*Tak* Goodness for Nordic Languages

I purchased a Berlitz Nordic Europe phrase book / dictionary a few years ago in "preparation" for my trip to Sweden.

As if I was going to become fluent in Swedish in a matter of months.

That's one thing you can never fault me for . . . I always have good intentions, even when they're unreasonable.

Anywho, spoiler alert: I did not master Swedish.

But the following summer I traveled next door to prideful Norway and utilized the pages of my phrasebook a bit more.

In fact, I came away from that trip speaking two words quite fluently:

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Thanks - tak

Cheers - skål

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Useful.

To the point.

But not mind-blowingly impressive.

This got me thinking, though... was I even capable of learning any more of these similar languages?

I had taken a linguistics class in college and from the little I remember, all signs pointed to

"[h - e - double hockey sticks] no"

I decided to investigate my chances anyway. . .

And believe or not, I discovered that the Nordic languages are the easiest to pick up!

Really!

The internet told me so!

Norwegian (#1), Swedish (#2), and Dutch (#4) were all on the list.

I feel like this information is either completely false or extremely skewed,

but sometimes you have to just live and let the internet be.

(as long as it's not on political facts)

On this past trip to Amsterdam, I wanted to sound convincing with my pronunciations of those two words and wanted to pick up a few more words like:

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Please: alsjeblieft

Beer: bier

Another: een ander

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Did I use any of them: no. I mean look at "please".

I am lucky, though. People were nice enough to communicate with me in English.

Which is something I do not deserve, but appreciate nonetheless.

Now I have just one more "Nordic" European country to conquer:

the underdog and underrated land of Fin!

aka Finland

I am hoping by then to have a convincing pronunciation of perhaps a full sentence :

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Thanks! Another beer, please! Cheers!

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But we'll see .

Until then,

Skål

or

Proost (in Dutch)