Swedish course in Helsinki

[sammy]

there have even been instances where the Finnish and Swedish versions give completely contradictory instructions.

Btw, when it comes to spoken "finlandssvenska" it is also worth noting that many speakers also pour Finnish words into the mix, so you'll hear something like jag har tappat min kännykkä or har du paperit med... the logic of which particular Finnish words it is "ok" to drop in escapes me.

I don't know if I could spot the difference between written Swedish-Swedish and Finnish-Swedish in, say, novels - that's partly because I haven't read so many novels in Swedish. Perhaps I should give it a go though... I love Bo Carpelan's works but have only read them in Finnish (IIRC he writes in Swedish though so they're translations)

[Mumintroll]

there have even been instances where the Finnish and Swedish versions give completely contradictory instructions.

Haha.
I'd hate to think what would happen if you bought this to add to your coffee:

[sammy]

Two lumpy ones please...

Mind you this is a bit OT but check out this interesting example on how to translate "back" and "next" into Finnish...

[AldenG]

I would say it is easily dismissed by the fact that very many Danes and Norwegians often opine that it is much easier for them to understand spoken Swedish by a Swedish-speaking Finn than that of a Sweden-Swede. Southern Sweden,

Well, thank you for that. Rather than dismissing my point, it precisely illustrates it. Native speakers from either side of the Gulf may not have trouble understanding the other. (Though I remember ones who did have trouble.) It is the non-native speakers for whom learning one does not ensure they can function in the other.

[Mumintroll]

I would say it is easily dismissed by the fact that very many Danes and Norwegians often opine that it is much easier for them to understand spoken Swedish by a Swedish-speaking Finn than that of a Sweden-Swede. Southern Sweden,

Well, thank you for that. Rather than dismissing my point, it precisely illustrates it. Native speakers from either side of the Gulf may not have trouble understanding the other. (Though I remember ones who did have trouble.) It is the non-native speakers for whom learning one does not ensure they can function in the other.

No, you misunderstand which is probably my fault for drawing an inappropriate comparison. Danes and Norwegians obviously do not function in Swedish. The languages are separate, clearly, but mutually intelligible (to a large extent... some of us Swedish speakers may rather disagree on that about spoken Danish!). It is just that some Danes and Norwegians have said that spoken Swedish from Finland is somewhat clearer than some Sweden-Swedish accents in terms of its pronunciation. So, if anything, learning Swedish in Finland would perhaps be a better move for a foreign-language speaker! Perhaps my example was bad, as it does not really have an equivalent in English (there being no mutually intelligible languages to it).

But anyhow, it does not matter where you learn Swedish, you will understand the varieties spoken in Sweden and Finland - at least, the prestige versions. Certainly, someone who learns English in the USA, may have more difficulty understanding the English spoken in e.g. Scotland and would certainly have difficulty with very colloquial forms. However, it would be nonsense to suggest that someone who learnt English in the United States could not understand the English spoken in Scotland, particularly non-dialectal prestige forms. The situation is very similar between Sweden and Finland.

Again, where you may have an advantage in learning Swedish in Finland is that we are probably equipped with a wider understanding of all Swedish versions than people exposed only to Sweden's Swedish. This likens the British, who are often far better equipped to understand US English as they are active consumers of American media and culture whilst the opposite is not always the case. That said, it would obviously be a gross exaggeration to suggest that this means Americans can't understand British English - there will just may be the very occasional word that they may not fully understand. This is analogous to the situation between the Swedish of Sweden and Finland; although, in the prestige versions there are probably even fewer differences than those between UK-US English - and that is certainly the case in the written language, where the differences are much less substantial than that between UK-US English.

[AldenG]

Using the same example, you seem to think my point was that Finlandssvenska is some "inferior" form of Swedish. That was not my point at all. In fact, I returned to emphasize that as far as I can recall now, I've never found a Swedish-language author I liked better than Donner. In part, that was to reassure that his language doesn't sound "wrong" simply because it sounds different. My point has been that learning to understand Finlandssvenska in any variation doesn't mean a non-native speaker will be able to function with it in Sweden. There's a good chance the person would end up using English instead.

When I refer to Donner's writing, I'm talking about the fiction cycle based on his family, largely centered around the character of Angela and later also Gabriel. Other than occasional newspaper columns, that's all I've read of his writing. To me it doesn't seem pointedly informal, though I guess it depends on what you take as the norm. On a scale of formality/informality, it seems to me no more (or less) informal than most of the contemporary fiction written anywhere. Now Anna-Liisa Härkönen, THERE'S an example of being pointedly colloquial -- at least her first novels, which are all I've read of hers. Not Swedish, of course, but a clear point of reference at least.

But to another matter (while I have your expert attention): what is your interpretation of "stabban" in "I år får jag gå liksom stabban in smedjan" in the folk song "I fjol så gick jag med herrarna i hagen"? I've heard conflicting interpretations and some confusion from both sides of the Gulf.

[AldenG]

Certainly, someone who learns English in the USA, may have more difficulty understanding the English spoken in e.g. Scotland and would certainly have difficulty with very colloquial forms. However, it would be nonsense to suggest that someone who learnt English in the United States could not understand the English spoken in Scotland, particularly non-dialectal prestige forms.

Well here we agree on the first sentence but not the conclusion in the second. I don't think we'll get much further than that.

It's not just a place like Scotland, though. Many Americans (not so much me, but many) do have more trouble hearing British English than you seem to realize. And my Finnish wife who studied British English did have a lot of trouble with even fairly mild regional accents in the U.S. for several years. (For that matter, she would probably have experienced the same difficulties with regional accents in Britain.) And because she's in a talking profession now, she had to deliberately unlearn her carefully cultivated British pronunciations because some of her less-educated clients had to ask her to repeat often. As Finnish-speaking Finns go, the remnants of her Finnish accent are very mild.

I do agree with you that a midwesterner or maybe even someone with one of the New York City accents will probably be understood right off the plane at Heathrow. I'm not equally confident they'd do well at understanding what they heard.

[AldenG]

The Swedish refers to metric seconds and the Finnish refers to Cyrillic seconds? Or narrow-gauge and wide-gauge seconds?

Did you hear about the tourist who came home and told everyone about the wonderful Russian restaurant he visited on vacation? He couldn't remember where it was but said they should easily be able to look it up in the phone book because he wrote down the name: Restaurant Ravintola Pectopah.

I also recall liking Bo Carpelan, though at present I can't recall what I read.

[Pursuivant]

Naah, the Finns were from Häme so they got a longer fuse...