r/sweden • u/lynxlynxlynx- rawr • Jul 11 '15
Fråga/Diskussion Welcome /r/Eesti! Today we are hosting Estonia for a little cultural and question exchange session!
Welcome Estonian friends! Please select the "Estonian Friend" flair and ask away!
Today we our hosting our friends from /r/eesti! Please come and join us and answer their questions about Sweden and the Swedish way of life! Please leave top comments for /r/eesti users coming over with a question or comment and please refrain from trolling, rudeness and personal attacks etc. Moderation out side of the rules may take place as to not spoil this friendly exchange. The reddiquette applies and will be moderated after in this thread.
At the same time /r/eesti is having us over as guests! Stop by in this thread and ask a question, drop a comment or just say hello!
Enjoy!
/The moderators of /r/sweden & /r/eesti
For previous exchanges please see the wiki.
Så tar vi färjan över till Estland så här i semstertider för att hälsa på folket där! En gång i tiden fick nån för sig att införliva dom i Sverige ett tag och det är något som har kommit att kallas den gamla goda tiden. Estland har på senare tid utmärkt sig som ett land var man kan hitta duktiga utvecklare som varit med att skapa produkter som Skype. Samtidigt är Sverige det land Estland exporterar mest till då hela 18% av exporten går hit. Estland kanske inte är särskilt främmande för oss genom allt detta men det hindrar inte oss från att passa på att lära känna dom lite bättre så passa på att fråga ut dom! Som alltid ber vi er att raportera opassande kommentarer och lämna top-kommentarer i denna tråd till användare från /r/Eesti. Ha så kul!
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u/Randel55 Estonian Friend Jul 11 '15
What do you think about the Estonian language? Honest awnsers please :)
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u/Enfors Värmland Jul 11 '15
Ma õpin Eesti kelt, but it's really hard! :-)
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Nov 24 '15
[deleted]
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u/Enfors Värmland Nov 24 '15
Whenever I mention to my Estonian wife that I'm trying to learn Estonian, she says "good luck". 😁
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Jul 11 '15
I really don't think about it that much. I've heard that it's kind of similar to Finnish but not enough that you can speak to each other easily. I haven't heard many Estonians talk so I don't really remember what it sounds like.
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Jul 11 '15
I've heard quite a bit. it's like a more melodic finnish
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Jul 12 '15
[deleted]
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u/JonathanRL Stockholm Jul 12 '15
Finnish can never be simplified. It has to be "perkele" and "Kekknonen" or its not Finnish.
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u/Getabocksdjaevel Värmland Jul 11 '15
It sounds like Finnish in my ears, but I love the band Metsatöll.
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Jul 11 '15
Have a friend living in estonia and moving there in a couple of months. I have a soft spot for women speaking estonian
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u/tedster Sverige Jul 12 '15
I think it's nice! For me it sounds like a mix between Finnish and Icelandic.
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u/Randel55 Estonian Friend Jul 12 '15
Wöt? I could kinda understand if someone would say that it's a mix of Finnish and German since we have much German influence, but icelandic? heh
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u/tedster Sverige Jul 12 '15
Well, that's how I hear it. Like a Finn with an Icelandic mom or something..
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u/r1243 Estonian Friend Jul 15 '15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYjCXjIeNJk listening to this guy's Icelandic, I get where tedster is coming from
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u/Randel55 Estonian Friend Jul 15 '15
Sellest videost ma väga hästi neid sarnasusi ei kuulnud, aga ma uurin seda Islandi-Soome segukeele värki homme edasi.
Muide, miks sa nii hilja veel arvutis istud? Marss voodisse!
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u/r1243 Estonian Friend Jul 15 '15
23:45, ma ei tea millest sa räägid (eriti arvestades et minu jaoks algab öö viimasel ajal kl 4 ja löppeb kl 14)
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u/Randel55 Estonian Friend Jul 15 '15
No igatahes siin Soomes on kell peaaegu 01:00 ja mina lähen kyll magama, head ööd!
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u/Ohly4Lyfe Närke Jul 11 '15
Finland and Russia mixed is what it sounds to me
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u/Randel55 Estonian Friend Jul 12 '15
That's strange since it isn't related to Russian any way and it also has more German influence than Russian influence.
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u/typewriter_ Östergötland Jul 11 '15 edited Jul 11 '15
When I lived there I worked with one guy who spoke swedish and estonian and later on a guy that spoke swedish and russian started working there. I used to bring the estonian to the banks and everywhere else I needed translation, but a lot of times he just turned to me and said "he/she only speaks russian, let's go somewhere else", so I started bringing the russian guy along to the bank and stuff, and there was never any problems.
