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 you choose to believe in it an follow it, can really get you somewhere. Why exactly now? Well, some people see the new year as a new beginning and use that as inspiration to make and follow a goal, with the constant reminder that it’s 2013 so they can keep asking themselves how far they’ve come in reaching their goal. Technically, you could choose any date to mark a ‘new beginning’, but if everyone makes new goals for the new year (which is the idea after all), the people around you striving for their goals will do nothing but inspire you. Unless you’re a die-hard rebel, of course. 😉 (I know plenty of those…)

Here at the Transparent Swedish Blog, we have put together a useful list of common New Year’s resolutions – in Swedish! Besides being a good time to mark a new beginning, it’s also a good time to learn how to say your goal in Swedish, a phrase which you can repeat every time you think about your resolution in order to memorize it. This will not only put a useful phrase in your long-term memory, but it will also help you improve your abillity to remember Swedish words. A lot of people seem to think that the more you fill your memory with words in foreign languages (or even your native language), the more capacity you will fill up and the less you will be able to remember in the future. Psychologists, however, have proved the very opposite. The more you learn of a foreign language, the easier it becomes to memorize new words and structures! So, as we say in Sweden, kämpa på! – fight on!

First, let’s start with how you say My New Year’s resolution is …:

Mitt nyårslöfte är …

Hard? Nope. Well, okay, if you’re not very experienced with Swedish, that word in the middle can look intimidating. Let me break it up for you:

ny – new
år – year
= nyår – New Year
nyårs – New Year’s
löfte – resolution (lit. promise)
= nyårslöfte – New Year’s resolution

And it’s mitt nyårslöfte – not min – because löfte is a word of the neuter gender. Är, of course, means is or are. See? Swedish isn’t all that difficult!

Anyway, let’s start with the most important goal that anyone could have: learning Swedish! Here’s how you say that:

Mitt nyårslöfte är att lära mig svenska. – My New Year’s resolution is to learn Swedish.

But I guess you could have some other goals, too. 😉 Here are some examples of what you might be aiming for this year (most borrowed from the Transparent Spanish Blog):

… att gå ner i vikt – to lose weight

… att tillbringa mindre tid på jobbet – to spend less time working

… att träna oftare – to work out more often

… att lära mig ett nytt språk – to learn a new language

… att ägna mer tid åt mina studier – to spend more time studying

… att lägga mig tidigare – to go to bed earlier

… att gå upp tidigare – to get up earlier

… att vara mer tacksam – to be more grateful

… att klaga mindre – to complain less

… att lära mig att laga mat – to learn how to cook

… att sluta röka – to stop smoking

… att ha mer tålamod – to have more patience

… att sluta gå in på Facebook var femte minut – to stop going on Facebook every five minutes

… att träffa släkten oftare – to see my [extended]family more often

… att läsa mera böcker – to read more books

… att lära mig att spela ett instrument – to learn how to play an instrument

… att börja äta frukost varje dag – to start eating breakfast every day

… att överge mina fördomar – to abandon my prejudices

… att våga vara mig själv – to dare to be myself

… att hjälpas åt att städa huset – to help out with cleaning the house

And last but not least,

… att inte ge upp! – to not give up!

Hope you’ve found at least one of your New Year’s resolutions on this list! If you need a quick translation of one of your goals, feel free to ask for it in the comments. 🙂 I’ll try to add the most requested ones! Otherwise, good luck with your goals!!