Weird Cultural Differences: A Californian in Sweden 

From my experience it's not that swedes are particularly literal in their speech compared to others, it's just that Americans are not.

Finn here. Salty liquorice makes everything better.

I’m from Norway, and I drive 5-6 hours to get that Swedish candy! No joke. Swedish candy is seriously the best.

On my master`s degree registration day I expected the usual formal process, but it turned out to be my very first iNtEnSe fika with all the renowned professors, who introduced themselves with their first names. Same for the work environment, where we started off on first-name basis with the superiors right away. In my experience, the moment you need to work together with Swedes in academic or professional terms you are considered a team without a forced gap between different ranks. That took some time getting used to, but I cherish it immensely.

Love it both of you are a lot of fun to listen to

I from Sweden and find it very interesting to hear about these kind of observations. And I agree on many of them as well. Though I believe swedes don’t eat much candy except on saturdays. Just to clearify. Visiting som other european countries I thought people ate candy constantly. But of course, swedes instead eat candy om saturdays. ”Saturday candy” is mainly for kids I think. Kids always want candy right. So when they ask for it, instead of getting a NO, they get the answer ”You will get candy on saturday”. Grown ups doesn’t eat much candy. And if they do they (we) typically prefer that salty licorice or salmiak, or choclate.

Älskar saltlakrits !! Vad är grejen m söt lakrits lixom???

I love licorice! Especially "Djungelvrål" and "S-märken".

I adore Salty Licorice. The Salty Licorice with the Rhubarb filling are my favorites. My Gudfar var från Uddevalla och min Gudmor Far var från Norra Vram Skåne. I was raised with the lack of superlatives in everything, clapping in unison, kottbullar, kanelbullar for fika, Lussekattar, and wickedly strong coffee from the time I could hold a coffee cup. The love of life and the joy of family and friends getting together is what I remember best. The quiet of the days is something I appreciated, but my American sensibilities can snap me out quickly.

I thought I had that typical British reserve until I moved to Sweden. In fact, we're positively gregarious in comparison. I love to smile sweetly at the elderly because we're told they become invisible to the young. Instant suspicion, if indeed they ever look at you. I can't stop holding doors open for people following (to their surprise) even as the one in front of me closed in my face. I passed the pickled herring test but not the salty liquorish. I think the Dutch version is even saltier & yes, I had that pushed on me as "it's delicious, a delicacy, really tasty"! One similarity to London, I'm always the last on the bus as I refuse to push my way on.

I´m from Norway and I have been to sweden 3 times. But my dad travels every summer for the last 15 years to Lund, and there he is at the martial arts camp at home of samurais. for this summer, the whole family are going ther.

I'm an exchange student from England studying for a year in Linkoping, and I've noticed that a lot of students march around the campus in their society uniforms. It's terrifying and just accepted. I don't understand what it means and it baffles me every time!!

Love this video.. I enjoy the differences between the two cultures esp the matter of factness of Scandinavians. Just so real w/o emotional embellishments. I grew up partly in Wisconsin where there are a lot of Swedes and they are still like that here.

As a norwegian I LOVE salty licorice and when I lived in the UK for 3 years I had serious cravings and they did not have good licorice, and no salty options. So I had to have my mum send some in the mail and I rationed it out. They did have a store that sold american candy: redwines, warheads, hershey, reeses and cheetos. It all tasted like soap/perfume, sickeingly sweet (except for the cheetos, which were dry and bland).

Looking forward to more videos like this one! This was awesome!

The thing about “Saturday candy” is that there is nothing stopping you buying and eating it every day. ;D

I think it's great that the only way to get alcohol in Sweden is through a company that doesn't have a profit motive. Systembolaget and our high alcohol tax helps cover some of the economic strain on our health care and other institutions that alcohol causes. The damage alcohol does actually gets quite expensive, so it only makes sense that the revenue generated when selling it goes toward covering those costs! Plus it also lowers overall consumption a lot. And salty licorice is amazing!!!

I work with Americans, whenever they say hi with "How are you?" or anything similar i usually spend 5-10 minutes describing in great detail how my day has been.

Everyone is just Nationwide cool-looking... And then there's me!

