In Norwegian, we have this saying “Ta en spansk en” which translates to “Take a Spanish one” which we use if we want to take a rough turn or do something a little wild.
In Danish, when the wind is really strong we can say “Det stormer/blæser en halv pelikan”, it directly translates to “It’s storming/blowing half a pelican” and I have absolutely zero idea why. It is an older saying though, so not everyone will know it.
learning a scandinavian language is just *watches skam* *“this is a weird norwegian dialect oh it’s danish”* *dreams about northern lights* *watches movie in swedish instead of norwegian because you’ll take what you can get* *goes to ikea with friends and tells them what all the names of things mean even though they don’t care* *drinks voss* *pretends that cheese in a tube actually doesn’t taste that bad* *tries to make friends with natives but they speak your own language better than you do*
It’s so much fun to watch Swedes from different regions argue about which one of them “sings” the most when they talk because they both “sing” just as much but in different patterns and they’re so used to their own pattern they can’t tell they have one
Graph of the different Swedish pitch accents. (source)
(Fun fact: Finland-Swedish speakers actually do NOT have the singing accent. Which is also why when I hadn’t been learning Swedish for a long time yet some people in Sweden assumed that I was from Finland. Because my pitch accent sucked)
Native Swedish speakers, I challenge you to say a sentence or two and recognise the pattern from your dialect region!
![IN [LANGUAGE] WE DON'T SAY ...](https://64.media.tumblr.com/avatar_84ac7e4b41dc_30.png){kind=avatar}
