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Why is the Swedish language so melodic? Posted by Stephen Maconi on Feb 14, 2013
Many people who have heard the Swedish language being spoken have commented that it sounds very song-like, very melodic, with high tones and low tones, giving a “singing” effect. The people who noted this have often contrasted the prosody (intonation and language rhythm) of Swedish to that of English, which they say is much more…
Offensive bathroom sign in Luleå school is taken down Posted by Stephen Maconi on Feb 1, 2013
Sweden is renowned for its equal rights and anti-discrimination activism. There are always new arrangements being made to ensure the equal well-being of all of Sweden’s 9 million citizens, some which, for much of the rest of the world, appear extreme and receive much criticism. For example, there is a preschool in Stockholm that refrains…
New Year’s Resolutions – in Swedish! Posted by Stephen Maconi on Jan 3, 2013
Hey there readers, We’ve already had our New Year’s celebrations this year, with fyrverkerier (fireworks), champagne (pronounced sjamm-PANJ), and tons of festande (partying)! Now it’s time to set our goals for this new year of 2013. A lot of people think it’s a stupid concept, but believe it or not, setting such a goal, if…
The help verb “bruka” Posted by Stephen Maconi on Dec 4, 2012
Hej allihopa! I am happy to publish the first post of December 2012 on the Transparent Swedish Blog. Hopefully you will find it useful in your study of the Swedish language! Today felt like a good day to tell you all about the help verb bruka and its very handy usages. For those of you…
Using the construction “Det känns som …” Posted by Stephen Maconi on Nov 29, 2012
Greetings, readers! I hope you enjoyed my previous post about Göteborg. (If you haven’t checked it out, you’re missing a personally-filmed video!) This time around, I would like to discuss a certain construction found in the Swedish language, namely sentences that start or end with the phrase Det känns som … . It is a…
Göteborg – Gothenburg Posted by Stephen Maconi on Nov 13, 2012
The city of Göteborg, perhaps better known as Gothenburg outside of Scandinavia, is Sweden’s second-largest city with just over 500 000 inhabitants. It is a beautiful city with a lot to offer, from an indoor zoo called Universeum to the Scandinavia-wide famous Liseberg amusement park. There are also several churches to be observed around the…
Suffixes: -aktig and -mässig Posted by Stephen Maconi on Oct 23, 2012
In the Swedish language, there are lots of different avledningar, or bound morphemes that you can add to words to change their part of speech as well as their function in a given context. Some examples of avledningar are: -het be- för- (when unemphasized) -ig -lig -bar And there are many more. But two avledningar…