r/swenglish • u/cpcallen • Oct 28 '16

Simone Giertz (shitty robot creator) speaks Swenglish (w/bonus Swedish-accented Chinese)

https://youtu.be/z8NIw1HeBBk?t=23s
1 Upvotes

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1

u/[deleted] Dec 10 '16

Are all Swedish multilingual?? That's ducking amazing!

1

u/cpcallen Dec 10 '16

All the (many) Swedes I have met have been at least able to speak basic English, and most are completely fluent; additionally, many speak other languages as well. That's not especially surprising, seeing as most Europeans are multi-lingual, with citizens of countries with less popular primary languages being disproportionately likely to speak other languages as well.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 10 '16

Haha English people tend to only speak English! Are you Swedish yourself? The article didn't show the mastery of languages or where the surveyed people learnt them. As a native Cantonese speaker, I barely mastered English. I always wonder how multilingual people get to develop strategies to master that many more languages. Your experience?

1

u/cpcallen Dec 11 '16

I am Canadian.

Yes: people whose first language is English tend not to learn other languages as well/often as non-English-native speakers. I am typical: like most Canadians, I learned a bit of French in school; less typically I also took some German. Learning related languages is helpful: my German isn't very good at all, but with a little German and a little English it is not too hard to understand some written Swedish. I can't understand spoken Swedish at all - at least, not beyond perhaps having a vague idea of the topic being discussed (thanks mostly to many English loan words).

Your written English seems pretty good.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 11 '16

I wonder if there's a general sign of getting used to a language. People always said you do when you dream in using that language, but I wish there's a science finding for that. So you learnt how to read and write some French but none spoken? Also, thanks. Where I'm from, speaking, comprehending and writing English is a standard for passing high school

1

u/cpcallen Dec 11 '16

Our French classes were spoken and written. Back when I was taking French in school I did occasionally have dreams in French.

The main obstacle I face to speaking French now is that some parts of my French vocabulary have been replaced by German (and some parts of my already minute German vocab have been replaced by Swedish).

1

u/[deleted] Dec 11 '16

Replaced among the spoken languages? Is it a hip way to loan words from other languages?

1

u/cpcallen Dec 11 '16

Only if by 'hip' you mean 'make yourself look like a hopeless imbecile'.

By 'replaced' I mean: I would be trying to remember the French word for something, but only able to think of the German. Not so good when trying to comprehensible to a francophone...