Swedish Language Blog

One of Sweden’s most wonderful aspects of nature is the midnight sun up in the north, close to and beyond the polar circle.

Some people are fine with going to bed when it is still light, others become true night time people and don’t go to bed until 6 or 7 am. A lot of people who move to the north have a lot of trouble sleeping, desperately pulling down blinds to darken rooms enough to catch a couple of winks. Either way people who have lived in the north of Sweden for a long time are probably used to the long hours of daylight during the summer and the extreme lack of the in the winter whether they enjoy theses extremes or not.

However, in southern parts of the world there are no landmass which corresponds to the northern latitudes where you can experience the “midnight sun”, so a phenomenon such as the midnight sun is exotic and exciting and something some hope to get to experience once in a lifetime.

Many French and probably other nations get their summer holidays in August and travel up through Sweden to finally reach their destination only to find that it has already started getting dark. From the 21st or 22nd of June (the midsummer solstice) it gets a little darker everyday. So the light, even though it is associated with summer has very little with the fact that it is warm etc.

If you want to see people out gardening at 2 am in the morning then you should try to go in the month of May or June. Definitively a sight to be seen.

Service is different in all countries. Compared to a country like Japan, Sweden’s train service isn’t that good maybe. The trains are very often late, or delayed by snow, accidents or because of waiting for other slower moving vehicles on the tracks.  However, to compensate for that the train companies compensate their travelers with the following system.

If you are delayed and have to wait more than 60 min but less than 2 hours then you either get compensated with 25% of the value of the ticket or 50% of the value of the ticket in vouchers. More than 2 hours delayed and the amount you receive back is more. If miss your connecting train or buss you will almost always receive compensation, eg. be allowed to take the next train, buss or if the last one has already gone be given a taxi.

However, many a time have the trains been severely delayed and announcements been made over the loud speakers without a single apology been made to the passengers. This is a issue of the culture of service in Sweden.

Swedish train delays have been a subject of discussion this past year, and there has recently been a lot more pressure put on the train companies to redo/rebuild the tracks so that there won’t be as many problems in the future. An investment which will hopefully be better for the environment as well.

In general it is fairly easy to travel between places in Sweden by train and can even be enjoyable if everything goes according to plan.

Many lines have been made to go straight past the big airports as well, for example Arlanda (Big International Airport for Stockholm) and a line straight to Copenhagen’s Airport right past Malmö central station, making even flying easier.

The biggest train company has a special point system going for it’s members (no charge to become or stay a member). For every Swedish crown you spend you receive a point which then adds up in your account. After saving up certain amounts you can buy food in the restaurant car or buy tickets for other trips, buy souvenirs or pay for hotels with your points. A great system, especially for those who travel often.

You can read all over the internet about the typical climate in Sweden and possibly even that in particular locations in Sweden. But today I’m going to give you something different: the current weather in Uppsala! What’s the point? Well, just imagine yourself in your favorite Swedish scenery with the following weather pattern for the day:

This morning: The sun rises at approximately 7:50. The temperature is below freezing: -4°C (25°F). The sky is cloudy, and the air relatively damp.

During the day: The sky is still grey, but the temperature has risen to about 5-6°C (37-39°F). The air is damper and the air pressure level decreases.

The evening: The sun sets at around 15:15 (3:15 pm), but yet the temperature still rises. At around 22:00 (10:00 pm) a downpour begins and continues through the night. No stars are to be seen, and the expected accumulation of rain adds up to 3-4 mm (0,12-0,16 in). Your shoes will be soaked tomorrow morning as you trudge through puddles in the streets.

If you would like a more statistical and less visual (or perhaps more visual, if you count the pictures) description of the weather in Uppsala/Sweden, check your favorite weather site or television channel—many are international and have weather reports from around the world. My personal favorite for Sweden is klart.se (which is where my statistics come from), but there are plenty more to choose from by searching the web!

As a side-note, the word väder (weather) is a neutral noun—in other words, it’s one of those nouns that end in -et (as opposed to -en). But it’s also part of a certain conjugation group. The definite form (‘the’-form) is not väderet, but vädret (‘the weather’). [As a rule of thumb, ett-words that end in -er are generally conjugated to -ret instead of -eret, such as väder becomes vädret and not väderet. The same rule applies for ett-words that end in -el, such as segel → seglet ('the sail'). Keep in mind that the ä and (first) e in väder and segel respectively remain long. Pronunciation of these letters is covered here: Vowels, Part 1 and Part 2.]