For my experience flying around Norway, and particularly Bergen, Norwegian was commonly heard on the radio. I suppose that will be changing. I can recall saying to my Norwegian friend: “If you’re going to use Norwegian on the radio, it’s all on you!”.
The other little joy of flying around Norway is that the airfield name they use on the R/T seems to have little to do with the letters printed on the charts.
Timothy wrote:
the airfield name they use on the R/T seems to have little to do with the letters printed on the charts.You must be mixing them with Denmark, that language makes no sense.
Airborne_Again wrote:
regular radio communication with ATS in Norway will have to be done in English.
I heard that France also will do this!
In (German) Switzerland everyone uses English
The Netherlands, 99% of radio communications is in English.
Any guesses for the average ICAO English achieved in these countries? I guess we’re lucky they are Germanic languages. Try Asian or African English.
We have an African guest in our house. His first language is English and he has lived in the UK for 18 months. He has been in our house for five months. We can barely understand a word he says :-(
I think different people have a different aptitude for languages.
My father spoke: Czech, English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian. My sister is also good at this stuff. I learnt ~2 words of French in 3 years of doing it (compulsorily) at school, but found learning English easy. Learnt near-zero German too after 1 year of evening classes (English and German) back in Czechoslovakia.
In (German) Switzerland everyone uses English
I don’t think so 
The Norwegian action is interesting. My take on it is that since some sections are exempted, nothing will actually change for the VFR community, and the IFR community has to speak English anyway in all of Europe except France and is probably relatively small, not least due to the ban on N-regs having historically suppressed IFR activity.
Peter wrote:
My take on it is that since some sections are exempted, nothing will actually change for the VFR community,
That remains to be seen. Only emergency traffic is exempted. In translation, the Norwegian AIC begins like this:
The Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority removes Norwegian phraseology from the air traffic service and thus also the possibility of using the Norwegian language. Communications between aircraft and air traffic services must now be conducted in English. Norwegian language air traffic controllers and AFIS/HFIS officers will still be available so that everyday Norwegian language can be used in emergencies and in communication with ground staff.
This authorises — and formally requires — e.g. tower controllers to refuse communication in Norwegian with VFR traffic unless there is an emergency.
MedEwok wrote:
I think it is unreasonable to force local VFR pilots in any nation to use English on intra-national flights. Generally, communication in one’s native language will always be better understood, so unless non-native pilots are involved, e.g. at international airports, use of the local language should also have safety benefits.
You underestimate Norwegian dialects. Good luck trying to interpret https://tinyurl.com/ya8dptsz (youtube link)
over a scratchy radio. I’d much rather hear him talk broken Norwenglish. (=
A side-note here: the Norwegian document mentioned in the first post states that an R/T licence is not required for solo student pilots. Is that the case in other countries too? In Denmark it was a national rule until recently that solo student pilots had to have passed the R/T test, but that rule is no longer in force, although the CAA may not have realised that themselves, yet.
Arne wrote:
You must be mixing them with Denmark, that language makes no sense.Well that is what gives us Danes all sorts of excuses.
As an overwhelming proportion of the Scandic economy is now to be based on the production and export of Nordic Noir TV series, wouldn’t it make sense to cut out the middleman, abandon the archaic Viking languages altogether and fully embrace English?
Or is it not possible to brood darkly in English?
