Prática de Shadowing: Why Finland And Denmark Are Happier Than The U.S. - Aprenda a falar inglês com vídeo

What makes me happy is...

I think I was definitely born happy and then life happens.

I'm getting a bit emotional here.

I feel very happy.

Very happy.

I'm happier now than when I lived in New York

and I got paid probably twice as much in New York as I do here.

Our happiness is kind of like quiet happiness, kind of a stillness.

What does it take to be happy?

The Nordic countries seem to have it all figured out.

Finland and Denmark have consistently topped the United Nations most prestigious index, the World Happiness Report, in all six areas of life satisfaction.

How have they cracked the formula?

And are the people there really the happiest?

The United Nations just named the happiest place on earth.

It is not Disney World.

It's Finland.

In 2019, the World Happiness Report named Finland the happiest country in the world, for the second year in a row.

Denmark came in second place after claiming the top slot in 2013 and 2016.

Year after year, Nordic countries like Norway, Iceland, and Sweden round out the top of the list.

Jeffrey Sachs, a professor at Columbia and the co-editor of the World Happiness Report.

What do those countries have?

They have a high level of prosperity to be sure, but they're not the richest countries in the world by any means.

The idea is a good balance of life.

You don't have to get super rich to be happy, they believe.

In fact, if someone's super rich, they look, what's wrong with that person?

So they're not societies that are aiming for all of of the effort and time to becoming gazillionaires.

They're looking for a good balance of life, and the results are extremely positive.

The annual happiness ranking began in 2012, but we can trace measuring happiness back to 1971.

It came in the inspiration of the country of Bhutan,

a country in the Himalayas that many people know for its innovation of attempting to measure gross national happiness.

Globally, a standard for measuring success and productivity is gross national product.

Bhutan had the bright idea of trying to measure happiness.

Measuring happiness is a fairly complicated business.

First of all, we need to understand what happiness means.

It means the satisfaction with the way one's life is going.

It's not primarily a measure of whether one laughed or smiled yesterday, but how one feels about the course of one's life.

Meet Mike Viking, happiness researcher and CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Denmark.

There's a lot of factors that impact happiness, everything from biology to income levels to the city they live in.

But I think that the best predictor we see in the data of whether people are happy or not

is whether they're satisfied or happy with their relationships.

So do we have somebody we can rely on in times of need?

Do we have somebody we can share our hopes and worries with?

These six categories help account for the differences in life satisfaction around the world.

GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, social support, generosity, and absence of corruption.

On average, richer countries are happier.

on average richer people are happier.

But once we get to a certain level of income, additional $100 a month is not gonna impact how people feel about their lives.

So with money, like with everything else, we see diminishing marginal return.

And I don't know why I'm bringing up this quote, because it's extremely corny, but there is a Kanye West song in which he says that, having money is not everything, not having it is.

And I do think that's true in the sense but when you don't have it, it's all you worry about.

And when you do have money, you can actually worry about other stuff.

Happiness also seems like this elusive thing.

We have two words for happiness in Danish.

So we have lygge, which is the elusive thing, the thing you experience once every blue moon.

And then we have to be glad, like the word glad, which is different because it's more down to earth

And you can be glad despite the fact that it's not anything special.

It's no special day.

Løke seems like this elusive thing that you can't quite chase.

To be glad is more like our mindset.

So I feel more like I choose to be glad at times

rather than sort of trying to chase happiness because that seems like it's never going to happen that way.

Maria lives in Helsinki with her husband Duke and her two-year-old son Luca.

Wow.

Aha, yes, there it is.

There it is.

Finland is the best place to have kids.

When you go give birth, it's almost free.

We stayed in the hospital three full days as a family.

We had our own family room and we got like meals and support and help and everything.

And the bill was about 300 euros in the end.

It's basically like living in a hotel.

In Finland, new mothers receive a free baby box jam-packed with 63 items to help with the baby's first year.

You don't have to buy anything for the first two, three months.

Of course diapers and stuff like that, but basically.

And also you can actually put your baby to sleep in that box.

Our baby actually, Luka, slept in the box for the first month.

Finland, along with the other Nordic countries, offers generous parental leave.

Anu Partinen, author of the Nordic Theory of Everything, spent 10 years as a journalist in the U.S before returning to her home country, Finland.

She's also a mother.

In Finland, you get 10 months of paid parental leave, out of which about four months is set aside for the mother, and you start it before the baby is born.

And then father can keep nine weeks.

Typically, both parents stay home for the first three weeks.

They share the rest of the time until the baby is nine months old.

A parent can even stay home until the child is three years old and keep his or her job.

However, the stipend is much smaller.

Another determinant of well-being is one sense of personal freedom to make important life choices.

Can you shape your life the way you want?

Kristina was unhappy at her job in advertising and took an eight-month break.

