If you’ve been following my recent posts, you’ll know I’ve embarked upon a new journey of late. It’s a strange, yet also strangely familiar one. I’ve skipped across the Norwegian frontier and am learning Swedish.

Learning a language so closely related to one you already speak is a very particular kind of language learning. Uniquely, you’re not starting from scratch. In fact, you most likely already have a decent degree of passive comprehension, either in reading, listening, or both. It’s what made annual Melfest viewing so much more rewarding, despite never having studied a jot of Swedish formally!

Because of that passive comprehension, though, beginners’ resources are much less useful when you hop across to sibling languages. For one thing, they’re boring; you feel like you already know the basics, as everything is so familiar. Instead of step-by-step textbooks, a better tactic is systematic exposure to higher-level media like podcasts, TV shows and current affairs apps, with a mindful eye on learning the features that distinguish the two languages.

Swedish ≠ NOrwegian in Disguise

Naively, I thought that might be almost entirely tonal, before I started out on my language family hopping. But no – Swedish isn’t just Norwegian with a cutesy accent. There are a lot more vocabulary differences than I’d expected.

Sometimes these are due to borrowing from different sources. Swedish, once the language of an expansive European great power, might have a Middle German loan (like fråga, question) where Norwegian has a North Germanic root (spørsmål). Other times, it’s Swedish that preserves the Norse root (bjuda, invite), while Norwegian has an international interloper (invitere). And then there are times they both go native in different ways (Swedish jämföra and Norwegian sammenligne, to compare).

In any case, my Swedish vocab strategy is to audit the mismatches I find, rather than make a record of all the vocabulary I come across. It’s fascinating watching it come together, like a tale of two siblings who were thick as thieves before going their separate ways. You can see the results so far below, a rather random hotchpotch of items I’ve spotted my recent listening and reading. It’s still early days, and it’s impossible ever to make this exhaustive, of course.

But that said, I hope other double-Scandi learners find it interesting and/or useful!

The Great Norwegian – Swedish Mismatch List

Nouns

🇳🇴	🇸🇪	🇬🇧
en avis	en tidning	a newspaper
en bedrift, et selskap	ett företag, ett bolag	a company
en edderkopp	en spindel	a spider
en flamme	en låga	a flame
en forskjell	en skillnad	a difference
en lommebok	en plånbok	a wallet
lykke, flaks	tur	(good) luck
oppførsel	beteende	behaviour
ei pute	en kudde	a pillow
et samfunn	ett samhälle	a society
en sang	en låt	a song
en sky	ett moln	a cloud
en ting	en sak	a thing
en ulv	en varg	a wolf
en utfordring	en utmaning	a challenge

Verbs

🇳🇴	🇸🇪	🇬🇧
bruke	använda	use
finde	hitta	find
fortelle	berätta	tell
invitere	bjuda	invite
like	gilla, tycker om	like
pleie å gjøre	bruka göra	to usually do
sammenligne	jämföra	compare
snakke	prata, tala	speak, talk
spise	äta	eat
stole på	lita på	rely on
unngå	undvika	avoid

Other

🇳🇴	🇸🇪	🇬🇧
alle	allihop	everyone
cirka	ungefær	approximately, about
den eneste	den enda	the only one
en om gangen	en i taget	one at a time
en slags …	en sorters …	a kind of …
fordi	eftersom, för att	because
… igjen	… kvar	… left (over)
klar	redo	ready
nettopp (gjort)	precis (gjort)	just (done)
nå for tiden	numera	these days
selvsagt, åpenbart	självklart	obviously
skuffet	besviken	disappointed

Are there any biggies you’d add to this nascent list? Please share in the comments!