Swedes 'best in the world' at English

Swedes 'best in the world' at English as certified by a swedish organisation.

What a surprize!

the swedes speak better english than most native english speaking countries. with a lot having a third language up their sleeves.

not hard though considering most yanks can barely read these days let alone speak. UK population speak like ali g and the yanks like w8nker gangsta's.

a study in australia revealed most kids thought yoghurt grew on trees!

And regarding English spoken in India...

We don't speak 'American' or 'British' English. We speak and use our own English called 'as' Indian English. And we are pretty good in it, obviously. :)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1563290/The-rise-of-Indian-English.html

Amazingly, the organization with an aim of bridging language, cultural and geographical barriers, seems to be not aware of it.

I have read their report.!

I find it is meaningless to judge and compare English speakers in 54 countries.

The survey was conducted among 2 million people. And the population of India is 1.4 billion. 2 million is not even 0.002% a 1.3 billion. How can this be a good sampling for a statistics?

@Freelife, if you find it meaningless, why are you troubled? If you are really concerned about the matter, carry out your own research in India and prove this ungrateful world wrong!)

Depends whereupon, the English we are talking about: Are we talking about the Slang Latin (Old French)/Latin/needless foreign words mess or actual English, which maintains most of the Germanic words, keeps the the befitting benoting of 'be' in place of 'have' (verbs that wend because of fare or growth and so forth). An example is, "I am changed" anet to "I have changed". It also keeps pronominals as opposed to folks beginning or ending their sentences with verbs not conjugating fittingly such as, "in it, in which, in what, in there and so forth". There are many more. However, If the latter, it will be a shock for a few seconds but much easier for Swedes to learn, if the former however, then that tongue real counteth not because it is not English ! Not to say that Native speakers are any better (we have been fed this diaglossia slang for eras upon eras now).

What do TOEFL, TOEIC, IELTS and those major international English tests? They must be providing more accurate results annual I guess? (But Swedes speak and write very good English, yes.)

I can't argue with this, everywhere I go in Sweden everyone can speak near flawless English. The standards are just so high, my uncle for example is embarrassed speaking English because he has only ever had a Swedish education and never learned English formally, but his high level of English amazes me, it's like he is a natural native speaker. If only people in Australia were held to such a high standard...

sorry i meant "What do TOEFL, TOEIC, IELTS and those major international English tests say?". (my English is bad...)

Freelife, I can converse quite readily in my native English with tanks, ozzies, kiwis etc.. but when I had the joy of attempting to converse with an indian call centre worker, its often a nightmare! You just don't always get the true context and meaning of words. As a rule 99% of young northern Europeans do, but their base language is similar, even if sentence structure changes a little.

@smilingjack,

not hard though considering most yanks can barely read these days let alone speak

It that the reason why the yanks have the best universities, world most renowned linguist, economist, inventors, literature and scientist ?

Congratulation to Sweden. I have to agree with the survey at least when comparing it to other European nations.

The Swedish are competent with the English language but not brilliant. The Dutch are much much better.

@artjok

Sir, I agree that most of the Swedes do speak very good English.

However, I disagree with this survey which makes a comparison is at a global scale. My comments was about this study in particular.

There many flaws in the survey.

Kindly refer to the official report of TOEFL scores.

http://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/71943_web.pdf

Page 9 & 10:- Average scores are Swedish(91), Danish(101), Finnish(98).

Even among Indians, the average TOEFL score of people with Konkani as their mother tongue is 101 as same as Danish.

The average score of the people who have the southern south Indian languages as mother tongue are Kannada(96), Tamil(96), and Malayalam(95) which is above the average of people with Swedish as their mother tongue.

Now the population of Kannada speaker is 37 million, Tamil is 85 million, and Malayalam is 33 million approximately.

It is absurd to compare average of 1.4 billion with the average of 9 million.

Obviously, in studies such as this, more the number, lesser is the average.

Also if you count the number of authors of Indian origin who have won 'the booker prize', you will realize the difference. I am not being a chauvinist. This survey has many logical flaws.

@Skogbo,

You are correct. But we Indians do not speak, British, Ozzi , American or Kiwi English. All we speak, study and use in India is 'Indian English' which a different English with its own features and peculiarities.

You must complain to the call center about that bad service. They have not trained there personnels effectively. They hired unqualified people to save money.

When someone wants something for cheap, obviously they should not expect that thing to be of high quality.

