc translation of "digging yourself out of a hole" and has no Swedish equivalent set phrase.
After only 5 months approx of learning Norwegian and I see a snobbery in between language learning, with some judging others for why they're learn a particular language. 🤔 Everyone has their own reasons and no reason is better than another. The question is what language is best for 'YOU'. IT'S A solo activity for the most part so make sure you learn a language that 'speaks' to you, so to speak, then the activity will be fruitful and more productive imo.
Kvinnliga polygloter är inte så vanliga på RU-vidn. Jag ska behöver kolla hennes kanal! 😃 Okså, jag har precis lyssnade till det där avsnitt om Oskars podden igår och önskade jag för mer!
It's a bit harsh immediately assuming that someone claiming to speak a lot of languages is being dishonest. Some people are just over-confident. I would assume most people making such claims are just over-estimating themselves. Most people are probably monolingual - and many might even have almost a fear of other languages. So many humans; so many motives. I think specifically when it comes to English as a lingua franca e.g. a Brazilian and a Rwandan can use to understand each other (or a Swede and a Catalan) the idea of there being a "correct pronunciation" (and even a correct grammar) is destructive. It's also just plain incorrect, but I think it's worse than that. English is no longer the property of English speakers, so it's going to go and grow however it will, wherever it's growing. This means that Swedish pronunciations of Swedish-English are correct, just like Catalan pronunciations of Catalan-English are correct. (I get stuck on this "accent perfectionism" thing. Sorry.) So now I have a way to agree with you that the right way to learn Swedish is to get the little details right. There isn't really an "English-Swedish" that English speakers have become the owners of. There's "foreign Swedish", which is Swedish with more mistakes in it than a local who don't speak so good gonna have. So ya gotta fix your Swedish when she's crook, mate. (This last sentence is valid English somewhere.) At last I have peace of mind. For one set of reasons, the right way to learn a language is to try to internalize it so much that you wear it in your thoughts as if it was your own mind's skin; and for another set of reasons, English is going to become whatever _all_ English speakers ultimately make it into. It's a different language. It's Latin. It's what French was. You have to get it right; and there's no one right way. No contradiction.
Your comments were to the point, Lamont. There's a huge (years wide) difference between Laura's and your Swedish, but she is a real language lover (makes me happy!) and both of you are good examples for any language learner, you've mention learning methods that others could pick up and benefit from. If you are over 25, never strive the most to sound exactly like a native speaker, well, if you are not working at a call center and your job depends on it. Just strive to be a good enough, and *interesting* speaker: have something relevant to say, be a good listener, keep a meaningful conversation going. Find the people and the books, films, videos, songs, that help you in reaching that goal. Then you will have a lot joy from your languages. Oh, yes, people look younger and younger these days, it's fantastic! Might it be all the miles you run listening to languages on pod-casts? Whatever you do, keep it up! 🙂
You mention, or you mentioned, or you've mentioned many intelligent points! I'm relieved I don't have to grade essays in English, my students would celebrate all the mistakes I would make, every one of them! Hurray for me just being a student on my own. 🙂
Nah there are heaps of other give aways too. Even if he perfected his S, he would still give himself away in intonation and grammar use (I've talked about this in other videos).
@@daysandwords Pewdiepie has actually gotten worse at Swedish since starting his RU-vid career, which you can see in interviews with him. His pronunciation is super off
I don't think I have heard you speak Swedish before, and you even have a southern Swedish accent :D .. Awesome.. And yes, I can also hear the Swedish accent of many Swedes like this guy.
So Swedish has a tonal aspect to it? Certain words have a downhill or uphill sound? That is so difficult for an English speaker. I know some Vietnamese but no one understands my speaking.
Hm, not exactly. It's often overstated in Swedish. It has pitch accent, meaning that every word has an associated pattern, but there are only 2, not 4 like Japanese. Very very fews words can use both and mean the same thing, but it happens sometimes. "Förrut" is one such example, some people say "förr-uut" and some people say "f'rutt" whereas most other words, if pronounced with a different pattern, sound like an entirely different word, or just are not a word, like if I were to say "per-sp'ck-tEEv" in English... you would understand but everyone else says "per-SPECK-tive". I think the difficulty of Swedish pronunciation is that it's basically the opposite of English emphasis, so if people aren't very careful, they end up sounding bizarre, the same as the classic Swedish "HellOH my name IS Vik-TOR..." - that's what we sound like to them if we don't adopt the proper patterns.
