The Bridge - a question...

[wickedfairy]

In the Danish/Swedish series "The Bridge" - when Saga and Martin talk to each other, do they each talk in their native languages, but understand each other due to similarities?

I don't speak either unfortunately, but from what I can work out, I think the above is true. Can anyone confirm please? it's doing my head in, not knowing :-) TIA

Martin often speaks Swedish to Saga, however the languages are similar enough that they can generally be understood by each other. It helps that Saga is from Malmö so her accent is more Danish than say Northern Swedish.
When Martin speaks to people from his own task force he speaks danish.

By often, I mean he switches between the two. Scandinavian languages are all very similar and immigration between the countries is normal so people from say, Sweden, are used to conversing with Danish or Norwegian natives in their own languages. I think finnish is quite a lot harder to understand but most Finns speak finlandsvenska as well as finnish which is a form of swedish.

is a fun little video from behind the scenes on season 2. It features some cast members talking about the differences between - and their perceptions of - the two languages and cultures.

Ha! Fikabrod made me laugh!

Thank you! So, sometimes he talks to her in Swedish and sometimes in Danish? Either way, she understands. Got it

I was listening carefully and thought he was speaking Danish, then it sounded like he wasn't, so the switching thing makes sense. Thanks for clarifying!

I wonder if as English-only speakers we miss a lot of nuances and humour in these types of programmes? I also loved Salamander, a Belgian show on recently. I think it was in a couple of languages, and I wonder if we ever miss any subtleties because of this?

I think a lot of Saga's personality would be missed if you don't understand Swedish tbh. It's obvious enough that she reacts differently to how Martin would expect but even simple things like her saying 'ah' instead of 'ja' are skipped if you don't understand the language/how it's used. Or her not involving herself in 'fika' when everyone takes it - it seems a bit odd to a Brit, but to a Swede it's far weirder. Everybody takes fika!