In my last post I mentioned that “jul” in Swedish is written with a small letter. In all fairness, in some cases it IS written with a capital. You can see it especially in advertisements and greetings.

And in his comment, Luke from Sydney very aptly pointed out that it’s not only “jul” – names of the days of the week also begin with a small letter in Swedish:

• måndag – Monday
• tisdag – Tuesday
• onsdag – Wednesday
• torsdag – Thursday
• fredag – Friday
• lördag – Saturday
• söndag – Sunday

For example: Vi reser till fjällen på måndag.

It’s the same with months:

• januari – January
• februari – February
• mars – March
• april – April
• maj – Maj
• juni – June
• juli – July
• augusti – August
• september – September
• oktober – October
• november – November
• december – December

For example: I Västerbotten börjar vintern redan i slutet av oktober.

But that’s not all. Unlike in English, in Swedish all nationality words also begin with a small letter. So, all the names of languages, and adjectives used to describe national origin, as well as nationalities, are all written with a small letter.

• engelska – English
• tyska – German
• spanska – Spanish
• svenska – Swedish

For example: Jag kan prata svenska, engelska och spanska.

En japansk person är en person från Japan. En kvinna kan också kallas en japanska.

So, just a little something to keep in mind when you write in Swedish.