Swedish learning & resource thread

[-hulda-]

I think one thing that is important, is not to be offended if you're "ignored" in "skräptråden". I get ignored too... And sometimes there's no time to reply, or you just tired and can't find the right "funny" or nice enough answer. It's not necessarily meant to be an insult. And don't be afraid to spell things wrong or to not get grammatics right. As someone wrote, it happens to us too every now and then... And my english is by no means perfect haha.

[jazzpurist]

＠HauZZer: Thanks, but you are probably the only one on this forum who thinks anything positive about me. I'm still flattered and touched.

＠namokab:

Wow, the only time I have ever seen the word frände was in the medieval song Vänner och Fränder, and I was convinced that it meant relatives (never looked up the word, just assumed that medieval ballads are not superfluous), so I had to pick up my dictionary to look at it. And it says only

frändskap: släktskap, likhet

So if you could elaborate what you meant here by that word, I would be grateful. Are you suggesting that the people there are a big family or that they are only friendly to people who are similar to them? I would have expected vänskap there.



The spelling tajt is pretty much the common one. I find these kind of “frankenwords” funny, when you take an English word and spell it like you would pronounce it in a different language. They are pretty amusing, but excessive use of them drives me nuts. That's like showing off how you know English (which is hardly a feat, one of the most spoken languages in the world). We have them too, lajk is one such word (I will let you guess where it comes from.)



As for hen, I like it, because it's just easier to use when you have no idea yet whether it's a han or a hon someone is talking to you about. But I would only use it informally and while I'm okay with seeing it online or in a newspaper article, I wouldn't want to see it in a book. The same with tajt, actually. As long as it's ledig stil or talspråk (casual style and spoken language, for the 5%), pretty much anything goes, but otherwise I expect people to have care of their style of writing.



The thing with de and dem is that they are quite easy actually, but they are like there and their in English, lazy people don't care. I have a hard time believing people don't know the difference, I'm pretty sure they just can't be bothered to use them correctly, so half-ass it and all done. I was taught that when in doubt, use dom. I think they were something I messed up in my first post to you, but my coherency decreases when I'm upset, and I had no time to read through it before I had to get offline.



Särskrivning annoys me too, especially that there are two options: either even I can see it is messed up, or it seems so legit that I question my own version of spelling. Tho the first one can be funny sometimes.



And while we are at a dagisnivå and discuss poop and fart, in my language the word kaka means poop. (I do remember an interview when Sami said that the best thing with getting old is that you can fart in public, but I'm still hoping it was a bad joke from him. I prefer Martin's side at the gigs tho. ) And you don't even want to know what fika means.



Also, it probably only hurts my esthetics, but “as long as you do not särksriver” would sound better to me. I am aware that you use infinitive in English after do not, but you wouldn't use infinitive in Swedish after inte.

(Just an off note: you all seem to think that I was ignored once or twice on the Swedish forums and still whining about those ocassions. That happened too, but that's not all of it. But the rest is something I don't like to think back to and want to discuss openly even less.)

EDIT: Forgot to add my word:

Hiss in English is a sound a snake (or an angry person makes), and in Swedish, it means elevator.

[namokab]

@jazzpurist:
You are right about frändskap (släktskap is the main meaning), which makes it obvious that my Swedish is far from perfect when it comes to unusual words.

Caca means poo in spanish so there's another similarity.

Also felt that "särskriver" felt better but to summarize it is tricky to mix languages like that.

Regarding my thoughts about not getting responses to posts, it was not directed to you specifically, just an interesting topic (so you shouldn't take it personally again... ).

I think one thing that is important, is not to be offended if you're "ignored" in "skräptråden". I get ignored too... And sometimes there's no time to reply, or you just tired and can't find the right "funny" or nice enough answer. It's not necessarily meant to be an insult. And don't be afraid to spell things wrong or to not get grammatics right. As someone wrote, it happens to us too every now and then... And my english is by no means perfect haha.