Social security is also something I think is very important.

What I did didn't make me happy and it didn't let me have that work-life balance that we cherish so much here.

And so we have a system

that made it possible for me to quit my job and have some thinking time and figure out, you know, what's my next step in life.

Kristina received about $2,000 a month from the Danish government while she was unemployed.

She is now in school to become a painter.

Her tuition is covered and she receives an educational stipend of about $1,000 a month.

Two of the biggest perks of life in Denmark and Finland are free education and free healthcare.

Income taxes are not at all as high in the Nordic countries that Americans tend to think.

However, overall, it is completely true that the Nordic countries collect more taxes in general than the United States does.

100

In Finland and the Nordic countries, there are higher taxes on consumption, like eating in restaurants and buying jeans.

101

But the thing that I think a lot of Americans forget is

102

that the Nordic people are happy to pay those taxes because they get services in return.

103

Daycare, great public education, it includes your college tuition free, it includes health care.

104

All of those are included in your taxes.

105

When the news hits that Finland is the happiest country in the world, I think most people kind of reacted to it like, what are they talking about?

106

We don't think of ourselves as very happy because it's dark and gloomy in the winter and whatever.

107

It's easier for Finns and Danes to shape their lives because the government supports so many of their basic needs.

108

The American dream is probably more alive in Denmark.

109

The perception of freedom is probably also a little bit different.

110

It seems like in the US the feeling is you have to be protected from the government

111

and you have to have freedom from the government.

112

I think in Denmark, the sense is that the government protects you.

113

People trust other people.

114

You leave a bag in a restaurant in Finland, you're pretty sure you're going to make it back and the money is still there.

115

People even leave babies parked in strollers outside coffee shops while they run errands.

116

And I think partly the Nordic society cultivates that trust simply by providing basic services for everyone.

117

So there's much less poverty, much less feeling of injustice, inequality, crime.

118

People get the education they need, they can have a job, they can work, they don't have to struggle in life as much.

119

There isn't super wealth and there's absolutely no super poverty.

120

Everybody participates.

121

It turns out it leads to a wonderful kind of life

122

and one that is expressed year after year as making these countries the happiest countries in the world.

123

Monica and Alex are expats who live in Copenhagen with their two teenagers.

124

Alex is originally from the UK and Monica is originally from New York.

125

What else do you need?

126

The olive oil and the balsamic vinegar.

127

Where's the olive oil?

128

We originally came here expecting to stay only three years, but it was so good.

129

I've been here nine now.

130

It's also safe.

131

And this comes back to the community and the trust.

132

We can let our kids go out.

133

We do not have to sit here being really worried that are they gonna come back?

134

Are they safe where they're going?

135

Do we have to go pick them up?

136

You still worry of course, but it's it's just very different.

137

There's still this very strong sense of family, friends, community.

138

Balance is the formula for happiness.

139

Aristotle had it right when he launched the study of happiness 2,300 years ago.

140

According to Aristotle's golden mean, good behavior lies between two vices, excess and deficiency.

141

People who pursue only money and say, I'll be happier the richer I am, turn out to be less happy.

142

I do think having nice surroundings is a part of happiness, but I also think it needs to be linked with something that sort of resonates with you on a deeper level.

143

nice surroundings and having a lot of money

144

and being in a five star hotel in Las Vegas doesn't make you happy at all.

145

So I think it needs to have that balance.

146

Cue the classic Nordic work-life balance.

147

Rich Perusi, former New Yorker, has been living in Copenhagen for seven years.

148

People stay pretty tight to a 9 to 5 work day, but I do think

149

that we get as much done in a short period of

150

time here as we were doing in longer times working in New York.

151

One of the comments we actually heard when we first came here was a Dane saying when you see someone working late, are they doing it because they can't get their work done?

152

Is there something wrong with them?

153

Versus are they just trying to get ahead and working?

154

There is a sense that yes, work's important and you need to get your work done to a high quality, but you also need to make sure it's balanced appropriately.

155

Sara Alhupuro is a diplomat and an artist who has shaped her work schedule to make time for her passion.

156

So I actually need to go to my physical workplace only three days a week.

157

So then the rest of the time I can spend here in the middle of nature.

158

When I walk in the forest, I walk there very quietly, paying attention to all the small details and all the colors.

159

very slowly and I try to spot all the small details and I completely lose the track of time.

160

Usually I spend about five to six hours picking mushrooms.

161

People don't make as much money in the Nordic countries as they do in the US.

162

So it's not really about how much you make.

163

You don't have to make as much to get the same quality of life as you would in the United States.

164

So if we look at the dimension called life satisfaction, we can see that money does matter for well-being and happiness.

165

But, I mean, on average, richer countries are happier.

166

On average, richer people are happier.