@@daysandwords That’s absolute right Lamont. Initially I struggled a lot with the pitch accent. Even speaking to my Wife, if I emphasised the wrong part of the word she’d just look at me blankly, no idea what I was trying to say. After I’d say it in English she’d say it correctly in Swedish and to me it would sound almost the same as I’d originally said. I used to think she was just being difficult 😂. Swedish is very unforgiving if your pronunciation and prosody aren’t correct, whereas English is very forgiving in comparison. Luckily I’m starting to get there now. The other difficult part is which words in a sentence should be stressed. I’d say that’s harder for me as it feels far more subjective.
In Swedish you obviously say ”jag kan säga..” but you have to change word order when you start with Idag (or Det or ..) which is very common in daily Swedish speak because of immigration. Det kan jag säga
@@daysandwords I thought one of the first things you commented about her Swedish was ”Idag jag kan säga” and my personal non linguistic guess that this comes from the switch in word order you have to make because you say ”jag kan säga saker på svenska” but ”Idag kan jag säga saker på svenska”. It’s an easy error for non-native Swedish speakers to make. ”I can say things in Swedish” but ”Today can I say things in Swedish ”
Exactly... No one was saying, nor implying, that you CAN'T say "Jag kan säga"... I mean, that's identical in basically every European language... I was making the point that although she speaks German, she hasn't picked up the v2 thing, which is the same in German. I dunno... it just sounded like you were correcting me on what I'd already corrected her on. It's a very weird thing that some people actually do.
I love seeing people learn swedish as a native. It makes me feel happy that people want to learn my language. Laura would definatly make herself understood in swedish, although the grammar is a bit off. The main thing that is off is her pronounciation I think, it's not good. But everyone would understand it in sweden at least. I really hope she keeps up the learning and find enjoyment in the language as she is amazing for how long she has practiced already.
Det har gått nästan ett år (tror jag) och hon lär sig fortfarande. Förmodligen kan hon bra svenska nu för tiden... bättre än jag! 😆 P.S. "pronunciation". Det stavas på samma sätt som det uttalas (även om ibland uttalas det fel!)
@@daysandwords Damn, she's impressive. Och tackar så mycket för rättningen. Jag har alltid haft det svårt att lära mig språk, stavning har varit min största svaghet där hah. Det uppskattas då jag försöker bli så bra jag kan inom det området på engelska.
När du lärde dig svenska, var du medveten om olika dialekter som du kunde lära dig eller var det nåt specifikt som du ville lära eller nåt som var lättare?
Hmm, det beror på vad du menar med "När du lärde dig svenska". När jag började var jag inte medveten om mycket av nånting, men så är det när men börjar nåt. Ju bättre jag lärde mig svenska desto mer medveten blev jag om olika dialekter och uttal men jag har aldrig försökt utveckla nån specifik dialekt utan undvika några av dem. Nu för tiden kan vara att jag låter norrländsk, finlandsvensk, göteborgsk, till och med skånsk. Jag tycker att jag låter mest som någon som inte föddes i Sverige men har lärt sig svenska haha.
@@daysandwords För mig låter det som en blandning mellan rikssvenska och götamål. Men du låter som en riktig svensk och är väldigt imponerad på din grammatik 👍🏻. Mitt modersmål är engelska och som liten lät det väldigt mycket svengelska, kunde till exempel säga "drinka" och "fishka" och nu låter jag som född och uppvuxen svensk med rätt mild norrländsk dialekt😀
5:59 _"När jag började [med] italienska kunde jag förstå allt"_ is idiomatic and fine, not the wrong order. She said _"När jag började [med] italienska, jag kunde förstå allt"_ though, and that's not fully correct.