Yea this thing with "How are you doing?" If you are not interested dont ask how I'm doing instead just literally say hi or hello. This is a strong tip to all Americans if visiting Sweden or I guess Scandinavia in general.

gotta go to Sweden - I'm 1/4 Swed.. these are so fun

I am Dutch, we love licorice, all sorts. And we call Swedish English Swenglish.

Salty all the way! Just found your channel and am now in the middle of a marathon

Hi! Im mexican, I live in Sweden since 2000. I love it, but still dont like licorice, (lakrits). But I do love so many other things 🥰

thank you for sharing

Saltlakris är min FAVORIT!!

4:17, Lisa fnissar åt lördags godis. Så gullig😂

You're awesome. Absolutely the BEST EVER! 💯

The liquor stores sound just like Minnesota. We have municipal liquor stores and until like 3 years ago could never purchase liquor on Sundays so we always forget that we can now still. Lol!!

I’m another American living in Stockholm with my Swedish husband. I also can’t with the licorice, but my husband loves it and he too will mix them in with the rest of the bulk candy if I’m not watching!

I’m from Sweden and I loooove djungelvrål and black saltylicorice😍

Dutch guy here... We love salty licorice in the Netherlands!

you know I want some of that licorice... haha sorry Lauren. Now we are going to sit on either side of you. theres no escaping!! lololol I also love everything about afternoon coffee breaks, obviously people fuel up on coffee in the afternoons, but its like a quick Starbucks mission. Im more about the break, and the coffee AND the sweets--- this is one thing I love about central America and latin cultures, they do this too! =)

In case no one has mentioned this before, there's a story to Systembolaget. I don't know how true it is but it's the main one I've been told while growing up. It's simply based on that sometime in the 19th or 20th century, people were going out on the Friday when they got their paycheck and bought alcohol. LOTS of it. It got so bad that many Swedes (even to this day simply because it's tradition) had soup and pancakes on Thursdays. Why? Because there wasn't any other food left at home and no money to buy groceries. Depending on your income, this could, I imagine, also partially be because you just didn't earn enough compared to the amount of mouths you needed to feed. But because a lot of people were putting too much of their paycheck on alcohol, Systembolaget was instated and you had to bring a little booklet with you if you wanted to buy (like an ID!) to show how much you'd bought already. It's also why the opening hours can be wonky. At least they sometimes were before I moved from Sweden. It was simply a nation-wide intervention to the amount of alcohol being bought, a call to "control yourself because you live for more than yourself". But! As said, I've not dived into deeper research about this but I've been told this story when I asked and I've seen some older drawings when I did a light search once. So I won't swear that it's 100% spot on. Just that I'm 90% sure it's close to the truth. :)

A Finn here. salty liquorice is life!!!

This video is awesome! I love this topic.

Freshly arrived Californian and I ALWAYS say NO to salty licorice. Its horrid but my husband loves it!

Salty candy is sweet too.

Well i'm a Dane. and i like our Swedish brothers and sisters love salty licorice. The rest of the world don't know what they are missing out on. :-))

I'm swedish and ofcourse i love salty licorice, or i love the salt and then i spit the rest out when the salt is gone. Also the clapping bit killed me, it was hilariously true.

Went to Sweden, couldn't buy flat water, I mistook flat water for fizzy water twice, it's just impossible to get flat water unless you buy one bottle at a time

I love salty liquorice! I am from the netwrlansa and we eat it there as well!

The knullrufs is real! charmig hon Lauren....

hahah omg im a swede and no lie love this, I haven't like notice it but everything is so normal to me, and that thing about our style, loved that part, just saying!!!!

this was great for me as a Swede 🇸🇪👍

Exactly the same like in Estonia, but we are probs even more extreme then swedes with these things xd

I'm not a fan of using exaggerated superlatives, or to ask someone how he/she is doing without actually meaning it. The first is a part of how people hollow out the language. Some seem to think that they need to exaggerate everything in order for it to mean something, which will start making nuance go away as the normal words lose all impact. We'll get left with a very dry and boring language. Asking someone how he/she's doing without meaning it just comes across as fake friendliness. Not necessarily in an intentional way, but I do feel that it feels a bit empty. I prefer human connections that actually feel genuine.