167

But the mechanism here is being without money is a cause of unhappiness.

168

Not everyone likes to talk about money either.

169

In Finland, it's been this kind of rule that you don't talk about money that much.

170

At least, like, my parents basically wouldn't tell me how much they made, for example, if I would ask as a kid.

171

It would be considered bragging if you would tell about how much you make,

172

etc. People are happier when they are generous and when they feel that the society that they're in is a generous society.

173

And then we find people want to live in places with decent government.

174

If government is corrupt, if leaders are bizarre or autocratic or corrupt, the society is unhappy.

175

In 2019, Finland elected the world's youngest serving prime minister, 34-year-old Sanna Maren.

176

Maren.

177

Danes are among the happiest people in the world, but they're not necessarily the friendliest.

178

Lars A.P., author of Effing Flink and founder of the movement of the same name, wants to change that.

179

So Effing Flink is a national movement.

180

Our prime goal is to take Danes that are among the happiest people in the world, but also being the friendliest people in the world.

181

Why are we doing this?

182

Well, because friendliness and positive human interaction means so much to us.

183

Science shows us that.

184

And so we're trying to do that in all sectors and all realms that we can think of.

185

Finland and Denmark both have populations of less than six million people.

186

The U.S has over 330 million people.

187

The Nordic countries are pretty homogeneous, too.

188

Do population size and diversity affect happiness?

189

A lot of countries with relatively homogeneous population similarities among people ethnically

190

or in terms of religion and so on are not very happy, so it's no guarantee.

191

And on the other hand, it's possible to have a lot of diversity and more happiness.

192

Our northern neighbor in the United States, Canada, ranks higher.

193

Yeah, I think that Finland is probably one of the most homogeneous countries in Europe.

194

Still, we have recently had quite a lot of immigration, but I would say that still it is fairly homogeneous.

195

I think it's funny because I kind of always assumed that the inner society was kind of diverse.

196

But then we went to see Dave Chappelle's show here in Copenhagen.

197

And both him and the guy who he had with him as support kind of opened their show saying, Denmark is so white.

198

And I never really thought about that before.

199

But then ever since that show, I just think about it all the time.

200

We've been having immigration for hundreds of years from all over Europe.

201

I mean, in the 70s we had a lot of people from Turkey coming up, from Vietnam.

202

We had people from Yugoslavia in the 90s.

203

And Denmark has remained happy throughout that period.

204

The 2018 World Happiness Report explores happiness among natives and immigrants.

205

It shows that when immigrants are happy, the countries are too.

206

But if the country is already happy, new immigrants will experience increased happiness.

207

It shouldn't undermine happiness in the Nordic countries that there are influx of people born abroad.

208

There's also a dark side to happiness.

209

Like in Denmark, one of the biggest epidemics right now is stress

210

and people being sick with stress and having to leave their jobs.

211

And people outside of Denmark didn't really understand what

212

that meant meant like what do you mean stress leave

213

but it might be that expectation to have a work-life balance here

214

that stresses people out that you both have to work

215

but you also have to take care of your family you

216

also have to be social with your friends you also have to you know do this self-realization thing hobbies

217

and traveling and you there's

218

so much you have to do in the same amount of hours whereas maybe in new york

219

or other places you know that you're going to work to 10 every day

220

so you don't expect to have the same balance you know.

221

It can be hard for outsiders to break into the Nordic cultures.

222

The Danes have such tight-knit friend and family groups.

223

It's not very natural for them to just include people, new people into their groups.

224

It is a little harder when you come in from the outside to sort of become part of that group.

225

We've had some great Danish friends, some met at work, But it is harder,

226

I think, on that side compared to the UK and the US in terms of developing friendships.

227

There can be serious side effects to maintaining high levels of happiness.

228

Within the States, if you look at the level of life satisfaction, the higher the life satisfaction, actually also the slightly higher the level of suicide rates.

229

And the theory here is

230

that it might be more difficult to be unhappy in an otherwise happy society

231

because it creates a stronger contrast to how you are feeling if you are surrounded by very happy people.

232

So Denmark actually used to have really high suicide rates.

233

So in 1980, we had suicide rates of around 40 per 100,000, which was, I think, somewhat the highest in the world.

234

Now, fortunately, it's around 25% of that, so it's around 10 per 100,000.

235

South Korea and Lithuania have some of the highest suicide rates in the OECD as of 2017.

236

So, fortunately, suicide rates have been reduced a lot in Denmark.

237

Also in Finland, there's also been a great reduction over the past few decades.

238

But still it's not zero.

239

So we still need to reduce that even further.

240

Despite mental health challenges, a big part of Finnish culture focuses on overall well-being.

241

Sauna is a sacred thing for Finns.

242

I have so many good memories about having these sauna moments with my family.