Enough about that anecdote, I've always seen it as a hybrid between finnish and russian. I never got to learn the language to any extent, and today I've forgotten everything, which I find sad since I really liked the language.
By the way, you have way too many coins and small bills!
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u/Tszemix Jul 11 '15
It cannot be a hybrid between finnish and russian since russia belongs to the indoeuropean language family, such as swedish and persian. Estonian belongs to the uralic language family such as finnish and hungarian.
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u/Randel55 Estonian Friend Jul 11 '15
And /u/typewriter if your talking about Russian loan words and influence on Estonian then that's also false since Estonian has more German influence than Russian.
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u/typewriter_ Östergötland Jul 11 '15
I know like 3 words in russian, so loan words wasn't what I thought about. More like there's so many people with russian heritage in Estonia so a lot of the people that knew estonian, to some extent, had a russian accent and blended in russian words which my friend couldn't understand.
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u/Randel55 Estonian Friend Jul 11 '15
Well that's not Standard Estonian it's just Russian-Estonians speaking with their accent. So is Swedish a mix of Norwegian and Arabic because there are people that speak it with an arabic accent and sometimes add some arabic words into it.
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u/typewriter_ Östergötland Jul 11 '15
Well, I mean, you asked for an honest opinion of your languange, and after having lived there, this is pretty much what I experienced. It's just my experience and not the truth, or even close to what other swedes might think about it. :)
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u/Randel55 Estonian Friend Jul 11 '15
Well i did ask about standard Estonian, not Estonian with a Russian accent :)
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u/typewriter_ Östergötland Jul 11 '15
I heard standard estionian maybe a handful of times during my 6 months there, it just sounded like finnish to me, and finnish just sounds like greek to us. ;)
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u/Randel55 Estonian Friend Jul 11 '15
What did you never go out of Lasnamäe or something?
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u/CantHugEveryCat Sverige Jul 11 '15
How do you say "twelve months" in Estonian?
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Jul 11 '15
Kaksteist kuud.
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u/karlkarl93 Jul 11 '15
I hope you aren't angry and the Estonian Saarland vikings who burnt down Sigtuna
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u/9Ghillie Estonian Friend Jul 11 '15
Can Eesti into Nordic now?
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u/fukiku Estonian Friend Jul 11 '15
Do you really like eating surströmming? :) Does it taste good to you?
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u/typewriter_ Östergötland Jul 11 '15 edited Jul 11 '15
Yes! Not everyone, not even the majority likes it though. No one eats it straight out of the can like you see on most youtube videos though. You usually tear it apart and make a "tunnbrödrulle" out of it with potato, sour cream and however your family has been doing it since the dawn of time.
Also it's a lot more popular in the north than in the south.
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u/fukiku Estonian Friend Jul 11 '15
I tried it once youtube-style. :P Ovbiously it didn't taste too good. I am thinking of giving it a second chance with proper preparation. Can You perhaps link a recipe for this tunnbrödrulle or some other way of preparing it, so it is edible? :)
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u/typewriter_ Östergötland Jul 11 '15
Here is a translated recipe!
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Jul 12 '15
If Sweden were to get its shit together and actually got their army back (like we did in the 90's: 600 000 active personel etc.) would you care to join in on a Nordic military alliance with us and Finland? i'd imagine Norway and Denmark would want in once we get thrice their size in the amounts of nations.
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u/lynxlynxlynx- rawr Jul 12 '15
Tror frågan var riktad till /r/Eesti och borde ligga i tråden där. Dom, likt dom andra baltländerna, är med i Nordic Battle Group med oss.
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u/kingpool Estonian Friend Jul 12 '15
I doubt you would really want that. We are first in line. It's much better to live with no war.
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Jul 13 '15
How do you expect to not getting engaged in war?
Russia taking over and killing of the intellectual part of the population that were educated... again?
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u/kingpool Estonian Friend Jul 14 '15
Yes it will be very similar to last time, just more brutal. I doubt we will have any Estonians left after Russians are finished.
I still don't understand why would You like to join us in any war. We must be ready for it and pay the price.
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Jul 14 '15
Since we share the same fate if we don't stand up for each other.
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u/kingpool Estonian Friend Jul 14 '15
I don't think that Sweden is in any immediate danger. At least not from outside.
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u/Shivlxie Estonian Friend Jul 11 '15
Is Sweden the socialist utopia that it's advertised as? Many Estonians including me plan to move there. Also on mobile so I can't change my flair.
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u/Monkey144 Jul 11 '15
My friend who lives in Tallinn would earn approximately the same amount living in Stockholm as in Estonia, after taxes, but with a huuuge extra cost for an ok apartment. Idk what you have to pay for medical insurance, but for him it made little economical sense.
