Archive for 'Swedish Language'
How to ache in Swedish Posted by Stephen Maconi on Jun 8, 2012
Well, it’s probably not something that most people like to think about, but at some point in your life you will get some sort of headache, stomachache, or even throat-ache (which, of course, is called a sore throat in English). And if you’ve accustomed yourself to speaking Swedish in every situation without exception (the way…
Direct vs. Indirect Speech in Swedish Posted by Marcus Cederström on May 30, 2012
Just recently, we received a comment on Facebook (you should really check out our Facebook page. You get new vocab words every day, as well as great discussion and some beautiful pictures of Sweden!) about indirect vs. direct speech asking for a quick explanation. Tibor is working on some really great posts about Swedish syntax…
Expressing “coolness” in Swedish Posted by Katja on May 24, 2012
I think most of you can agree on how important it is to be able to small talk. As a part of small talking I find some phrases are used more than others, for example phrases expressing your appreciation for something. Like saying “That’s cool” or “Wow, awesome”. Here are some “coolness” phrases in Swedish…
Swedish in America Posted by Marcus Cederström on May 21, 2012
I know that a lot of the people who read this blog are just learning Swedish. But I also know that a lot of you have various reasons for learning the language. Some people because of a partner, others because of friends, still others because of family members who maybe grew up speaking Swedish even…
The history of Swedish loan words Posted by Stephen Maconi on May 18, 2012
The Swedish language has a long history of loaning words from other languages in Europe. Usually, the source languages have been of large economic or cultural importance for Sweden. This process of loaning words started around the 10th century AD, just a century after historians consider the Swedish language to have become a language of…
Finland in the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest Posted by Stephen Maconi on May 11, 2012
How does Finland have anything to do with Sweden? Well, first-off, the two countries neighbor each other, even though most of the “border” between them is actually the Gulf of Bothnia (Bottniska viken in Swedish). Secondly, the Swedish language is one of Finland’s two official languages – the other being, of course, Finnish. There is…
The easy and hard about Swedish Posted by Stephen Maconi on May 4, 2012
There are lots of people out there who really want to learn a new language, and Sweden often comes up as a suggestion on many websites as a language being ‘close’ to English. Well, no one’s lying – they belong to the same language family (the Germanic languages) and they have a great deal of…