Swedish Language Blog

New Year’s Eve in Sweden tends to be celebrated with family and friends, just like in a lot of countries. Fancy clothes are worn, delicious dinners are eaten, plenty of champagne consumed, and of course, the cell phone companies are overloaded with texts being sent.  It’s not too different than New Year’s Eve celebrations in the US really.

Although, there is no ball dropping.  And no real countdown either.  It is a rather subdued welcome to the new year.  Until the fireworks start that is. Throughout the country, fireworks are set off around midnight.  It tends to be a loud and impressive display that dominates the skyline.  There are major shows set up as well as the average Svensson shooting off their personal arsenal.

My suggestion? Make friends with someone who lives in a tall apartment building.  Climb to the top and enjoy the show.  There are few things as impressive as several different fireworks shows going off simultaneously throughout a city, and on a clear New Year’s Eve in Stockholm, there are fireworks illuminating the water that envelopes the city.

How do you celebrate the new year in your country?

And finally, from all of us here at Transparent, Gott nytt år!

God dag!

Told you I’d be back again this month with a useful Swedish language video! Here it is:

I hope you find it helpful! I remember that I, myself, had trouble with this concept at one point, so I figured someone else here might, as well.

The mentioned Byki list can be found here: http://www.byki.com/lists/Swedish/Sws-4-going-home-then-being-home-now.html

Hope you like it, and have a great New Year! See you in 2011!!

2010 will soon draw to a close and by the end of every year, Svenska språkrådet (The Swedish Language Council) puts together a list over the new words that have infiltrated the Swedish during the past year. The list normally contains between 40-50 words and it can be anything from new made up words, loan words from other languages and words that haven’t been used for ages but for some reason has had a comeback. So, before we head into 2011, let’s take a quick look at some of the words we learnt and used during 2010:

* App – Short for “application”, a program that are downloaded from internet to your mobile phone.

* Askstoppad -  A verb for being held up by the big ash cloud from the Icelandic volcano with the impossible name. (aska = ash, stoppad = held).

* Askänka (Ash widow) – When your husband were trapped somewhere because of the ash cloud, you became an “askänka”.

* Bloppis – To sell things you no longer want – clothes, shoes bags etc – via your blog. Comes from the word for “jumble sale” in Swedish, which is “loppmarknad”, often referred to as “loppis”. Combine that with the word “blog” and you got a “bloppis”.

* Kaffeflicka (Coffee girl)  - A new term for a girl who is invited to gentlemen parties as “something sweet to go with the coffee”.  This word came from the book “Den ofrivillige monarken” about our king, read more here!

* Köttklister  (Meat glue) – A substance made out of animal blood to glue together smaller pieces of meat to make it look like something nice and tasty.

* Plånboksbröllop (wallet wedding) – A budget wedding to suit your means.

* Wikiläcka (Wiki leak) – When secret information leaked to the public via the webpage Wikileak.

* Vuvuzela – a long plastic horn that we became very familiar with during the World Cup in South Africa. It comes from an expression in Zulu meaning make lots of noise.

Find the whole list of new words in the Swedish language here!