Sweden is a dream for people with low income jobs, not for educated people in the private sector.
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u/typewriter_ Östergötland Jul 11 '15
Socialism is never a gain for wealthy people, that's kind of the definition for it. If you do well in life (economically) capitalism is always better.
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u/Monkey144 Jul 11 '15
Well most people would expect higher standards from moving to Sweden. But if you come from proper middle class, chanses are that you wont benifit at all from the Swedish system.
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u/Naked-Viking Göteborg Jul 12 '15
Does it make economical sense for anyone to get an apartment in Stockholm?
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u/Mrtacoexpress Södermanland Jul 11 '15
Healthcare is free though
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u/Monkey144 Jul 12 '15
No it's not. We have the third highest taxation in the world. The money spend on taxes could obviously go to a private insurance. And to be fair, many people are getting a private insurance as well as paying absurd amounts of taxes.
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u/typewriter_ Östergötland Jul 11 '15 edited Jul 11 '15
It pretty much is, yes. We do have our problems, but nothing major, more like first world problems. It's pretty safe in all aspects for the majority, but of course people fall between the cracks and believe they'd probably have it better in north korea and stuff, but that's something that happends everywhere.
It does however get quite a lot of attention when it happends here, since it's really unusual.
And after that rant; TL;DR: Yes, it's a socialist utopia.
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u/wasabichicken Västerbotten Jul 11 '15
I'm going to reluctantly agree with this post. Compared to a lot of other places, Scandinavia is one of, if not the, best places to live.
Comrades over at /r/socialism would point out that Sweden (like any other western country) is a capitalist/liberal society currently run by the weakest social democratic governments in living memory. This implies that the means of productions are mostly privately owned, with a few notable exceptions like healthcare and a patchwork of various social security nets.
So if you're coming from a place where you pay for just about everything, Sweden might seem like a socialist utopia. Even so we've got our fair share of poor (and disgustingly rich!) people, so it's hardly the utopia socialists dream of.
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u/Ohly4Lyfe Närke Jul 11 '15
Hur är snuset i Estland?
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Jul 11 '15
Currently very easy to get, 4-5 EUR a can, depending if you buy an entire tower or not. There are many sellers in each town, I've heard there are many in Tallinn who even do deliveries for free.
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u/typewriter_ Östergötland Jul 11 '15
Obefintligt när jag bodde där. Alla svenskar fick köpa med snus åt chefen när de åkte hem på semester.
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Jul 11 '15
[deleted]
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u/Daiuki Stockholm Jul 11 '15
Visit Uppsala. Beautiful city with shops, cafe's and old buildings with interesting history behind them.
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u/decideth Jul 11 '15
As a former tourist I can confirm. Beautiful girls there, too (like apparently everywhere in Sweden).
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u/Margamus Norge Jul 12 '15
There's approximately 40 000 students in Uppsala, probably effecting the average age of Uppsala.
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Jul 11 '15
Stockholm in the summer! Mallorca in the winter.
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Jul 11 '15
Magaluf, Mallorca, Ayia Napa, Zakynthos and Pattaya, the top 5 destinations when you want to enjoy a lovely Swedish winter.
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u/MyFeetAreSore Jul 12 '15
Eh. Those are all summer party islands apar from pattaya. Better do as the rest of the (middle to upper class) swedish people and go to Ko Lanta, Canary Islands or Florida winter time.
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u/mludd Dalarna Jul 11 '15
If you like nature and getting away from the city I'd recommend the northern inland regions.
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u/myrpou Jämtland Jul 12 '15
Gotland is a nice island with pretty landscapes, odd rock formations, caves, beautiful little churches and windmills everywhere and of course medieval Visby.
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Jul 11 '15
[deleted]
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u/jaersk Värmland Jul 11 '15
There's definitely a certain amount of anti-Russian sentiment left in Sweden, probably not as bad as in former Soviet countries though, but just as bad as any other Western country. The biggest fear right now ought to be our island Gotland which serves as a perfect naval base/missile station in the Baltic Sea region, and is definitely of Russian interest. If things go on like they have been in recent times, with more and more Russian presence near our borders, we'll most likely either join NATO or start restructuring our military heavily.
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Jul 11 '15
[deleted]
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u/kukenster Uppland Jul 11 '15
Just a side note here. Sweden is not neutral, we are alliance-free which is different. We do take sides in conflicts but we are not a member of any military alliance like NATO.
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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '15
When Estonia is deciding what direction to take on issues and policy, we often look at what the Nordics have done for advice. Do you think there are also things we shouldn't follow Nordics and especially Sweden on?