‘absolutely intercultural!’ – Show #4

In our last show we went east, and this time we are going north. The fourth show of ‘absolutely intercultural!’ is all about Scandinavia!

The show starts with “The Screaming Men of Finland”.

Right after that I asked Thomas Brevik from Bergen, Norway why he has two professional blogs? One in Norwegian and one in English? And if I had spoken in Danish and he in Norwegian, would we have understood each other?

What’s in a name? The law on names changed in Denmark recently so Trine-Maria Kristensen decided to change her name … or did she?

The show ends with a short piece about the living library, where you can not only borrow books…

The host and editor of this show is: Anne Fox

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4 thoughts on “‘absolutely intercultural!’ – Show #4”

  1. Hi Anne,

    I really enjoyed listening to the screaming men of Finland! Maybe we all should shout and scream more every once in a while…not at each other, of course. 🙂

    Well, thank you very much for the great show and I’m looking forward to seeing you on thursday.

  2. Hello and thank your for -another- very interesting show!

    My name’s Marlén and I’m originally from León, Spain, the absolutely lovely (;-)) place you talked about in your first show.

    After listening to Thomas Brevik I felt like posting a wee comment. I have spent some time in Bergen myself and I can state that Norwegians do speak fast, indeed! and that they do speak a lot of Norwegian so I agree with Thomas on the fact that it is not an endangered language. In fact, I believe that Norway and Norwegians are privileged, for they have their own language and culture, something anyone from abroad can easily appreciate when in Norway even though one gets by in English easily, anywhere. I remember some situations of my stay in Bergen when I realized that Norway is a ‘diglossia’place, sort of thing, where English and Norwegian coexist even ‘naturally’! The first one was when a group of kids of about 12 years of age approached me asking for money for their school trip. Unfortunately I couldn’t understand what they were saying so when I said in English, “sorry I don’t understand” one of them had no problem with shifting to English and did his query in perfect -even adult-like- English!On another occassion, an old lady asked me to change seats on the bus. Again, she first asked in Norwegian and as I looked like ‘sorry but..’ she switched into English and started a very nice conversation! I was amazed that everybody, absolutely everybody, was able to communicate in English! No matter the age, no matter their intellectual level… Speaking English seems to me part of the Norwegian way of life! I felt it was something so normal, whereas it is still a bit of a difficulty for us, the Spaniards sometimes…

    And that’s it… I’ll keep tuned!
    Best,
    Marlén

  3. Great show, Anne! Thank you for allowing us to share the “The Screaming Men of Finland”, a country I’m planning to visit next July…I’m in Argentina, and already enjoying the prospects of visiting this wonderful, so “personal” culture, and of meeting my dear friend Sus Nyrop for the firts time f2f!

    Thank you for sharing, now reading AND listening to people’s voices do make the heart fonder…;-)

    I look forward to seeing now!
    Hugs from Argentina,

    Rita

  4. I have yet to visit Finland and the Faroes to complete my Nordic education. The next Nordic edition will concentrate on Iceland and Greenland, both places I have visited. Hope you have a great visit Rita.

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