When I call to a Indian call center of a bank, they speak perfect 'Indian English'. Even my mother can understand them clearly. They are quite polite, humble and patient.

Could you ask that call center to be moved to Sweden? Do you think, it is ever gonna happen?

I would be glad to see these call center go away, where my people work all night till dawn speaking with rude people.

Of course. Swedes are Best in the World at Everything.

Just ask them.

@intripidfox. Correct. The Dutch are much better. The Finns, too.

Surveys, studies and tests should never be set in stone. Change a few factors and the Danes, Finns, Dutch or Norwegians might top the chart. I don`t think it`s any doubt that northern Europe is at the top though. Early schooling, english speaking movies/series and the easy access to the internet is the reason behind it.

Which means that Swedish language is practically useless (by considering the article).

If Swedes are the best in the world at English because many things are in English (which is true, from entertainments to literature), then why they insist so much from immigrants to learn Swedish language!

Let all speak English and forget Swedish, make life easier and more useful for everybody!

Also being understandable is important. For the untrained ear indeed indian english is not understandable, even though Indians are probably superior in grammatics and written English.

Regarding the northern european countries in the top 5. I think the Swedes have the best pronunciation. (apart from not being able to distinguish the sj sounds such as in cheese, ship, cheap etc.),

Danes, dutch and finns have a primary language that has some pretty heavy sounds, and this probably makes their english also a bit different. Swedish is a much softer language, and this may be the reason for their good pronunciation

@eppie

"Also being understandable is important. For the untrained ear indeed indian english is not understandable, even though Indians are probably superior in grammatics and written English."

There is a logical flaw in your statement. The statement is wrong.

1. We all Indians understand our own accent obviously, we are 1.3 billion.

2. Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Nepalese, Bhutanese and Sri Lankans speaks almost in an Indian accent. They are about half a billion.

3. Now what about Chinese? Well I have no idea, if they find which accent more difficult.

Now, Indian accent may be difficult to you. However, we don't speak so that mere Europeans or people of European ancestry understand. We speak so that we Indians understand each other. India has 26 different official language. We need this English to communicate among ourselves. Indian English is our main official language. Why should we change our accent? When our accent is 100% correct and legal in our country. That's is how we learn and use our Indian English.

Why do we Indians need a Swedish company wrongly set and gauge the level and standard of our English, just to make a propaganda themselves as better than people of 54 nations in the world? Why is this national Narcissism?

sorry, I meant online etymolgoical dictionary, not "oxford". it's at

http://www.etymonline.com/

So why can you still barely come by with just knowing English in Sweden then? Simple things such as a job, friends or any kind of social interaction seem limited to those speaking Swedish.

So how does this pay off to the crowd that also speaks English but not their language?

Freelife, if only Indians can understand indian english what purpose does it achieve?

@ Abe L.

They did not learn english so it could pay off for others who do not find the time to learn Swedish. Haha. They learned it to help themselves.

Anyways, very linguistic society here in sweden. maybe not the most social.

The vagaries of language - this one is about words that sound alike

She asked me what it what it's called in English I told her it's a shoehorn " No!", she retorted, "that's Swedish!"

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/USAAfricaDialogue/0J61KdX9PvE

In India, Jamaica and Pakistan they are best at it as well.

@ skogsbo

"if only Indians can understand indian english what purpose does it achieve?"

May be you need read a bit of history. English was push down our throat by the English colonizers who ruled India for 200 years.

People speak nearly 4000 languages in India. And Indian English is used as a common language.

Even our prime minister and president speak in Indian accent. Check youtube

I think Swedish are the best at everything.

freelife, but if it's an alternate Indian language that only Indians can follow, why do you expect it be benchmarked against global English which EVERYONE else uses and can understand. It's just another Indian dialect. There is no one forcing it on you now, it is your choice?

ps. coloniSers in English English, no Z, if you are blaming the English for the introduction of English, you should get it right. ;)

There are probably many reasons as to why Swedes apparently knows the English language. One of them probably is Sweden doesn't dub TV-programs but you have to read the translating sub titles instead. Imagine Clint Eastwood speaking French, German or Swedish with some other person's voice - horror! ;)

I will agree that Swedes speak brilliant English.

As I have told people here in the UK when you are in Stockholm its like you are in London (only better).

I'd hope that most people reading this are at least bilingual.

