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Hen – the Swedish gender neutral pronoun Posted by on Feb 15, 2012

A tiny three letter word is causing debates and mixed emotions in Sweden at the moment. The word is “hen” and it’s the new suggested gender neutral pronoun – born from what many people feel is a need for a pronoun free of preconceived notions about gender. (I should point out that the word itself…

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Why does ‘hand’ become ‘händer’ in plural? Posted by 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…

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“This” and “these” Posted by on Jan 19, 2012

In Sweden there are lots of different dialects, and of course people use different words for the same thing. Something as simple as “this” you’ll find lots of variations of and for someone learning Swedish that can be a bit confusing. Especially if the word everybody is using in some areas is grammatically incorrect, and…

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Stop or shut? Posted by 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…

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Dust or pond? Posted by 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…

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Sweden’s Newest Religion Posted by on Jan 6, 2012

Sweden is not a religious country. At all. In fact, it is often described as one of the most secular countries in the world. That does not mean that there are not religions, or that there is no spirituality. Such things are alive and well in Sweden. In fact, Sweden has recently become the birthplace…

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New Swedish words for 2012 Posted by on Jan 4, 2012

God forsättning, dear blog readers! As a Swede living in England, I have recently discovered how useful the Swedish phrase “God fortsättning” is. It means something along the lines of “happy continuation” and this is the phrase we use when “God jul” (Merry Christmas) or “Gott nytt år” (Happy New Year) feels dated. Like on…

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