Someone pointed out that he might have a heatpad thing on his desk, and I suppose it's possible. It could also be water, but Swedes are generally not fussy (I mean REALLY not fussy) about their coffee, so yeah I think it was just cold coffee haha.
元気 genki means a few thing in Japanese. Like good feeling, lively, energetic It’s also the name of a series of Japanese textbooks I’m not sure if that’s what you were referring to or not, but there ya go
Yeah I know it's a textbook (now) because he says, in Swedish "I went through two basic books called Genki 1 and 2", but I'd never bothered to check beforehand.
Snow is interesting stuff, even when you live close to school. A minute or two by car, about ten minutes to walk, maybe 1994 or so.. When the winds blow hard across the field by the backyard, and the snow drifts all the way up to the roof, packing in tight while you sleep, you can't open a door or window by the next morning. Literally snowed into the house. Could not leave for school. Several people along our road had that problem one day. School principal was upset as we were so close. Thought we were lying. I don't know what to say teacher. Mother called you. Take it up with her lol
When I learnt Japanese for a year and went hard on listening for a few months I listened to a string quartet for the first time in a while and the parts were much easier to distinguish from each other - there's definitely some crossover with the aural skill
This video makes me kind of miss learning Swedish. The first language I tried to learn on my own was Swedish, but I didn't really know what I was doing and being in high school, I got distracted by other things. Then in college I was doing a lot of classical singing, and most of the songs I was singing were in Italian, so I started learning Italian in order to understand what I was singing better, and it was the first one I really made progress in, but then I stopped doing the classical singing and got into anime/manga, so I switched over to learning Japanese. This is when I actually started learning how to learn languages. There was definitely a trend towards practical whenever I switched languages, going from "this language is interesting because it's not what everyone else is learning", to "this will improve my singing if I can vaguely understand it", to "I want to understand content in this language".
Hey, just because your story reminded me, there isn't heaps about her online, but check out a soprano named Louise Geller. She's British, and super talented, but she moved to Sweden a few years ago. She's been on Britain's Got Talent and "Talang" (Sweden's version of that show), and I think next year she's doing Edinburgh Fringe... Craziest thing is, she's a full time doctor, not a pro singer! And yeah, she also knows some Italian for singing obviously. I hope you just learn whatever you want to learn. Let me know if you need a hand with any of it.
After seeing some German comparisons it would be fairly interesting to see German as one of your "dabble" languages down the road. As usual great content, Lamont!
There is an intonation thing there as well. I have a friend who sounds 100% Australian for each syllable but as soon as she strings 4 syllables together, it's obvious (to me) that she's Swedish.
I totally get that assumption about a new language being automatically different even when it's not. I've just started German after spending the last several months learning Italian, and I'm finding it incredibly tough remembering that, for the most part, the German sentence structure is the same as we speak in English. I just assume it's arranged the same as Italian and French and I can't seem to get out of that mindset!
Great video! For only a few months learning she’s doing amazingly well. I’ll check out both of their content. Edit: Having just watched the whole video on her site I’d say her ability to speak Swedish is incredible after such a short time. I’m the same with the motivation, I’ve definitely tailed off over the last few months now I’ve reached a much higher level of comprehension. I keep starting to read or listen to something in Swedish, then decide to do it a little later. I’m making great progress through studying at SFI, but it’s frustrating knowing that I could do so much more, yet don’t. A large part of the problem is not having a specific meaningful and, most importantly, accountable goal. Perhaps I should commit to making my first ever RU-vid video at the end of May to show my progress after one year of SFI. That wouldn’t work either though because who would ensure I did it? I absolutely love the way Swedish people sound when they switch to English mid sentence. I find it sounds a bit different to when they only speak English, because they carry the melody of Swedish through to the English more when it’s in the same sentence. I’ve even caught myself doing the same when using English words in an otherwise Swedish sentence. Thinking about it though, it would sound really weird to use my normal English accent in the middle of a Swedish sentence I think.
Question, are you aiming for a particular Swedish dialect? You sometimes have a bit of Stockholm dialect coming through (at least to my ears as a "västgöte"), which i find interresting.