There's a differences between not getting response to your first "unrelated" post in a thred and inte få svar på en post that per se is a response to someone's förstainlägg, but I agree that lack of response is no sign of hostility or ens ointresse. However, I must admit that the frequency of responses does influence my appreciation of the forum in general and forumites in particular. That's one reason why you deserve so much love in a forum point of view.

EDIT: @stjärnor on topic - fart also means speed in Swedish, which means velocity with no direction (sign).
Hastighet and hastigt on the other hand seems to be related to the English word hasty, which in fact has a similar meaning.

[jazzpurist]

@jazzpurist:
You are right about frändskap (släktskap is the main meaning), which makes it obvious that my Swedish is far from perfect when it comes to unusual words.

Caca means poo in spanish so there's another similarity.

Also felt that "särskriver" felt better but to summarize it is tricky to mix languages like that.

Regarding my thoughts about not getting responses to posts, it was not directed to you specifically, just an interesting topic (so you shouldn't take it personally again... ).


There's a differences between not getting response to your first "unrelated" post in a thred and inte få svar på en post that per se is a response to someone's förstainlägg, but I agree that lack of response is no sign of hostility or ens ointresse. However, I must admit that the frequency of responses does influence my appreciation of the forum in general and forumites in particular. That's one reason why you deserve so much love in a forum point of view.

Ah, nevermind then, I just thought there would be a secondary meaning or something I don't know about or that my sarcasm was rubbing off on you.

I didn't take it personally, it's just that everyone was like "oh, I get ignored too." Yeah, so is life. Unless you have a really tajt buddy who follows you around and responds to your every post, your stuff gets ignored. I just wanted to clarify that I'm aware of that and there was more to my "not being welcome" statement than that.

But seriously, how hard is it to reply "oh hi, welcome" to someone's very first post, even if you later don't find them interesting and skiter i dem, så att säga? Also, not you personally. That is a sign that someone is not welcome. It's not like you have to think hard what to say to new people. You usually greet them and ask something generic, right? Like you would if you met in real life for the first time? Unless you want to purposefully stress that it is a closed club but you are för feg to tell them to dra åt helvete. (Swenglish is way too much fun. Nearly sinfully so.)

Also, Hulda does a good job ignoring me, but she just probably doesn't have anything nice to say to me so she rather doesn't say anything at all.

[namokab]

Ah, nevermind then, I just thought there would be a secondary meaning or something I don't know about or that my sarcasm was rubbing off on you.

I didn't take it personally, it's just that everyone was like "oh, I get ignored too." Yeah, so is life. Unless you have a really tajt buddy who follows you around and responds to your every post, your stuff gets ignored. I just wanted to clarify that I'm aware of that and there was more to my "not being welcome" statement than that.

But seriously, how hard is it to reply "oh hi, welcome" to someone's very first post, even if you later don't find them interesting and skiter i dem, så att säga? Also, not you personally. That is a sign that someone is not welcome. It's not like you have to think hard what to say to new people. You usually greet them and ask something generic, right? Like you would if you met in real life for the first time? Unless you want to purposefully stress that it is a closed club but you are för feg to tell them to dra åt helvete. (Swenglish is way too much fun. Nearly sinfully so.)

Also, Hulda does a good job ignoring me, but she just probably doesn't have anything nice to say to me so she rather doesn't say anything at all.

lol
You deserve forum love because you're funny.

[-hulda-]

Ah, nevermind then, I just thought there would be a secondary meaning or something I don't know about or that my sarcasm was rubbing off on you.

I didn't take it personally, it's just that everyone was like "oh, I get ignored too." Yeah, so is life. Unless you have a really tajt buddy who follows you around and responds to your every post, your stuff gets ignored. I just wanted to clarify that I'm aware of that and there was more to my "not being welcome" statement than that.

But seriously, how hard is it to reply "oh hi, welcome" to someone's very first post, even if you later don't find them interesting and skiter i dem, så att säga? Also, not you personally. That is a sign that someone is not welcome. It's not like you have to think hard what to say to new people. You usually greet them and ask something generic, right? Like you would if you met in real life for the first time? Unless you want to purposefully stress that it is a closed club but you are för feg to tell them to dra åt helvete. (Swenglish is way too much fun. Nearly sinfully so.)

