I grew up in the US with my father always prattling on in the Swedish language. As the years went by, he kept at it, and I fell into the habit of responding in English. His resilience essentially allowed me to learn a second language without most of the work. I say most, because despite hearing the language every day while growing up, not being surrounded by the slang and intricacies of the language makes a difference.

This became even more apparent after having moved to Sweden. Suddenly, I was inundated with the details of Swedish which I had taken for granted in the English language. Prepositions, technical terms, slang. But most noticeably (at least in my first few months), affirmative responses.

There are plenty of ways to agree with someone or give the affirmative in Swedish. “Ja” simply meaning “yes.” “Jo” is often used colloquially to mean the same thing, but from a grammatical standpoint should be used when there is a negative in the original question. For example if you plan to answer in the affirmative to the following question, “Du har inte rest runt i Sverige, eller hur?” (“You haven’t traveled around in Sweden, have you?”) Answering “ja,” might be construed as agreeing with the person and saying that yes that is correct, you have not been to Sweden. “Jo,” eliminates that confusion. And trust me, there is a lot of confusion for people learning this language. Luckily, there are better ways to respond in the affirmative.

In Sweden, sharp intakes of breath and grunts are acceptable ways of agreeing with someone. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure how to spell many of these, so bear with me, but the classic is the “jaaahh” where the “j” is nearly imperceptible. It mimics the sound you might make if you were to suddenly see a piano falling out of a window and your friend had just passed by the spot where the piano is about to hit. You know the danger has passed, you know you don’t really need to say anything, but that noise still escapes. Breathe in quickly, remember, you just saw a piano fall from a window, and say “aaahh” (and if you feel comfortable throw that almost silent “j” in at the beginning). You’re one step closer to true fluency.

In the north, it’s more of a sucking sound. Maybe a bit of a higher pitch and quicker. There’s a hint of “sh” at the beginning ending with an “oooop.” Kind of like music from an old ‘50s sock hop with the “be bop” lyrics. But instead of the “shoooop” being pushed out it should be sucked in. Breathe in quickly (really, really quickly) and say “shoooop” and you’ve got it.

So, if you find yourself in a conversation, and suddenly your new found Swedish friend exclaims “jaaahh,” there’s no need to look behind you to see what caught them by surprise. They’re just agreeing with what you have to say. Now if we could just get Gabriel Stein to post one of those great videos catching the grunt on camera!