Learning Swedish?

[Defiance]

That flag is the flag of Skåne, I think, not Finlandsvenskar. I'm pretty sure their flag has Mummintroll on it.

And as an American I'd like to once again remind everyone that most people from all countries are painfully uninformed about the world (I'd love to have you explain the American system of government or give you a map with the different states). It's just that Americans have a much bigger country and a part of a hegemony which makes it easier for them to get away with it.

I personally believe I'm quite informed of the world, but you know I do love to bash you Gringos hahaha. The US is, indeed, a big country, but I do think a lot of US Americans are quite ignorant when it comes to matters of geography and the likes. I once asked 4 of my US Am. colleagues which was the capital of Canada. 2 knew, 2 didn't. It made me happy, I thought no one was going to know ; however, the answers Toronto and Montréal worry me a bit.

I guess it's all explained in this book (you can download it in PDF with a Google search).

 

[Sigurðr]

I personally believe I'm quite informed of the world, but you know I do love to bash you Gringos hahaha. The US is, indeed, a big country, but I do think a lot of US Americans are quite ignorant when it comes to matters of geography and the likes. I once asked 4 of my US Am. colleagues which was the capital of Canada. 2 knew, 2 didn't. It made me happy, I thought no one was going to know ; however, the answers Toronto and Montréal worry me a bit.

I guess it's all explained in this book (you can download it in PDF with a Google search).

 

[lefay82]

al qaeda is a wing of the masonic order....ahaha....this almost killed me!!!!!

 

[NovembersDirge]

I repeat. I could go to any country in the world and ask the yokels about the world and get similar responses. Difference? Those countries don't have media empires.

 

[Defiance]

That flag is the flag of Skåne, I think, not Finlandsvenskar. I'm pretty sure their flag has Mummintroll on it.

Were you kidding or being serious ? Because Google images says otherwise, but I'd really like to know if it's the flag or not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE

yeah I've seen it a lot of times, still pretty funny. How about this one?

al qaeda is a wing of the masonic order....ahaha....this almost killed me!!!!!

Hahaha I prefer the "place a pin on North Korea and France", and it's Australia hahahaha.

I repeat. I could go to any country in the world and ask the yokels about the world and get similar responses. Difference? Those countries don't have media empires.

True and false. It really all depends on the level of education, and that, in the US, is not very good (I'm talking about normal public highschools here). But then again, I'm sure the standards of, say, Seattle, a lot higher than the ones in, say, Kansas . Higher education in the US is excellent, simply brilliant (MIT, Harvard), but the amount of people in the US that can go to a decent Uni is minimal. Having being in the US various times, interacted with many US Am. (in and outside of the US); I can objectively say that the educational standards are much lower compared to other "first world" countries. I've met really smart people from the US, but the majority seem quite stupid to be honest. And obviously the media has, as you said, an ever-growing, unbelievable, troubling, etc. amount of power.

 

[lefay82]

oh yes, that part is good too. together with the part "WHERE DO YOU THINK THE BEST PLACE TO INVADE IRAN WOULD BE FROM?" pointing australia again. and the two dudes who are discussing if it's better from the west or the est

speaking in general, i think ignorance is everywhere.
just think that here some people isn't able to speak correct italian, starting from verbs' conjugation !!!!

 

[NovembersDirge]

It is true that it depends on levels of education and I also agree that the US has very poor education systems unfortunately. However, our wealthy and affluent have fantastic educational systems. In that sense it's similar to a "third world country" (to use that poor terminology). That said, I have met some radically ignorant people from all over the world. They exist everywhere. Again, if every idiot from your country could get on TV and be an idiot and end up on YouTube we'd think all Italians or Swedes or Finns were fucking stupid. I think there is a desire to bring the US down because of the power issue and because the US looks like it's full of total goddamned nutbags from outside the country (and I agree that there are too many nutbags). But Sweden also has conservative Christian nutbags, and racist morons and people who don't know anything about geography. I've heard a Swede ask someone one time if she was from Czechoslovakia. ... Seriously.