Also, Hulda does a good job ignoring me, but she just probably doesn't have anything nice to say to me so she rather doesn't say anything at all.

Well, my answers was meant for you aswell (is that a word? my computer want's to change it inte swell and that is not what I want) but I guess I was too lazy to quote all people I (at least thought I) was talking to...

[-hulda-]

Och tack Namokab. Det var snällare än jag tror jag förtjänar.

[stjärnor]

Well, my answers was meant for you aswell (is that a word? my computer want's to change it inte swell and that is not what I want) but I guess I was too lazy to quote all people I (at least thought I) was talking to...

*as well* 2 words, särskrivning! #stjärnorengelskalärare

[-hulda-]

*as well* 2 words, särskrivning! #stjärnorsvenskalärare

Oh, thanks. Is there a word for "ihopskrivning" in english? Because I guess I'm guilty of it!!!

[stjärnor]

I don't think so (apart from the lengthy phrase 'joining words together'). When anyone writes 'alot' that really annoys me, a lot!

[namokab]

Regarding the word "well", it is the adverb for the adjective good in English, but the word "väl" is not used so much in Swedish because we use the word "bra" instead which serves both as adj and adv. This might explain why swedes often happen to say things like "it went good" instead of well. Brunn is another translation of the word well.

[stjärnor]

Great avatar, stjärnor.
(The most difficult word to pronounce?)

Thank you! I didn't even know the crisps existed until last month when I saw them in Hemköp, why did no one tell me about them before?
I guess for anyone with no knowledge of Swedish, the 'stj' letter combination can be daunting. It's like a very soft whistle, which comes easy to me, since we have the soft 'ch' in Scottish words: loch, so my mouth finds the shape easily.
If anyone wants to know how to pronounce my user name, rather than me trying to write it out in phonetics, go and listen to FF "Små vita ljus, bara stjärnor mellan trädan" (small white lights, just stars through the trees) or 'Allt har sin tid' "Döda stjärnor gnistrar, som diamanter, diamanter… " (dead stars glitter, like diamonds, diamonds)

[HauZZer]

@jazzpurist
I noticed that you wrote earlier that english isn't your native language. It got me curious, what is your native language if I may ask? For some reason I immediately assumed you live in the UK, but that might be just from the way you use english. I especially liked the bricks & mortar förliknelsen when describing the process of learning a new language.

This throwing in swedish words in between just feels plain wrong for me. It doesn't strike me as odd when I read posts made by others, but in my own writing it just feels off. I feel I should contribute to the topic but I just don't think I have anything to give.

[stjärnor]

@jazzpurist
I noticed that you wrote earlier that english isn't your native language. It got me curious, what is your native language if I may ask? For some reason I immediately assumed you live in the UK, but that might be just from the way you use english. I especially liked the bricks & mortar förliknelsen when describing the process of learning a new language.

This throwing in swedish words in between just feels plain wrong for me. It doesn't strike me as odd when I read posts made by others, but in my own writing it just feels off. I feel I should contribute to the topic but I just don't think I have anything to give.

What is your native language Hauzzer? Unless I've misread your post, but you once lived in Sweden, but no longer do and aren't a native Swede, correct?

[namokab]

Thank you! I didn't even know the crisps existed until last month when I saw them in Hemköp, why did no one tell me about them before?
I guess for anyone with no knowledge of Swedish, the 'stj' letter combination can be daunting. It's like a very soft whistle, which comes easy to me, since we have the soft 'ch' in Scottish words: loch, so my mouth finds the shape easily.
If anyone wants to know how to pronounce my user name, rather than me trying to write it out in phonetics, go and listen to FF "Små vita ljus, bara stjärnor mellan träden" (small white lights, just stars through the trees) or 'Allt har sin tid' "Döda stjärnor gnistrar, som diamanter, diamanter… " (dead stars glitter, like diamonds, diamonds)

You certainly take note of the word for stars in Kent songs like noone else. Spanish people should also be able to pronounce stj/sj (similar to their jota). The y-sound in Swedish is also tricky for non-swedes, not even the german ü is the same although similar.