Last week, I posted a list of computer-related vocabulary, centered specifically around hardware (or in Swedish, hårdvara). This time, I’m going to go through a list of software-related vocabulary, or more specifically computer-related verbs. So, for those of you who use a word processor (for example) but don’t dare to change the interface language to Swedish for fear of eternal confusion, now is your chance to pick up on what you’re missing! But this post is not only for you typists; it can be used in many computer situations.
So, let’s begin with the word open, such as opening a file. The phrase “to open a file” is quite the same in Swedish, att öppna en fil. So on your File menu (or Arkivmenyn), the “Open…” option will be labeled Öppna….
Though if you don’t have anything saved, you won’t have anything to open either. “To save the file” in Swedish is again quite similar to its English equivalent: att spara filen. Notice that the word for “save” is spara and not *rädda, which is used when you’re trying to “save the day” or save someone you care about from eternal torture in Mordor.
But how can you save a file that you haven’t created yet? “To create a new file” in Swedish is att skapa en ny fil. Or if you want to be more specific in your word processor, att skapa ett nytt dokument, “to create a new document”. Notice the conjugation of the word ny to match the gender of fil and dokument.
How do you type in Swedish, then? Well, the Swedish language doesn’t really have an equivalent for the verb “to type”, so most people simply say att skriva, or “to write” instead. Typing a document in Swedish is therefore expressed as such: att skriva ett dokument.
For those of you who happen to be quite unlucky, your computer crashing can be quite devestating, especially if you haven’t sparat dokumentet. That happened to me yesterday, actually, although instead of my mistake being forgetting to spara en fil, it was forgetting (or more like neglecting) to back up my hard drive (att skapa backup-kopia av hårddisken). Therefore, I have been raving all day about how min dator kraschade igår, “my computer crashed yesterday”, word for word.
After my computer crashed, I had to reinstall Windows. (Mac users should keep their comments to themselves! 
) To make things less complicated, I’ll start by telling you that “to install” is att installera in Swedish. Easy, right? If you add the verb particle om after installera, the meaning of the phrase changes to “reinstall”. Cool, right? But if you don’t put the emphasis of the phrase att installera om on the om, your sentence won’t make any sense, because without intonation, the verb particle becomes an ordinary preposition! For those of you who are less grammar-savvy, the point is that you’ll be saying *”to install about” instead of “to reinstall”.
And of course, there are times at which one might wish to uninstall something, such as particular search toolbars that freeware installers torment their consumers with. Unlike “reinstall”, “uninstall” wants the verb particle attached to the front of the verb. So instead of saying *att installera av, the correct word is att avinstallera. No, I don’t know why. Swedish likes to be tricky like that. And there are tons of verb pairs like that, but really, they’re not so difficult once you form a personal intuition after some practice.
Happy computing, and for goodness’ sake, spara dina dokument in case din dator kraschar!