I love salty licorice. I do agree with keeping it away from other types of candy. I dont want my sweet candy to have salt on it

Funny and True.

älskar saltlakrits, absolut det bästa i godishyllan!

Guys, please help me out here. What's with the lack of health food stores in Sweden? Am I missing something? This German who lives in the US is currently on her third visit to this awesome country.... Just can't work that one out. Millions of good looking, clearly healthy Swedes (minus all the bulk candy and kanelbullar of course) and no organic stores, or at least only teeny tiny ones???Love you two by the way. You are incredibly adorable!

I LOVE SALTY LIQUORICE! and the salty liquorice ice cream you have in Sweden

Djungelvråååååål , so goddamn good.

Salty licorice is my favourite! \o/

Salty liquorice is the best!

Norway is on my bucket list

Salmiakki is not the best thing in the world, I prefer liquorice in most cases, but I do enjoy salmiakki sometimes, but there is 1 exception, and that's ice cold salmiakki koskenkorva, that's just the best thing.

Lisa knows what I mean, djungelvrål ftw

Svensk saltlakrits är ju heaven on earth!

Love salty licorice ❤️❤️😍😍 but I’m a swede so...

Salty liquorice is the best.

More videos like this. I like salty licorice.

In Holland, salty liquorish is mandatory by law I think. Not sure. :DHaha... no, I have tasted it. Not bad, but I have a sweet tooth...

Love salt lakrits!!!

You two are so cute ☺️

salty liquorish really is a once in a lifetime experience. ;) try it once, never again

Djungelvrål!! Haha

Swede here;)

you guys have heaven's eyes, so beautiful, take care.

Has Lauren tried Djungelvrål? 😜 Cause it’s frickin’ delicious, and none of my non-Swede friends get it. 🤷🏼‍♀️

I tend to shrink from superlatives, but my wife love to use superlatives.

Well most American beers are not good. I have also been told that they cannot make coffee.

We had a Finn in our Erasmus and salty liquorice was NOT the most popular thing in international dinners. But for some reason, i was the only one who liked it a lot. I'm Croatian btw haha

You are both so cute!

Lisa ser så typiskt svensk ut asså :'D På ett positivt sätt!

"I'm asking a swede how their day is going and they assume that i actually ask how their day is going". Well ofc, you literally ask how our day is going :O

Swedes never ever sit next to each other at buses, trams etc. We cant even wait for the bus in one group, we rather stand as far as possible from each other! No eyecontact no talking

Oh my goodness, I almost forgot this interaction I had with a Swedish man! I am South African, Zulu. We greet everybody! It's disrespectful not to greeet. I had been in Sweden for about 2 weeks and I made the mistake of greeting a stranger. He looked up in shock and nodded when I said hello. I then made a grave mistake and asked how he was! At this point his shock had turned into disgust and he said "talkative aren't we??" The funniest interaction I've ever had in LIFE!

haha watching this as a swede is pretty funny, all these things are so normal to me 😂 and I will never ever understand the "how are you doing?" as a hello. like, that's a question! about ones we'll being! how is that a hello?! and I think it's super embarrassing when I've been abroad and someone says that and I'm like "oh I'm okay I guess" and they're just like "..... ok then"

I’m a Swede living in Spain, and one typical Swedish thing I do all the time is that I say “tack” (thank you) so much... Like a real Swede 😂 Even though I should say your welcome I say thank you. Also taking off my shoes everywhere, that I got a little better with that now though (maybe cause I have no Spanish friends 😭) but I still feel like if you go inside someone’s house you DO take your shoes off... It’s not nice to vacuum alllllll the freaking time? Shoes in the sofa etc.. 🤔 Well, I guess there are many other typical Swedish things I do, but can not recall right now. To early 😴

Alltså det går ju INTE att gilla sötlakrits men saltlakrits är livet ❤️👍🏻😂

Love salty licorice!!! #thelittleswede

I've never thought about saturday-candy only being a Swedish thing. When are american kids aloud to eat candy? 😂

