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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

OPINION: Is it just me… or has English taken over Stockholm?

You can't escape the English language in the Swedish capital, says Australian podcaster Oliver Gee, who's beginning to wonder why he bothered learning Swedish at all.

Published: 16 December 2020 11:06 CET
Updated: 16 December 2020 17:53 CET
OPINION: Is it just me… or has English taken over Stockholm?
Oliver Gee, left, with the CEO and co-founder of The Local, James Savage. Photo: Oliver Gee/The Earful Sweden

I lived in Stockholm from 2011 to 2015 and never really noticed the English language. Sure, there were menu translations, the occasional British pub, and an English language corner in most bookshops… 

But then I turned away for two seconds (well, five years)… came back to visit, and learned that English appears to have become the city's official language. 

That's right. English has well and truly taken over Stockholm. 

For example, I visited the hip Gast cafe in Vasastan, and was gobsmacked to see that the entire menu on the wall was in English. The sign out the front says “Welcome in for brunch…”, their social media pages are only in the same English that the baristas use… in fact the only Swedish things were the name of the cafe (which means Ghost) and the cinnamon buns. 

 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

 
 

 
 
 

 
 

A post shared by Gast (@gastcafe)

I couldn't help but wonder how an elderly Swede might feel to have to decipher such a menu in their own capital. 

On a visit to Swedish clothes shop Cos in Östermalm, I watched a British cashier answer Swedish-speaking customers in English. And no one seemed to mind or even notice. One 60-year-old woman switched to English with the same ease I've watched Swedes assemble flat pack furniture.

If these exchanges happened in Paris (where I live), the local customers would not be impressed. 

“We're in France, we speak French,” is a phrase I've heard more than once (in French, of course).

In fact, I've been in Stockholm for a few days now, walking around in utter bamboozlement. 

My (Swedish) wife said her hairdresser only speaks English. I turned on the TV and marvelled to see Eurovision hero Loreen speaking more English than Swedish on the hit reality show Så mycket bättre. Her first words to fellow Swedish contestants were: “OK, give me the news, give me the nasty details”.

And the Swedish Queen just did a speech in English about Alzheimers on the Royal Family's Instagram page.


Swedish fiction in English at the Hedengrens book shop in Stockholm. Photo: Oliver Gee

Elsewhere, Hedengrens book shop on Birger Jarlsgatan says half their stock is in English. They even had a whole shelf with books from Swedish authors which had been translated into English. Take a second to think about that. Bookshops in foreign countries are usually like airports, with their English section (if it exists) offering just a few bestsellers and crime novels. 

Want more? Well, company voice messages often begin with “For English press 1” before the Swedish begins; I've seen up to six English shop names in a row on Drottninggatan; and don't even get me started on Swedes peppering their conversations with highly odd English phrases. 

So what does it all mean?

Well, I think we can take a few things away from this. Obviously, Swedes are excellent at English, but we knew that already.

It also shows, perhaps, that Stockholm realises that if it wants to play on the world stage, then it better be ready to embrace English. 

But my big takeaway has been that maybe, just maybe, you don't need to learn Swedish if you want to live in Stockholm. English is more than acceptable, seemingly everywhere.

And I can't help but feel a little bit sorry for the newcomers who choose to stick to English, and who risk missing out on the pleasures of learning such a beautiful language as Swedish.

Oliver Gee runs the brand new podcast The Earful Sweden. The latest episode features more on the English language in Stockholm with guest James Savage from The Local. You can listen to the episode below and follow The Earful Sweden on Instagram here.

Member comments

  1. Been in Sweden for 12 years now. My Swedish is slightly better than elementary. I have always been working in English and I believe I deliver a better value doing so.

    I like speaking Swedish when I can, but I don’t stress about it either.

  2. Wow, this is some pretty nationalistic bile. How the heck will the language disappear with more peopke speaking English now than 5 years ago??!! Because of a menue, when everything else is in Swedish, including Rikstad . U never think to see it as being open to tourist..considering that STHLM is not much of a world city compared Copenhagen. Even in Paris, Rome have all taken into consideration tourism with the use of English and even Chinese in some places. Forget non-europeans…not even other Europeans will come to Sweden unless it’s for studies or relationships, so any effort to have English more visible is for tourism because to live perminantly in this society, u need the language…though by Swedish standards..it will never be enough.So don’t worry, Sweden will remain lily white.

