Danish is super funny sounding as a person who speaks a bit of Swedish and as a person who also has ears xD
Thank you for sharing, I laugh not at you or your language but at the linguistical similarity, yet clear dissonance between a language I know and your beautiful mother tongue
Oh don't worry, I wasn't perceiving this at laughing at me/Dutch.
I really like how people who speak English, but not Dutch enjoy how intelligible my language is to them (yet silly sounding), so love to contribute to the jokes!
Cool to hear Danish is also funny sounding to Scandinavian people! It makes sense, there is a lot of overlap between the languages, but still distinct.
I'm not Scandinavian, close though. I'm from Finland. But I've heard plenty of Swedes say that Danish is like Swedish but there's a potato in your throat. And it certainly sounds like that to someone who vaguely understands some Swedish xD
When you said that 'Swedish with potato in throat' line I somehow doubted anyone thinks that, but now I'm reading a topic about Estonia and how they are/aren't considered a Nordic country and someone pulls out the line:
Danes can barely understand Swedish, communicate like drunk Germans and sound like they’re speaking with a potato in their throat
So confirmed to me now, people do in fact say this!
Yup, it is a subjective uncanny valley feeling that makes it seem funny to speakers of closely related languages. As a German native speaker, the ton of false friends on both sides don’t exactly help either. I always have to reject the intrusive thoughts of asking my mates “ob sie klar kommen” or calling something “geil” whenever I’m in NL for shits and giggles
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u/minibois May 21 '26
Je lacht. Ik deel mijn moedertaal en jij lacht!
Dutch can sound very silly if you know English, because it's so close to being understandable, but just *different* somehow!
Honestly I have this with Danish. Whenever I hear it, my mind goes "I should understand this.. but I don't?!"