I understand that I am not representative of everyone from my country, but I also know that there are plenty of people that I know who are very smart, well-informed and not at all representative of what's shown in those videos. And on top of that, because of this stereotype, I spend a lot of time defending the US from people who know absolutely nothing about it except for what's on TV—and who assume that it's representative of everyone. It's simply not.

Also, that is the Skånsk flag: If you search "Skånsk flagga" on Google images you'll see. It's a combination of the Swedish flag (the yellow cross) and the Danish flag (the red). Here's the Wikipedia page with it on it.

 

[Defiance]

oh yes, that part is good too. together with the part "WHERE DO YOU THINK THE BEST PLACE TO INVADE IRAN WOULD BE FROM?" pointing australia again. and the two dudes who are discussing if it's better from the west or the est

speaking in general, i think ignorance is everywhere.
just think that here some people isn't able to speak correct italian, starting from verbs' conjugation !!!!

yeah. If you notice, one time when he says "east" he's pointing to the west, and vice-versa .

It is true that it depends on levels of education and I also agree that the US has very poor education systems unfortunately. However, our wealthy and affluent have fantastic educational systems. In that sense it's similar to a "third world country" (to use that poor terminology). That said, I have met some radically ignorant people from all over the world. They exist everywhere. Again, if every idiot from your country could get on TV and be an idiot and end up on YouTube we'd think all Italians or Swedes or Finns were fucking stupid. I think there is a desire to bring the US down because of the power issue and because the US looks like it's full of total goddamned nutbags from outside the country (and I agree that there are too many nutbags). But Sweden also has conservative Christian nutbags, and racist morons and people who don't know anything about geography. I've heard a Swede ask someone one time if she was from Czechoslovakia. ... Seriously.

I understand that I am not representative of everyone from my country, but I also know that there are plenty of people that I know who are very smart, well-informed and not at all representative of what's shown in those videos. And on top of that, because of this stereotype, I spend a lot of time defending the US from people who know absolutely nothing about it except for what's on TV—and who assume that it's representative of everyone. It's simply not.

Also, that is the Skånsk flag: If you search "Skånsk flagga" on Google images you'll see. It's a combination of the Swedish flag (the yellow cross) and the Danish flag (the red). Here's the Wikipedia page with it on it.

Of course, that's exactly what I'm saying. It's true about the power issues, but the previous Bush administrations didn't really help portray the US as a smart country (I know that there was fraud in the 2nd one and yada-yada).

Yeah take Nederlanden, with this guy Geert Wilders. The racist fucker got to power, but was stupid enough to let it go.

I don't think "Third-world" is a "poor terminology", but an appropriate one; "Developing countries" mein Arsch, that's just another method that powerful countries employ so that the poor ones continue thinking that they're actually developing.

About the flag, then which is the correct one? If you have a Wikipedia account try correcting it, since that's the flag I got for Fin-Sve. I was actually wondering about the use of the colour red, it didn't match. That explains it all!

 

[Blind Guardian]

That yellow and red flag is indeed Skåne's flag.

Åland (the island with the Swedish-speaking Finns) has this flag:

 

[Defiance]

^ Takk! Certainly seems more appropriate, but I'm intrigued by the use of red there.

 

[Sigurðr]

^ Takk! Certainly seems more appropriate, but I'm intrigued by the use of red there.

that is a flag of a viking land, the red probaly represents all the blood of the slaughtered people that these vikings conquered, HAIL

 

[Defiance]

^ but the Vikings never conquered Finland, did they? I'm sure there were fights and all, but I think the Vikings were more focused on conquering England than any other country. Do correct me if you want, even if I know about them, I'm no expert in Viking history.

 

[Sigurðr]

^ but the Vikings never conquered Finland, did they? I'm sure there were fights and all, but I think the Vikings were more focused on conquering England than any other country. Do correct me if you want, even if I know about them, I'm no expert in Viking history.