For once, I agree with something that smilingjack says. Having spent many years in London, and seen and heard how the common people speak and write, I've been of the opinion for a long time that Swedes speak better English than the English themselves.

Swedes do not put an apostrophe in common nouns, or even verbs!

Swedes know the difference between its and it's

Swedes know the difference between their, there and they're

Swedes know the difference between your and you're

and they can also spell "definite" correctly. Even though all native English speakers can spell "infinite", they somehow can't take a simple example and apply it to another word.

@Rishomin, you make good points Grasshopper, but what I think was being referred to was all the text-speak and gangsta-rap that is infiltrating down to kindergarten level these days.

@rise, I concur here too, watching native speakers is a good way to learn, although I have seen French VO TV in Sweden, it doesn't mean that Swedes can magically speak French.

@skogsbo - do you live in a forest ?

"coloniSers in English English, no Z, if you are blaming the English for the introduction of English, you should get it right. ; (#26 skogsbo)

@Freelife (#24)

Some backwoods Brits have difficulties with accents or spellings other than their own. Because they once ruled the waves, they are now unable to waive the (old) rules.

I am confident that Indians, like most educated people, understand that coloniZe and coloniSe are the same word. And that theatER and theatRE both refer to a building or outdoor area in which plays and other dramatic performances are given.

Your spelling was correct. Chinese and most young Asians also prefer standard American spelling and pronunciation, while aging Europeans are partial to what they refer to as "the Queen's English."

@Dijondel

"Swedes know the difference between its and it's

Swedes know the difference between their, there and they're

Swedes know the difference between your and you're"

I'm glad you brought that up because at least for me (as a Swede) it's sometimes difficult to understand what people means when writing "its" instead of "it's". In Swedish the words is "dess" and "det är" with purely different meanings. It is pure indolence to leave out the "'". To write "your" instead of "you're" is just plain stupidity.

P.S. About the sub titles for TV-programs... I wrote "one of the reasons", didn't I? ;)

@cogito

Thanks.

Swedish people might speak English well. They might even have accent closer to Americans or British.

However, I have studied for 2 years in Sweden, and I have been working among Swedes for more than 2 years. I find, they are not quite good in written English.

One can hardly find an English newspaper or magazine in Stockholm. It seems they don't read English as much they watch English movies.

As a native english speaker, I have to agree. The Swedes always amaze me in their ability to speak english so well. One reservation though, Swedes use too many

Americanisms.

I agreed that Swedish speak English better than others non native-english.

Swedes may very well be the best at English. But it really isn't saying that much. Yes, they can function in a business environment. And they can tell a run of the mill story without too much difficulty. But they still have no sense of any of the subtleties. And if they had to read the greatest English stylists of this era, the very things that make those writers great would be lost on the Swedes. Believe me, I could cite deeply important writers who would give just about any Swede a serious headache.

And if a Swede who speaks reasonably well should find himself in a conversation with someone who speaks English at a high level, the Swede should understand that the English speaker is simplifying his speech in countless ways.

Here's another kind of subtlety that the Swede probably doesn't realize. The differences between various Englishes (England, US, Canada, Australia, India, etc) are not very important compared to the differences between the hoi polloi and those who speak English at the higher levels. The well spoken Indian is going to be much more impressed by the well spoken Canadian than either is going to be by the typical Brit. The British accent only has value for American marketing firms. Once upon a time, English speakers the world over looked to England to set the standard for the language. Those days are over. These days the Queen's English is artificial and stilted and largely irrelevant. The great writers of today couldn't care less about it. So, if you are working on your British accent, you are wasting your time. You surely won't impress anybody who is worth impressing.

Why on the earth nobody discuss that if Swedish would not speak good English they would be idiots.

Since The Swedish and English belongs to the same language family (Germanic).

So it is to learn English anyway. See the links which are provied below.

If Swedish or those other Germanic language speakers would be real master of learning language, they would excellently speak other languages (i.e. Chines, Japanese, Russian, or Arabic, Turkish) too. However they are not...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Language_Families_Map.PNG

Yes, I agree.....Sweden is....

Congratulations to Sweden, not just for its population's proficiency in English, but also for teaching it without fear of losing its native language. Like it not franco phones and Esperanto nuts, as a result of the British Empire and American global influence, English is the worldwide language of commerce.

Quebec, could learn something from Sweden. Stop shooting yourself in the foot Quebeckers and teach your children English in order to allow them to compete in this world.