243

Sauna is something that I suppose you kind of have to like and love as a Finn.

244

As of 2018, there were 5.5 million people living in Finland and around 2.3 million saunas.

245

My grandmother always used to tell us kids

246

that we can't fight in the sauna because then we would risk angering the sauna elf.

247

And there's even a sauna in the government of Finland where they say

248

that they make some of the most important political compromises because you're culturally not allowed to fight in the sauna.

249

Danes have mastered the art of comfort and coziness through hygge.

250

I think the best short definition of what hygge is, is the art of creating a nice atmosphere.

251

And of course that is something that happens everywhere, but what is uniquely Danish is we have a word that describes that situation.

252

You can curl up on a couch and read a good book

253

and have good music on and just be in a hyggekoll, which actually means a hygge corner of your room.

254

There's a social component to hygge, which I think is really important.

255

Hygge seeps everywhere throughout the country, from cozy drinks to warm lighting.

256

So one concrete manifestation of hygge is the focus on lighting.

257

The rule of thumb is the warmer the light, the more hyggely the light.

258

So Danes love candles.

259

So how does hygge contribute to happiness?

260

So happiness is both having a strong sense of purpose in life.

261

It's also experiencing moments of pleasure on a daily basis.

262

It's also feeling satisfied with life overall.

263

So hygge is this element in our daily lives where we experience comfort and pleasure and togetherness.

264

And hopefully over time that accumulates also to a higher sense of life satisfaction.

265

Another way Denmark and Finland support their citizens?

266

Paid annual vacation.

267

So in all Nordic countries, everybody has a right to paid annual vacation.

268

It varies a little by country, but in Finland, for example, it's typically after you work one year for the same employer,

269

it's four weeks in the summer and one week in the winter and everybody gets this.

270

I actually heard a statistic something like when Americans go home after work October 27th, you guys have worked as much as Danes will work for the entire year.

271

But I actually think that taking a little more time off also makes you a lot more productive.

272

In Finland, it's traditional to spend the summer in a summer cottage, or møkkie.

273

We did have a summer house when I was little.

274

It was something that my grandfather built himself during the 60s, I think.

275

and we used to go there all the time when I was small.

276

A week doesn't go past during the summer when I'm not thinking like, I wish we still had it.

277

Traditionally, the mökkis wouldn't have necessarily electricity or running water.

278

And usually most mökkis come with a lake or the Baltic Sea.

279

You can go to your sauna and have a dip in the water.

280

So in a Nordic country, the vacation time also shows families that if the parents stagger their vacations a bit, they can handle much easier the summer vacations for their children.

281

And of course then the family can spend time together.

282

Maybe Finnish happiness is more like inside, you know, it's like an inner peace or something like that.

283

It's not so open.

284

It's like a balance.

285

It's more balanced, I think. So, ready!

286

Ultimately, happiness is relative.

287

If you think you're having more sex than your neighbor, then you're happier.

288

We are social beings, we compare ourselves to each other.

289

So there are social comparisons in salary, in terms of houses and how successful we believe we are, but also in terms of sex.

290

So what's one small way we can be happier today?

291

For me, something that I've done which has made me happier is exercise.

292

I think the saying no or being a tiny bit more selfish can make you happy.

293

One step to improve your sense of happiness is go first.

294

So you're walking down the street, someone else comes walking towards you.

295

It might be just a smile, it might be just looking the other person in the eye, whatever it is.

296

But go first with that because you can't expect that the other person is going to do it.

297

Don't be reactive, go first.

298

In Denmark we sometimes talk about the ABC for mental health, if you want to boost your mood.

299

Three sort of universal tips is doing something active, doing something together with other people, and doing something meaningful.

300

So gather a group of friends, go for a walk.

301

That could be something that could boost your mood.

302

Predicting the future on this is very difficult, unfortunately.

303

Where will the U.S be?

304

It could be even worse than now.

305

It could be much better than now.

306

It's a matter of actually making choices for a better direction for the country

307

and one that is not guided by fear and hate, but one that is guided by a sense of community and the common good.

O que é a Técnica de Shadowing?

Shadowing é uma técnica de aprendizado de idiomas com base científica, originalmente desenvolvida para o treinamento de intérpretes profissionais. O método é simples, mas poderoso: você ouve áudio em inglês nativo e repete imediatamente em voz alta — como uma sombra seguindo o falante com 1-2 segundos de atraso. Pesquisas mostram melhora significativa na precisão da pronúncia, entonação, ritmo, sons conectados, compreensão auditiva e fluência na fala.

Prática de Shadowing: Why Finland And Denmark Are Happier Than The U.S. - Aprenda a falar inglês com vídeo

Por que praticar a fala com este vídeo?

Gramática e expressões no contexto

Armadilhas comuns de pronúncia

O que é a Técnica de Shadowing?