It’s a mix

For me, Swedish vocabulary is like 50% Dutch, 20% English, 10% German and 20% strange viking words.

Professors claim the English language derives from Scandinavia

Professors claim the English language derives from Scandinavia

Somewhat older article, but interesting.

Swearing

I hadn’t really realized how awful it actually was, until I moved abroad. New colleagues pointed out that swearing with diseases isn’t really a normal thing to do, however, we Dutch do it a lot. We use all sorts of diseases when we swear at ourselves (“klere!” – an old word for cholera) or wish others the most horrible things (“krijg de tiefus/tering/klere!” – “get typhus/tuberculosis/cholera!”, synonymous for “fuck you!”). Some diseases are more accepted then others, where using cancer is really pushing it (although definitively heard). And next to all this, we use genitalia a lot.

What I noticed is that in Swedish using genitalia to swear is considered very rude. While in Dutch “kut” (vagina) is used in the same way as the English word “shit” (even though it’s direct translation would be “cunt”), using the same word in Swedish (“fitta”) is somewhat of a no-go.

Swedes tend to swear with things that relate to hell or the devil, which, being used to swearing using diseases and genitalia, sounds rather silly and decent. English speakers would say “what the fuck?!”, while Swedes would say “vad fan?!”, which translates to “what the hell?!”, or more directly “what the devil?!”. Also “jävlar” (damn) is heard a lot, which comes from the word djävul (devil). The same goes for “jävla” that is used to amplify adjectives (“det var jävligt gott!” – “that was fucking tasty!”), that also seems to come from something that has to do with the devil.

So I think from now on I’ll be using “devilishly tasty!” or “duivels lekker!”.

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Pro-tip: Swedish articles

Swedish has two indefinite articles: “en” for common nouns and “ett” for neuter nouns. Like “en lampa” (a lamp) and “ett bord” (a table). Definite articles are mostly expressed by a suffix like “lampan” (the lamp) and “bordet” (the table). In Dutch, we have a similar system, but there is only one indefinite article (“een”) and two definite articles (“de” for common nouns and “het” for neuter nouns). Unlike many latin or slavic languages, you can’t deduct the nouns gender just by looking at it; you just have to know. This is true for Dutch (as far as I know) and many Swedes will tell you the same thing, but in Swedish there is a rule that can help somewhat. Apparently about 90% of the nouns (don’t pin me on the exact number) that end in an “a” are common (and thus use “en” as the indefinite article). Exceptions I’ve found so fare are öra (ear) and öga (eye), but if you know more, please leave a comment.

As a native Dutch speaker, I sometimes try to take the lazy route and use the same gender as in Dutch, but unfortunately this doesn’t always work out well. For example the word for table is a common noun in Dutch (de tafel), while it’s a neuter noun in Swedish (bordet).

Somebody must have misunderstood somewhere

I’m not fluent in Swedish, so quite often I have to guess words when I try to speak. By knowing English and Dutch (and basic German) and given the fact that those languages all somewhat belong to the same group of languages, I have access to quite a large set of words to choose from to make a somewhat educated guess of what a particular word would be in Swedish. I noticed over the last couple of years that picking a Dutch word as a base for translation often leads to a more successful translation then when picking an English one. Since I mainly speak English at work and more then half of the time at home, I think in English, but I’ve often found myself saying “ah, that’s just like the Dutch word!” when asking people for a translation from English to Swedish.

But there are a few words that sound similar or might even be in the same area, but do have a different meaning in Dutch and Swedish. One typical example is the Swedish verb springa (to run), which is very similar to the Dutch (or German) verb springen (to jump). They both are a movement, but not the same one. I automatically translate to “to jump” instead of “to run”, which might lead to me jumping of a bridge instead of running across it.

Unfortunately I’m not a linguist, but I’m curious how this difference came to be. Somewhere, a long time ago, some viking must have mistaken the Dutch guy jumping off the bridge for him running off the bridge.

How the Vikings slaughtered the French

One of the more funny uses of foreign words in the Swedish I find is fåtölj, which means arm chair in English. The first time I saw this word written somewhere, I couldn’t figure out what it was, until I said it out loud. Then it’s obvious that the word comes from from the French word fauteuil, but has been completely butchered to make it into a Swedish looking word (complete with å and ö).

Introduction

For a while now, I’ve been thinking about blogging about interesting stuff I find while trying to master the Swedish language.

Languages fascinate me and I can talk about them for hours. I really like to look at and discuss commonalities and differences in languages. Since I live in Sweden I’m learning Swedish and although I’m not fluent, I’m at the point where I do understand about 95% of conversations and can have basic conversations in Swedish, without feeling like a compleet idiot. At home I speak a weird mix of Swedish and English with my girlfriend and sometimes I try to speak Swedish at work too.

Over the last 3 years in this cold, but beautiful country, I noticed that knowing Dutch and English well, together with some elementary knowledge of German and French, enables me to piece together most Swedish pretty well. Especially Dutch/German and Swedish share quite a lot of vocabulary. On this blog I’ll share some of the more interesting things I find in my day to day life.