I spent about a year trying to choose a dialect, taking into account: - Whether there was someone I could mimic in it to practice (this concept is called finding a "parent" whom you will end up sounding like) - whether I actually wanted to sound like that (e.g. Emil Hansius would be a good person to mimic because he has so many videos, but I don't like the way northerners say sj... I actually quite like nörrlänska but not that sound) - how much material would be available otherwise (e.g. all audiobooks are just in Riksvenska, with maybe the occasional stockholmska coming through but that's generally the narrators choice for a character or something) In the end I never really picked anything so I just probably just sound kind of nothing-ish / everything. I have honestly been through ever phase of accent. In the beginning I got Swedes thinking I was Finnish because I rolled my Rs so much and so often, then I got Norwegian because I had an upwards inflection on everything, then I got Northern because I was watching lots of Emil... now I just get "That's weird you don't sound Swedish but you must be..."
Lamont, you refer to someone called Pewdy Pie, about "embarrassing" - it sounds like Stockholm-dialect (and some other dialects have a little of that, too.) Nobody needs to learn exactly that dialect, as it is one of the least liked and maybe the hardest to understand. You can hear that intonation as an accent when 08'ers (noll-åttor) speak English. It is very hard to get rid of. Even if it sounds funny, the intonation isn't really a problem when it comes to comprehension, as the difficulty is not the melody, but other Stockholmian features. It's just a language melody, no big deal. People from Stockholm are likely to say other languages have a nice "singing" to them. That's how prejudice works. (Noll-åttor are those Swedes that live in Stockholm, where the telephone numbers once upon a time began with the numbers 08.)
@@daysandwords Oh, he is! One shouldn't make that mistake, but I can hear the difference between people from Skåne and Norrland - I couldn't hear Göteborgska from one word... but that is even more an dialect, which we almost all love... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-q1amUMIhCEI.html Hope you like the self-irony!
"Properly learn" - if we're talking to C1 or especially to a higher level, I think Swedish is actually HARDER. The higher you go with Swedish, the further you move away from similar vocabulary, but in French, you generally get closer. Also, I've heard about 1 in 100 English speakers nail a Swedish accent, whereas it's kind of "common" (1 in 10) in French.
+ att göteborgska mer eller mindre hela västkusten har en del från Skottland som har format oss med i dialekt. and if you need proof look att the graves from the 1800 on the west coast :)
These videos are so much fun as a native Swedish speaker 😂 And if you think that guy doesn’t sound like a native English speaker you should hear some people in my school, it makes me cringe so hard 😬😂 Not sure if you’ve come across this since you’ve been learning Swedish but most Swedish people really struggle with the “ch” sound in English, used in words like “church” or “chair” I don’t struggle with it as much since I also speak Russian natively, but it’s a great indicator that someone’s Swedish if they can’t pronounce that “ch” sound I’m also curious - what pronunciation issues do you have with Swedish? I would personally say it’s a relatively easy language for a native English speaker in terms of pronunciation, but I’ve heard the “sj” sound like “sju” or “sjuksköterska” are a struggle for many
Also Swedish doesn’t have a ”z” sound and is most often pronounced as ”s”. So Swedish people will mostly just say ”s” instead of ”z” in english as well.
Haha tack. I can't keep it up for long, I normally give myself away pretty quickly but I get a lot closer than most people and that's enough for most Swedes. 😆
@@daysandwords Det är absolut tillräckligt för mig! Om jag skulle prata med dig skulle det kännas som om jag pratade med en svensk!! Det har varit roligt att se dig utvecklas inom det svenska språket, tillskillnad från de mesta personer som lär sig svenska så e du jättebra på att uttala ä,å och ö! Imponerande måste jag ändå säga 👏
Hard time following Oskar? That's probably just because sometimes the sound wasn't that good because sometimes it was just from my monitor rather than from the video. I doubt you'd have any problems following him without that complication.
Read more, vary the type of content you're consuming, find topics you want to speak about and practise speaking about them. Have fun with it, there are so many heights to language learning so try to enjoy the journey.