You are right, vikings went to finland as well, to pick up some good woman but never conquered the country, but finland was over the sweden dominion for a couple years , it was in the 13th century if im right, sweden made a crusade to cristhianize some finns and they ruled over finland for quite some time

 

[Shankao]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE

Anyway, NovembersDirge, I understand you. I don't think all people is stupid there, and I'm sure, there will be a lot of well informed people in your country.

I don't know what do you think about Michael Moore. I saw "Bowling for Columbine", and the most interviewed people there, it's seems similar than Youtube's video people.

 

[Defiance]

hey defiance i have a question for you, what's the difference between the spanish in the latin countries and spain? i mean, the spanish talked in uruguay is exactly the same in costa rica and bolivia and chile? and spain?

There are a lot of differences between countries, and within countries themselves; it happens the same everywhere. However, there are strong differences between Latin-American Spanish and Spanish from Spain (better call it español peninsular or castellano, people there are quite sensitive to that topic). In Latin America Costa Rica and Argentina are exceptions, since we speak of "vos" (and here we speak of "vos", "usted" and now even "tu"), whilst most countries speak of "tu". If you go to say Colombia and say "usted" you'll get a "what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-this-arrogant-bastard look". I can understand anyone speaking in Castellano, no matter the country. Of course, it's a lot more difficult when it comes to idiomatic expressions (a personal issue, since I know more in ENG than ESP hehe).

 

[Elvina]

and what is "The Ulver eats the Jäger!" in your signature supposed to mean? i thought ulver was plural... or do you mean the band?

 

[Sigurðr]

There are a lot of differences between countries, and within countries themselves; it happens the same everywhere. However, there are strong differences between Latin-American Spanish and Spanish from Spain (better call it español peninsular or castellano, people there are quite sensitive to that topic). In Latin America Costa Rica and Argentina are exceptions, since we speak of "vos" (and here we speak of "vos", "usted" and now even "tu"), whilst most countries speak of "tu". If you go to say Colombia and say "usted" you'll get a "what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-this-arrogant-bastard look". I can understand anyone speaking in Castellano, no matter the country. Of course, it's a lot more difficult when it comes to idiomatic expressions (a personal issue, since I know more in ENG than ESP hehe).

whoa, thks! there are so many countries with spanish as mother tongue that i imagine the differences between the spanish, like the differences between your and allfader's spanish, and about the brazilian portuguese? its similar too or is difficult for you to understand?

 

[Defiance]

and what is "The Ulver eats the Jäger!" in your signature supposed to mean? i thought ulver was plural... or do you mean the band?

True! I forgot it's wolves, not wolf. It's something I simply invented, the wolves eat the deer, hence Ulver eat Jäger. .

whoa, thks! there are so many countries with spanish as mother tongue that i imagine the differences between the spanish, like the differences between your and allfader's spanish, and about the brazilian portuguese? its similar too or is difficult for you to understand?

Yeah the one ESP from here is a tad different than the one of Chile, but my general perception (in these two cases) is that they're quite similar at times. Yeah Castellano is more and more important these days, especially in the U.S.
To be honest I hate Portuguese, but that's just my opinion . Spanish and Portuguese are quite similar; I think I could easily understand a person from Portugal or Brazil, since the languages have more in common than say Italian and Spanish.

 

[Sigurðr]

Yeah the one ESP from here is a tad different than the one of Chile, but my general perception (in these two cases) is that they're quite similar at times. Yeah Castellano is more and more important these days, especially in the U.S.
To be honest I hate Portuguese, but that's just my opinion . Spanish and Portuguese are quite similar; I think I could easily understand a person from Portugal or Brazil, since the languages have more in common than say Italian and Spanish.

hmmm, why hate? the portuguese from portugal is very strange for me but the brazilian is different

 

[Elvina]

in my russian years i saw tons of brazilian soaps that were extremely popular on russian tv back then. I think brazilian portugese is very beautiful and is unlike any other language. I much prefer it to spanish, there were times i even wanted to learn brazilian