Archive for April, 2012
Swedish Saturday Candy Posted by Marcus Cederström on Apr 30, 2012
Every Saturday, children throughout Sweden have a little extra kick in their step. Not just because it’s Saturday and they don’t have to go to school, but because Saturday means lördagsgodis. Lördagsgodis is of course one of those fun compound words that we sometimes write about here (remember, you can read about the longest word…
Swedish Coffee Vocabulary Posted by Katja on Apr 27, 2012
It is a well known fact that Swedes drink a lot of coffee. The logical conclusion to draw of that is that there is a lot of different vocabulary that goes with that custom. Lets start by looking at the different types of coffee: 1) Bryggkaffe: Brew coffee 2) Kokkaffe: Boiled coffee 3) Snabbkaffe: Instant…
Swedish-American Food Posted by Marcus Cederström on Apr 26, 2012
I’ve been living in Wisconsin for the last 18 months or so working on a graduate degree in Scandinavian Studies. I moved here after having lived in Stockholm for just over three years. Most of my work actually focuses on Swedish Americans. I travel around interviewing Swedish immigrants and later Swedish-American generations. It’s a lot…
False friends between Swedish and Norwegian Posted by Stephen Maconi on Apr 25, 2012
As you may or may not know, the Swedish and Norwegian languages are very closely related. They have only been separate languages since around 800 AD, when Swedish is considered by historians to have become its own language. Therefore, a large majority of words are nearly the same, or at least interpretable. There are also…
Tycka, tänka and tro – The many translations of “think” Posted by Katja on Apr 20, 2012
If English speakers have any problem with Swedish it would probably be these three little words: tycka, tänka and tro. Because in English we only have one real equivalent for them; think. When Swedes speak English they feel a lack of nuance and overcompensate by using “I believe” as a straight translation of “Jag tror”…
Museum of Bellas Artes Posted by Tibor on Apr 17, 2012
“In the autumn of 2008 a small group of people recorded a new version of an old gem originally released in 1964. A project initially meant as a pastime while Stockholm was empty because of friends living abroad, basically everywhere between Tokyo and Oslo. Things happened faster than expected and the first recording reached a…
“Life-long learning” quite a Swedish concept Posted by Katja on Apr 16, 2012
From the 70’s onward the concept of everybody having the right to learn, to go to school and more importantly; go back to school become national. Folk High schools, distance learning, learning online and further developing of skills through work are all common for adults in Sweden. There is no disgrace in going back to…