  5. In Stockholm, yes, I would agree has a bit more English being spoken as it is more cosmopolitan. But just go a little outside Stockholm…. not too far …..and the same ol’, same ol’ is very apparent

  6. I’ve been travelling to Sweden for a long time and the Swedish people (and the other Scandinavian countries, too) seem to want to speak English. It is the international language, I guess, and I understand it is taught in Swedish schools from an early age. I have always found that if you go outside of the major cities into the country, people will speak to you first in Swedish until they realise you are an English-speaker and then switch to English without hesitation or irritation. I don’t necessarily agree with Oliver’s view that Stockholm has decided that English needs to be spoke so that it can play on the world stage. I think it is much more natural than that. It’s just the way it is – and I would suggest that Copenhagen, another city I know well, is like that, too. The people of my two favourite countries have always made me feel welcome. The only downside to all this is that my Swedish is probably worse than Oliver’s – and I am a bit older and have had more time to learn the language but have been too lazy to do so.

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FOOD AND DRINK

OPINION: Are tips in Sweden becoming the norm?

Should you tip in Sweden? Habits are changing fast thanks to new technology and a hard-pressed restaurant trade, writes James Savage.

Published: 5 April 2024 13:59 CEST
OPINION: Are tips in Sweden becoming the norm?

The Local’s guide to tipping in Sweden is clear: tip for good service if you want to, but don’t feel the pressure: where servers in the US, for instance, rely on tips to live, waiters in Sweden have collectively bargained salaries with long vacations and generous benefits. 

But there are signs that this is changing, and the change is being accelerated by card machines. Now, many machines offer three preset gratuity percentages, usually starting with five percent and going up to fifteen or twenty. Previously they just asked the customer to fill in the total amount they wanted to pay.

This subtle change to a user interface sends a not-so-subtle message to customers: that tipping is expected and that most people are probably doing it. The button for not tipping is either a large-lettered ‘No Tip’ or a more subtle ‘Fortsätt’ or ‘Continue’ (it turns out you can continue without selecting a tip amount, but it’s not immediately clear to the user). 

I’ll confess, when I was first presented with this I was mildly irked: I usually tip if I’ve had table service, but waiting staff are treated as professionals and paid properly, guaranteed by deals with unions; menu prices are correspondingly high. The tip was a genuine token of appreciation.

But when I tweeted something to this effect (a tweet that went strangely viral), the responses I got made me think. Many people pointed out that the restaurant trade in Sweden is under enormous pressure, with rising costs, the after-effects of Covid and difficulties recruiting. And as Sweden has become more cosmopolitain, adding ten percent to the bill comes naturally to many.

Boulebar, a restaurant and bar chain with branches around Sweden and Denmark, had a longstanding policy of not accepting tips at all, reasoning that they were outdated and put diners in an uncomfortable position. But in 2021 CEO Henrik Kruse decided to change tack:

“It was a purely financial decision. We were under pressure due to Covid, and we had to keep wages down, so bringing back tips was the solution,” he said, adding that he has a collective agreement and staff also get a union bargained salary, before tips.

Yet for Kruse the new machines, with their pre-set tipping percentages, take things too far:

“We don’t use it, because it makes it even clearer that you’re asking for money. The guest should feel free not to tip. It’s more important for us that the guest feels free to tell people they’re satisfied.”

But for those restaurants that have adopted the new interfaces, the effect has been dramatic. Card processing company Kassacentralen, which was one of the first to launch this feature in Sweden, told Svenska Dagbladet this week that the feature had led to tips for the average establishment doubling, with some places seeing them rise six-fold.

Even unions are relaxed about tipping these days, perhaps understanding that they’re a significant extra income for their members. Union representatives have often in the past spoken out against tipping, arguing that the practice is demeaning to staff and that tips were spread unevenly, with staff in cafés or fast food joints getting nothing at all. But when I called the Swedish Hotel and Restaurant Union (HRF), a spokesman said that the union had no view on the practice, and it was a matter for staff, business owners and customers to decide.

So is tipping now expected in Sweden? The old advice probably still stands; waiters are still not as reliant on tips as staff in many other countries, so a lavish tip is not necessary. But as Swedes start to tip more generously, you might stick out if you leave nothing at all.

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