Unpopular Opinion
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Swedish is my third language. As I became more proficient in it, I quickly realized how many nuances and how much content you actually miss by only communicating in English while you live in Sweden.
Yeah, I had a similar experience with learning Dutch when living in The Netherlands.
That said I can understand the problem for native English speakers to learn other languages even when living abroad in a place like that: the locals usually speak English so well that when they hear somebody trying to speak their language but finding it difficult, and that person has an accent from an english-speaking country, they just switch to English, so the only way for the other person to keep on trying to use the lical language in day to day life to improve it is to forcefully keeping on speaking it even when a local has switched to English which can be interpreted as rude (I've actually had to do that once or twice, though not usually because my accent is from a country were most people can't speak English decently).
I wouldn't at all be surprised if that kind of thing also happens in Sweden.
I get it. I have only succeeded at learning languages I've been sort of forced to learn, even when I've also genuinely wanted to learn them.
I wanted to study an undergraduate degree that is only given in Swedish, so I went to school specifically to learn Swedish before that.
I work with programming so I'd get away only with English but somehow I've managed to reach a point where people mostly speak to me in Swedish, even though I don't look Scandinavian. I have a coworker that keeps talking to me in English and I reply to him in Swedish and sometimes it takes him a while to notice we're speaking different languages.
It does require a sustained effort and I slip when I'm lazy or tired. Also, having to use a language that doesn't let me project the best of me can be challenging as an adult.
All of that is very much how it went for me, even down to the whole extra difficulty to look and sound articulate and knowledgeable when one is has the extra barrier of speaking a language when one is far from mastering.
If you live in Sweden, sure.
If I occasionally travel throughout Europe for work and pleasure, should I try to learn everything or stick with English?
If you don't have any specific interest in a language you'll probably do fine in English.
I'm sure that applies to all languages. Ironically I often struggle to express myself in my native language because I lack the finnish vocabulary for many on the words I use in english. Some words translate only into sentences and there often is no equivalance for many words in other languages.
Yeah I agree that it applies to all languages. I mean mostly that while it's easy to get away with just English in places like Sweden, it's not an equivalent experience. I really appreciate being able to communicate in Swedish here.
But yes, while my native language is Spanish, there are many things I can express better in English, and even Swedish. For example I learned a lot about myself emotionally and socially at the same time I was learning English as a teenager, and I struggle communicating these things in Spanish. I also only got proper therapy in Sweden and as a result, I express many aspects of my mental struggles best in Swedish.