Odd Work During Travel To Scandinavia

Is late May/early June a good time to visit Scandinavian countries?

The nature is very nice at the time of the year, as the leaves have recently opened, so it is very green. This is especially true in the parts of the country with relatively less rain, like the Oslo area. On the other hand, July and August is the warmest period. Remember that Scandinavia is far to the north, so it might be and advantage to go there in the high summer. Late June, around 24. June is when the sun is up for the longest period. Swedes tends to have more celebration of this than Norwegians, so northern Sweden might be a good place to go at this date. Still, I would recommend late July/early August.

Which is the best Scandinavian language to learn and why?

This depends a lot on what you want to do with the language. Do you want to learn it for pleasure or potential business? Sweden is the most populous of the Nordic countries and, out of the 3 Scandinavian languages, Swedish is the most widely spoken. The country has a wider range of business opportunities and high-profile companies, thus making it the ideal choice if eventual employment or business is your aim. Apart from that, Sweden is also an EU member.I find Danish to be a bit of an odd-ball. Of the three Scandinavian languages it may the hardest to learn due to its unusual phonetics and what a non-native speaker might see as a considerable difference between the written and the spoken language due to a higher level of assimilation. Norwegians jokingly say that Danish sounds like Norwegian being spoken with a potato stuck in your throat. Norwegian is a happy middle between Swedish and Danish. In fact, it is generally considered to be mutually intelligible with both languages, while Danish and Swedish are not between each other. In reality, a non-native learner of Norwegian will find it relatively easy to read Danish and understand spoken Swedish, but might have some difficulties understanding spoken Danish and written Swedish unless proficiency is near-native level.Edit: The issue with Norwegian is that there are 2 official varieties of the language: Bokmål and Nynorsk. Bokmål is the most widely-spread version, whereas Nynorsk is mainly based on the dialectal varieties of the Norwegian west coast. Speaking of dialects, Norwegians are generally proud of their dialects, and you will hear them used everywhere. Whereas in many countries they are used in non-formal settings, with the standard version being used on the media and formal situations, in Norway you are most likely to hear different dialects in a single sitting of watching the news. This may be a massive hurdle for someone attempting to learn the language.Disclosure: I'm not a native speaker of any of the three, so my opinion is that of an "outsider" who has been studying Scandinavian languages and cultures. If anyone finds a flaw in my argument, please do correct me and I'll update the answer accordingly.

When and how did the Scandinavian countries become so egalitarian?

I can only speak on behalf of Denmark, but our society is egalitarian for a number of reasons; First, the Socialist Party had massive influence on political initiatives from the 1920s to the 1990s. In the decades after World War II they introduced a lot of policies - which today is known as the welfare state - and this has been hugely influential on ensuring that no one is left behind and no one leaves all others behind.Second, we have a very informal culture in Denmark that is dominated by something called The Law of Jante (i.e. Janteloven). It's not so much a la in the legal sense of the term, but more a set of moral guide lines. One of the lines from it says: 'Thou shalt not believe you are better than anyone else' and this lives on today. This was in fact exemplified yesterday, where a young graduate student who has just finished her studies said: 'She would find it odd to work as a clerk in a super-market' because she has used 6 years on studying International Business. Let's just say, that people went berzerk and called her words I won't reiterate here.Third and finally, we have some very strong unions in Denmark that has ensured a moral minimum wage. We don't have one in a legal sense, but it's widely accepted that our minimum wage is just shy of 110 kr an hour. This make it difficult for companies to set wages lower than that, and that ensures people have money to live a decent life here even though we are one of the most expensive countries in the world.Although, these three reasons have been beneficial in creating an equal society, there's trends that it the wish for an equal society has started to decline. Whereas, the Socialist Party has tremendous success during the named period of time, they have also had a difficult time adjusting to globalization. The globalization has also affected 'Janteloven' as the seamless global access to communication we have today has opened our eyes for what we can have, and the unions was so successful in the late parts of the 20th century that many young people haven't experienced the success stories that their elders has. So, things are changing - and it's a huge political discussion today whether equality is beneficial for a society or whether it harms people's interest in making something out of themselves.