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Why does ‘hand’ become ‘händer’ in plural? Posted by Stephen Maconi on Jan 24, 2012
This is one question that boggles the minds of many learners of the Swedish language (as well as the other Nordic languages). Why doesn’t ‘hand’ just become ‘hander’ or ‘handar’ in plural? The answer to this lies in a major change that occurred throughout Germanic Europe in the Early Middle Ages (which in Scandinavia was…
Stop or shut? Posted by Stephen Maconi on Jan 17, 2012
Similar to the nouns in last Tuesday’s post, there are a number of Swedish verbs that have the same infinite form but different meanings and different conjugation. One of the best examples is the words sluta, meaning either “stop”, “end”, or “shut”, depending on its context and grammatical conjugation. It is also worth noting that…
Dust or pond? Posted by Stephen Maconi on Jan 10, 2012
There are lots of words in Swedish, just as in English, that have several meanings. One example of this relatively common phenomenon is the Swedish word damm. (Please keep in mind that the double m makes the vowel a short. If you pronounce the a long, you’re saying dam, which means ‘lady’.) Damm can mean…
Student nations at Uppsala University Posted by Stephen Maconi on Dec 28, 2011
One of the most unique things about Uppsala University (as well as, as it so happens, Lund University) is the student nation system. Traditionally, students from a given part of Sweden would join that region’s respective ‘nation’, as a way to split up the student body in order to promote various aspects of student life…
Uppsala University, Part 1 Posted by Stephen Maconi on Dec 20, 2011
Uppsala University, located in the city of Uppsala, just 67 km (42 mi) north of Stockholm, is one of the most famous and well-accredited universities in Europe. It is the oldest university in Scandinavia, founded in 1477. During the 1600’s, the university grew immensely when King Gustavus Adolphus (Gustav Adolf) made a large donation to…
Snow in Swedish Posted by Stephen Maconi on Dec 7, 2011
After living in Sweden for a few winters, you’ll notice that a not-so-uncommon phenomenon is: snow! Well, chances are that if you know anything about Sweden at all, you at least know that it snows a lot here. Contrary to popular believe in certain parts of the world, it only snows here during the winter…
Writing utensils in Swedish Posted by Stephen Maconi on Nov 25, 2011
Sweden has just as many different types of writing utensils as any other country. And as in many languages (although certainly not all) there are different words for these different types of writing utensils. However, there is one main word used to refer to a writing utensil, and that is penna. Penna can mean either…