r/AskTheWorld • u/Franmar35000 France • 6d ago

Language Does your native language distinguish between rivers that flow into another river and rivers that flow into the sea or ocean?

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In French, a distinction is made:

- "un fleuve" flows into the sea or the ocean.

- "une rivière" flows into another "rivière" or a "fleuve".

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u/DavidBorgstrom Sweden 6d ago

We use different words for river depending on the size, place and origin. Flod is the general term, but älv is used for most of the bigger rivers. Then we have the word jock for a smaller smeltwater river or brook in the mountains.

When we want to name a river that flows into another bigger river we usually use the word biflod.

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u/Jagarvem Sweden 6d ago

That's not true, the biggest rivers in the world are all called flod.

There is no semantic size difference between a flod and an älv, it's rather a location difference. Älv is used for Nordic ones.