You two are so cute!!! I'm from Southern California and married a Swede last year. So I've been living in the countryside (middle) of Sweden for almost 10 months, and I can totally relate! Another thing I've noticed is that there is a LOT less eating out here... so not many restaurants but lots of pizza places and fika places that only have sandwiches & sweets to eat. I'm not big on coffee, candy or sweets (and I do NOT like salty licorice!) My favorite parts of Sweden: the abundance of forests, the feeling of safety and how people trust each other 😊

Born and bred American here who has never felt at home in my own country. After watching this video, it is clear to me that I would be better suited for life as a Swede. I hate small talk and intrusive customer service, am very introverted and keep to myself, prefer language that is to the point and not overly effusive, and well....bulk candy aisles sound like paradise to me. Ditto, being surrounded by stylish, good looking, cultured people. The only drawback for me would be the cold weather.

I've also found saying "I love you" isn't as frequent as it is for Americans. Early on I'd say it at the end of phone calls and my bf wouldn't. When I questioned him on it he said Swedes don't need the constant reassurance and I should know he loves me because he calls me älskling. He's become more Americanized with it as time has gone on. 😂

GIRL that 'how's the day going' drives me crazy! my in-laws are latinos and they're constantly asking 'como te va' but you're not supposed to answer that! it's a way of saying hello. now dude, i'm italian and if you ask me how i'm doing i'll tell you, just like a good swede! 😂😂😂

We watched this in school and it made so many of the students happy to see that they took a video from a lgbt couple, because that would never happen before

I don't know whether it is the same in Sweden, but here in Iceland when everyone starts clapping in unison it means "again", "more", "encore" or something like that. P.S. just stumbled on your channel and find it adorable

Finland has lördags godis also, the kids i take care of at daycare get SO excited :p we have this kiosk chain called R Kioski and no doubt they have at least 10 tubs per store! Bleehhhh salty licorice , was not for me :p Systembolaget sounds a like like Alko here ;) very interesting video thanks you two!

How much planning do you really need when Systembolaget is open 6 days a week 10- atleast 18:00..

I'm from Sweden and my girlfriend is from Serbia. She too has a hard time understanding "lördagsgodis" whilst I think it's totaly logical. It just seems wierd letting kids eat candy every day... and the same goes for chips! Could you do a candy comparasing video? Swedish/American?

Lördagsgodis is for kids...grown ups can eat candy whenever they want....true story!

Sweden sounds great. Personally, I drink very sparingly. Also, (from Aspie perspective), I grew up taking verbal language as more literal than most people. Over time, as both a writer and general communicator, I started getting a better grasp of when people are speaking rhetorically, sarcastically, figuratively, and in ways embellishing on facts for persuasive effect. Learning to identify, interpret, and utilize such techniques for personal expression became... Something that I may compare to someone training themselves to be ambidextrous.

Great video! I am from the Netherlands and we to like salty liquorice and would answer also the same when asked how our day was going 😁

So so funny !!! We moved to East Texas two years ago from the east coast. As each of my kids came to stay with us, I had to tell them, "do NOT say to anyone you run into "hey, how are ya doing? " , because they are going to stop and TELL YOU how they are doing! And if you have to be anywhere in the next 30 minutes, YOU'RE GONNA BE LATE! Baaaahahaha!!! It's just a general greeting on the east coast just like the left coast!

Sweeties, what a fresh, funny topic! Loved it! Definitely shoot more such videos and I MISS LAUREN SPEAKING IN SWEDISH, SHE IS ADORABLE! Every time I have experienced cultural differences, it made me feel as learning precious new things way more valuable than the textbooks. Have not yet been to Sweden, but if you don't mind it, I'd love to come to Stockholm when you are there to both see it and to meet you. ❤💋

We are going to Sweden next month!! We are picking up our car and plan to drive around!! We are super excited!! Any ideas on places to see??

I cannot live without saltlaktits, for real I filled half my suitcase with it when I went to Malaysia for 3 months.

The main good thing about Systembolaget is that the staff generally have a very high level of knowledge about all of the products they sell, that is not quite the experience i've had while shopping for wine or beer while being abroad. It's more about selling quality than it is quantity, and that was the original point, because back in the day before the government regulation was a thing we drank our selves to death in Sweden. :P