{"id":71,"date":"2008-09-04T09:06:55","date_gmt":"2008-09-04T13:06:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/?p=71"},"modified":"2008-09-04T09:06:55","modified_gmt":"2008-09-04T13:06:55","slug":"real-gender-specific-nouns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/real-gender-specific-nouns\/","title":{"rendered":"Real Gender Specific Nouns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In my <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/a-little-bit-about-greta-garbo\/\" target=\"_blank\">last post<\/a>, as I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve noticed, I showed you a Swedish noun with a \u201creal\u201d gender. A noun that has both a male and a female version. That word was \u201c<strong>sk\u00e5despelare<\/strong>\u201d which means an \u201cactor\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>This is actually a bit similar to what happens in English as well. We have an actor and an actress. A waiter and a waitress. A priest and a priestess. An emperor and an empress.<\/p>\n<p>While this not exactly what happens in Swedish, the concept is indeed somewhat similar. The difference is that there are many more words in Swedish that have both a feminine and a masculine version than in English.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ve seen that already happen with words describing nationalities, or at least regional origins of people.<br \/>\nRemember \u201c<strong>sk\u00e5nska<\/strong>\u201d &#8211; a lady from <strong>Sk\u00e5ne<\/strong>? And \u201c<strong>samiska<\/strong>\u201d \u2013 a female Sami?<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>When it comes to nouns defining professions or occupations, that\u2019s where Swedish turns into a real bonanza of gender-specific forms. And sadly, a lot of those nouns have just one genderless form in English, which can be used for both men and women.<\/p>\n<p>Just take a look:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>st\u00e4dare \u2013 st\u00e4derska<\/strong> = cleaning person<\/li>\n<li><strong>l\u00e4rare \u2013 l\u00e4rarinna<\/strong> =  teacher<\/li>\n<li><strong>s\u00e5ngare \u2013 s\u00e5ngerska<\/strong> = singer<\/li>\n<li><strong>kass\u00f6r \u2013 kass\u00f6rska<\/strong> = cashier<\/li>\n<li><strong>kock \u2013 kockerska<\/strong> = chef\/cook<\/li>\n<li><strong>fris\u00f6r \u2013 fris\u00f6rska<\/strong> = hair dresser<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Then there are some that have masculine and feminine forms just like in English:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>v\u00e4rd \u2013 v\u00e4rdinna<\/strong> = host\/hostess<\/li>\n<li><strong>servit\u00f6r \u2013 servitris<\/strong> = waiter\/waitress<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>and the one you already know:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>sk\u00e5despelare \u2013 sk\u00e5despelerska<\/strong> = actor\/actress<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are of course many others, this is just to give you a general idea.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, in most cases you can use just the masculine form regardless of whether you mean a man or a woman. This trend is also visible in English. I know a few actresses in New York City who refuse to be called \u201cactresses\u201d. Instead, they refer to themselves as \u201cfemale actors\u201d. Fine by me. I support gender equality and all that.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2008\/09\/male-nurse-copy.jpg\" aria-label=\"Male Nurse Copy\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-72\"  alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"185\" \/ src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2008\/09\/male-nurse-copy.jpg\"><\/a>One strange exception is the word \u201cnurse\u201d in Swedish. Well, the word in itself is not strange. It\u2019s \u201c<strong>sjuksk\u00f6terska<\/strong>\u201d and it comes from \u201c<strong>sjuk<\/strong>\u201d meaning \u201csick\u201d, and \u201c<strong>sk\u00f6tare<\/strong>\u201d meaning \u201ckeeper\u201d, or \u201csomebody who takes care of somebody\/something else\u201d.<br \/>\nAnd here is where it gets funky. \u201c<strong>Sk\u00f6tare<\/strong>\u201d is a masculine form, and \u201c<strong>sk\u00f6terska<\/strong>\u201d is its feminine equivalent.<\/p>\n<p>Technically, if someone is a male nurse, you can refer to him as \u201c<strong>sjuksk\u00f6tare<\/strong>\u201d, but personally, I\u2019ve never seen this word being used outside of a dictionary. Instead, even a male nurse is still just a nurse &#8211; \u201c<strong>sjuksk\u00f6terska<\/strong>\u201d. If you want to be exact, you can specify \u2013 \u201c<strong>manlig sjuksk\u00f6terska<\/strong>\u201d, which means exactly a \u201cmale nurse\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><em>(Now if you want to have some real fun with this word, ask a person from Sk\u00e5ne to pronounce it. Ha!)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The photo of Mr. Bj\u00f6rn Lindberg, who&#8217;s a male nurse, is part of the &#8220;Stockholm &#8211; The Capital of Scandinavia&#8221; ad campaign and you can see it at Arlanda airport. <em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"250\" height=\"185\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2008\/09\/male-nurse-copy.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><p>In my last post, as I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve noticed, I showed you a Swedish noun with a \u201creal\u201d gender. A noun that has both a male and a female version. That word was \u201csk\u00e5despelare\u201d which means an \u201cactor\u201d. This is actually a bit similar to what happens in English as well. We have an actor&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/real-gender-specific-nouns\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6,13],"tags":[74,364864,110,3324,364865],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grammar","category-vocabulary","tag-gender","tag-grammar","tag-nouns","tag-occupations","tag-vocabulary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}