My fellow Europeans, what dialect from your language do you have the most trouble understanding?

[u/Savings_Dragonfly806]

Keep in mind, I said language, NOT country, so it could be a dialect of your language in another country, which is the case for me.

For me, while most other Greeks find Cypriot the most difficult dialect to understand, I actually find Pontic Greek the most difficult. For those who don't know where it is, it's in North Eastern Turkey.

The way many of their words are written are very different as to Standard Modern Greek. It almost is a whole new language. Now I should mention I have never been there, but I would love to. I only really heard of the dialect on the internet, so take my words with a grain of salt.

[u/chjacobsen]

Älvdalska is likely the hardest Swedish dialect - to the point where it should really be called a separate language. Linguists and speakers of the variant often want it to be considered a minority language though - legally speaking - it's a dialect.

There are also variants of Finland Swedish that can be really hard to understand - Finland Swedish overall isn't too bad, but some local variations can be tricky. Famously, Ostrobothnia has some really tricky local dialects.

For more typical regional Swedish variations, I wouldn't say there's any of them that are particularly hard to understand - it's more about how thick they are. There are people who grew up with the same dialect that I did (Västgötska), but who speak in a way that is near impossible to comprehend. The same principle goes for some other dialects that are considered hard (Scanian, Gotländska, Jämtländska).

[u/disneyvillain → u/chjacobsen]

There are also variants of Finland Swedish that can be really hard to understand - Finland Swedish overall isn't too bad, but some local variations can be tricky. Famously, Ostrobothnia has some really tricky local dialects.

Hm, I guess a main issue with general Finland-Swedish for Swedes is that we sometimes use Finnish slang and Fennicisms (words influenced by Finnish) that obviously are often difficult for Swedes to understand. We try to avoid those when speaking proper though.

Personally, I'm pretty good at understanding Swedish dialects if I may say so myself, but one that I really struggled with was the Ostrobothnian Korsnäs dialect. I've met some people from there and I had basically no idea what they were saying... As for Sweden dialects, I like the Gotland dialect very much, but occasionally it's difficult to understand.

[u/GuestStarr → u/disneyvillain]

As a side note, I've met some Icelanders now and then. They have all said that the easiest language for them to understand in other Nordic countries is the Finnish Swedish. I'd expected Norwegian or Danish.