Are there any Norwegians or Swedes who DON'T speak English?

[raccoon]

Other than some who are elderly and live in rural areas?

Just wondering...

[supernova]

1. They study foreign languages

with a vengence.

At my last job, I edited ESL technical writing and almost always, the nordic folks had the best work of anyone in the ESL group. The mistakes I corrected in their work were mistakes that native English speakers make. Except for the name I forgot I was reading ESL writing. That was about it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. They start English in fifth grade

and continue it all through high school.

Then, since their countries are so small and their languages have so few speakers, they have to use mostly English and German textbooks for their university courses. When we visited relatives in Norway back when I was in high school, everyone under 40 and over 10 could at least get by in English.

The most fluent speaker was a university music professor, who had studied all his music theory and music history courses out of English-language textbooks. He did most of the interpreting when we talked to older people, like my grandfather's brother.