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 I’ve learned Swedish since the very beginning), you will even want to know how to express your pain in the language. (I chose this topic for today following the horrible headache I had yesterday!)

When you “have a headache” in English, you either have head pain or pain in the head in Swedish. In other words, there are two (main) ways you can express “having a headache” in Swedish:

–  Jag har huvudvärk. – I have head pain.
–  Jag har ont i huvudet. – I have pain in the head.*

(*The funny part about the second choice is that it can also be interpreted as “I have evil in the head”. But don’t worry – in this context, no one will interpret it that way!)

As you can see, the word for ‘head’ in Swedish is huvud. It is a word of the neutral gender, so its definite (‘the’) form is huvudet. To say you “have a stomachache“, use these expressions (notice that only the word huvud has been replaced):

– Jag har magvärk. – I have stomach pain.
– Jag har ont i magen. – I have pain in the stomach.

Now here’s the catch. You may believe by looking at these two examples that the Swedish word for ‘stomach’ is mag. Well, unfortunately the Swedish language likes to be tricky when combining words together. Certain words, such as mage, remove their final <e> when participating as the first sub-word of a larger word. Therefore, instead of being called *magevärk it is shortened to magvärk. (The Norwegian language behaves in quite the opposite way – letter <e>’s are sometimes even added between syllables for further ease of pronunciation.)

Just like huvud and mage, in Swedish you can have “pain in the throat”, otherwise known as a “sore throat” in English. Though instead of using the word strupe, which literally means ‘throat’, the Swedes prefer the word hals, which actually means ‘neck’. Thus, in Swedish, you have “pain in the neck”. So, here we go:

– Jag har ont i halsen. – I have pain in the ‘neck’ (throat).

Unlike huvud and mage, though, saying Jag har halsvärk. is much less common than Jag har ont i halsen. and can be interpreted in other ways, such as having other kinds of throat or neck pain. As such, I would suggest sticking to Jag har ont i halsen.. And to keep it simple for yourself, you might as well just stick to the Jag har ont i …-construction in all cases of having pain, at least until you are at a level at which you are able to distinguish the nuances between the two constructions.

If you have pain anywhere else, for example your foot, just replace the word huvudet/magen/halsen with the body part that is in pain, of course also in definite (‘the’) form (fot ‘foot’ → foten ‘the foot’):

– Jag har ont i foten. – I have pain in the foot.

One last note: Calling someone or something a “pain in the neck” does not work directly translated in Swedish. Saying Du är så ont i halsen or nacken! will only awaken a large burst of laughter. (In case you are wondering, nacke describes the back part of the neck while hals describes the front. Therefore, having ont i halsen and having ont i nacken are two different things.)

Hopefully you won’t have to use these phrases often, but when you do, at least you’ll know how! Lycka till! 🙂