MovieChat Forums > Forbrydelsen (2021) Discussion > SWEDEN/DENMARK connection question.

SWEDEN/DENMARK connection question.

posted 13 years ago by ib011f9545i
6 replies | jump to latest

Not really a question about the programme (which I have not yet seen although I love the Swedish WALLANDER)but I was wondering about the relationship between SWEDEN and DENMARK.
Sarah was going to live in Sweden and in WALLANDER people are always talking to the Danish police or popping over to Denmark for various reasons.

I have been to both countries several times,but not recently,I wonder how it all works,do they speak to each other in English or do they learn each other's languages at school?
Of course they are both in the EU so the passport stuff would not be an issue but what about culture?

[–] jepaan 13 years ago

In Denmark, Swedish, and Norwegian, is taught very little. I don't recall it being more than a few hours in total. I don't know if Danish is taught in Sweden, but I doubt it.
The two languages are very similar however, and eastern Danes and south Swedes can usually understand each other quite well.

The Danish and Swedish culture is very similar, and are basically just subsets of Scandinavian culture. Sweden and Denmark have had peaceful relations with each other for the last 150 years, including a monetary union and passport union, the latter lasting from 1952 until it was replaced by the common European union.

In short, Sweden and Denmark have very close connections, both political and cultural. There has even been some talk of joining Denmark, Norway and Sweden into a federal union.

[–] jax-28 13 years ago

They are close, but not close enough not to pose some difficulities. Sarah Lund's son had to learn some "remedial Swedish" for instance. Scandinavian immigrants learn to adapt which words and pronunciations cause difficulities with the natives, there are a good number of "false friends" for instance.

You can encounter Swedes and Danes speaking English to each other instead of their respective languages. In principle they shouldn't have to, but not everyone are comfortable with the other Scandinavian languages.

Sarah Lunds boyfriend was from the area of Stockholm which is some distance away, but the Swedish city of Malmö is just across the channel from Copenhagen, and with the recent rail/road bridge only a short commute away. This is where Nanna Birk Larsen and her boyfriend were planning to go, en route to Berlin.

[–] ib011f9545i 13 years ago

Thanks for the interesting answers.
I can understand the closeness in language and in geography but I also understand that they have different laws,an important point in a police drama perhaps?

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] magnuspetersson72 13 years ago

Sweden and Denmark has some different laws yes but not very different at all, they are pretty much the same (the only thing i know of is that prostitution is illegal in Sweden but legal in Denmark), Swedish and Danish police cooperates in real life as well, and so does the politics. For example, when the nuclear power plant Barsebäck in Sweden was shut down it was because of a referendum that was held in both Sweden and Denmark, the Swedish mayority wanted to keep Barsebäck but the Danish votes in the referendum forced them to shut it down. The relations between Sweden and Denmark is way closer than lets say the relations between USA and Canada, i dont think they would be allowed to have any referendum where they allowed people in Canada to vote on shutting down a nuclear power plant in USA. The languages are very simular, when i speak to Danish people i speak in Swedish, and they understand me, they talk to be in Danish, and i understand them.
I am Swedish so i know this, i travel alot between Sweden and Denmark

[–] mike-osullivan3 13 years ago

I raised this exact question with a young Swedish businessman I met in Copenhagen. He might have been joking but he said that if a Dane and a Swede meet in a foreign country they very quickly decide they don't understand each other, and revert to English.