Simple Swedish Podcast - #272 (2/2) Vad kan jag om era länder?

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

Nivå: B1-B2 (del 2/2) Jag går igenom länderna där den här podden är som mest populär, och berättar vad jag kan om dessa länder. Hur bra kunskap har jag om ditt land? För att läsa mer om bootcampet - klicka här För att registrera dig för ett gratis Q&A-webbinarium: Söndag 16/3 15:00 - registrera dig här Måndag 17/3 19:00 - registrera dig här I dessa möten träffar du mig och kan ställa frågor direkt till mig om bootcampet! --- Transkript Vad kommer sen?   Ja, nästa land är Lettland!   Så vi fortsätter med de baltiska länderna här.   Lettland, huvudstaden är ju Riga.   Och Riga har ju också varit en del av Sverige en gång i tiden. När Sverige hade lite imperieambitioner så försökte Sverige bli en stormakt och försökte ta över hela Östersjön.   Som sagt, det är väl bättre nu, att länder får vara sina egna länder, och så kan man bygga allianser istället.   Jag tror att..det känns som att Sverige har bra relationer med de baltiska länderna också.   Jag har inte varit i Lettland än, men det är klart att det skulle vara väldigt kul att besöka landet.   Jag vet att det finns många basketspelare därifrån, och folk är ganska långa.   Vad vet jag mer? Jag vet inte så mycket faktiskt.   Jag vet att lettländska och litauiska, att de språken är..inte jättenära, men de är i samma språkgrupp - de baltiska språken - som är en separat språkgrupp inom de indoeuropeiska språken.     ..om du vill läsa hela transkriptet, klicka här!

Welcome to part 2 of the episode where I talk about what I can do about your countries, my listeners' countries. I'm going to talk a little little faster in this episode and before we start I just want to remind you that we have a free Q&A meeting about the bootcamp so a meeting where you can come and ask questions to me and my colleagues about the bootcamp that is this summer and the times for that are on Sunday, the 15th of March time the day after, Monday, March 17th, at 19.00. I will leave links to register for these in the description. So check the description for links to these meetings.

Hope to see you then. Now we will listen to the episode, or the other parts of the episode. What comes next? Yes, the next country is Latvia, so we continue with the Baltic countries here. Latvia, the capital is Riga, and Riga has also been part of Sweden once in a while. When Sweden had some imperial ambitions, Sweden tried to become a great power and take over the entire Baltic Sea and so on. As I said, it's better now that countries can be their own countries and then you can build alliances instead. I think that it feels like Sweden has good relations with the Baltic countries as well. I haven't been to Latvia yet, but it would be fun to visit the country. I know there are many basketball players from there and people are quite long. What else do I know? I don't know that much actually. I know that Latvian and Lithuanian, the languages are not very close, but they are in the same language group, the Baltic languages, which is a separate language group within the Indo-European languages, such as German, Slavic, and Baltic languages.

There are more than those two languages, but those are the main languages in the Baltic language range. I don't know if I know so much more about Latvia, unfortunately. I might have to go there and find out more. Yes, there is some kind of food, some kind of pink soup or something like that, I think. I think it's Latvia and not Lithuania. But like many others, it's easy to mix Latvia and Lithuania together, unfortunately. But I think it's Latvia that has the pink soup. Okay, so the next country on the list is the Faroe Islands. And that is in a bunch...

I would say that it is a country, even if it is a part of Denmark, officially, but the Faroe Islands have their own language and their own parliament and they're an autonomous area in the Danish Empire. So it feels more like a country of their own. And the Faroe Islands are very small, and it would be cool to go there, of course, because it's a Scandinavian country with a Scandinavian language.

And I don't know if it officially belongs to Scandinavia, but the language is at least a Scandinavian language and it sounds very different and very yes it feels very interesting the language I like language so of course I am interested in the language so of course so what do I know about the Färanda? It's very small, it has less than 100,000 people living there. Now it's a bit of a trick because I saw it recently, I think it was like 60,000 or 60,000 I think. So a very small country. And I think the capital is Tosh Havn. How to pronounce it in Färööyska, I don't know. And...

Yeah. I had a colleague from Färööyska when I worked at the hotel in Turkey. And it seems that they can also speak Danish, but their mother tongue is Faroese, so cool, interesting language. Yes, and the next country on the list is the Netherlands. So here we have a slightly larger country, and it's a bit fun that the list is the Netherlands. So here we have a slightly larger country. And it's a bit fun that the Netherlands are...

Well, it seems that the ones that are highest on the list are close to Sweden geographically. And the Netherlands, well, the capital is Amsterdam, and I've been there twice actually. I've also been to Haag. Haag was a pretty nice city. It had a really big beach and the beach was... or is... it's three parts. One part that has like... Or was it two parts? It was at least one part with bars and stuff. And then there was one part that was just nature. So I thought that was a bit cool.

And Amsterdam is an enormous city of beauty with lots of water flowing around and lots of beautiful buildings. I know that the difference between Amsterdam and Rotterdam is that during the Second World War Rotterdam was completely destroyed, while Amsterdam was not destroyed at all. So that's why Amsterdam still has these old houses, while Rotterdam has only new buildings. Rotterdam also seems to be a pretty cool city, but I haven't been there. There are a lot of other cities like Groningen, which is a student city. And one thing you know, as people who are quite familiar with Amsterdam, is that the country is below sea level, which is crazy that it is by the sea, but below sea level. So I have when you think of

the Netherlands, I always wonder why it's called the Netherlands and it's called in all languages ​​like Paisas Bajos in Spanish, that is, the countries, the low countries. So I wonder if it's because the country itself is so low, below sea level, or because it's below some other country that decided that it would be called the Netherlands, I don't know. But I think it should be because the land level is so low. I remember reading about it, that it was because in the Middle Ages or something like that they dug so much. I don't remember why now, but it was something that they were so insanely effective at digging, and it probably had to do with soil use.

That they would dig so that they dug so much that the country became under sea level in the end. And that is a weak point if there would be war and so that the sea would be a kind of risk. But yes, and the Netherlands is, I think, a very cool country, purely politically, because there is a lot that is allowed there. I mean, everyone knows that the rules are quite relaxed when it comes to for example drugs and such, but that there is not, in Sweden the rules are very strict, but I am quite sure that we have more problems in Sweden with drugs than what we have in the Netherlands. So it's also interesting that we have dared to go a way where we have more permitting rules. And it often makes it less problematic. We We see that in Portugal, for example.

Yeah. And... What else? We can go to the next country. But it's reasonable that the Netherlands is here, because I know that I've had many students from the Netherlands and many from the Netherlands who seem to be interested in Sweden and buy summer clothes in Sweden. So yes, you are warmly welcomed, all of you from the Netherlands. So the next country on the list is perhaps a little unexpected, and that is Switzerland. Because Switzerland is not very close geographically, and I don't really know why Switzerland is so high up. Yes, that's a little interesting. What about Switzerland? It's an interesting country in terms of language.

There are four official languages. The country is divided into cantones. Each canton has its own laws, rules, culture and it's also a country that has so called direct democracy. Which means that they have vote for the people and the people vote for becomes law. So in all other democratic countries, the vote is advisable. This means that politicians don't have to do what the people vote for. So we can have a vote for the people in Sweden

and then the politicians can decide for themselves if they should do that or not. But in Switzerland it becomes like that. It becomes legal if you have a vote for the people. And you can also... If someone collects more than, I don't remember exactly, but like 100,000 name signatures,

then it automatically becomes a vote for the people. So it's very interesting, and there's also not one president, but I think they have several presidents. I don't know the details, but it's a very interesting political system and one thing that I find interesting about it is that the fact that the people can, that the people have much more power. This also means that politicians cannot do exactly what they want. I know that for example in Sweden there are political issues where a majority of the Swedish people think in a certain way, but the political parties

still choose not to do so. And that wouldn't work in Switzerland for example. I'm not saying that I am sure of all this, because as I said, this is just my spontaneous knowledge about this.

So, yes. But I have a lot of spontaneous knowledge about this so... so yeah but I have the feeling that it is this way so if you are from Switzerland, you can tell me if I'm wrong okay, we probably won't be able to do it all on this list but the next one is actually very, very unexpected. And that is Luxembourg. That Luxembourg comes later.

What do we have? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. In ninth place we have Luxembourg. I don't know... You who are from Luxembourg, who listens to this podcast, please hear from yourself and tell me why you want to learn Swedish. I actually know nothing about Luxembourg more than in the banking sector, which is pretty crazy. I also know that there are three official languages.

It's German, French and Luxembourgish. And Luxembourgish is a very strange language because it's like a mixture of German and French. So, yeah, it's a bit% that it's true, but I've heard that in school in Luxembourg, you start school in Luxembourgish for a few years, and then you have a few years in French, and then a few years in German. So that everyone is 100% fluent in these three languages, so that the school time is divided in these three languages. So not that you study the language itself, but that you have the whole school time first in one language, then in another language, and then in the third language. And I can't say that I know that it's so 100 percent, but I

really believe that if you want the whole population to be able to speak three languages fluently, you have to do it this way. That you have the whole school year, all subjects are in that language for a while. And then that you have the whole school year in the other language. Like that. Not that you should study the language itself, but that you actually have the subject in that language. So, that was number 9, and number 10 was actually Denmark. Denmark is a neighbor country, and it was the first country I visited as a child. I remember that I thought it was cool that there was a city called Fredrikshamn. Denmark and Sweden have a lot of history. But I don't think I'm going to go into this episode anymore, because it's already been quite long, but I've started to make the episode a bit longer in general, so you can listen to it and comment and tell me what you think about the episode being a bit longer.

Do you think that's good? Or is it better with shorter episodes so and before we end with that so I must also say that there was one country that was the most unexpected And finally, New Caledonia is number three. After Sweden and Finland, New Caledonia is coming. I didn't include that on the list because it's not my own country, it's part of France. But I wanted to say that you or you, I don't know how many people there are from New Caledonia, but if there's someone from New Caledonia who listens, I'm very curious about why you or you listen to this podcast And I can't say that I know anything about Nya Kaledonien More than that it's a small island or island group that's far away from here. So that was that anyway and I hope you liked this episode and if I have spoken

about your country and said something wrong, then you are welcome to hear from me and correct me. Have a good one and I'll see you again in the next episode. Bye bye!