 |
| "Ribbit!" |
1) Teenage mutant ninja shield toads!
As I've highlighted in previous blog posts, the Swedish language has quite a few words which describe something in a creative manner, and the Swedish word for turtle also follows that pattern.
In Swedish, a turtle is known as a 'sköldpadda' which literally translates as a 'shield toad'. If you're being creative, then I suppose a turtle does kind of look like a toad with a shield on its back.
2) Lazy word creation
When it comes to grandparents, however, the Swedish language isn't the slightest bit creative.
In English we linguistically pay tribute to our parents' parents by respectfully describing them as 'grand', i.e. grandfather and grandmother, but in Sweden things are more functional. Rather boringly, you would describe your grandma as 'mormor' which literally means 'mother mother'. Similarly, you would describe your grandad as 'farfar' which literally means 'father father'.
Just to complicate things, if you were describing your grandma on your father's side, you would say 'farmor' and to round things off, your grandad on your mother's side would be your 'morfar'!
 |
| Bonbons. Editor's note: "Charles, it's 'barnbarns', not bonbons." Charles: "Yes, I know, but I didn't have a photo of grandchildren, so I used this one instead. Hopefully no-one will notice." |
3) More laziness...
Continuing with the lazy word creation theme, using a similar logic, the Swedish word for grandchild is 'barnbarn' which means 'child child'!
4) More money than sense!
Apparently, the word 'vaska' means 'to buy two bottles of champagne at the bar and then pour one down the sink just to show everyone how rich you are!'
It's quite a long-winded translation, so if you want a shorter more concise translation, here it is...
'Idiot'.
5) Swedish tongue twister
 |
| Instead of a generic caption, here's a cool quote about sheep: "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." ~Mark Twain |
"Grandad, do sheep get sheep?
"Sheep don't get sheep. Sheep get lamb."
In Swedish, it reads like this...
"Farfar, får får får får?"
"Får får inte får. Får får lamm."
I have to say, it's a lot easier to say than most English tongue twisters, because nearly every word is the same!
6) Harkla
Harkla is a cool word which describes the coughing sound someone makes before giving a speech. In English I guess we would say 'to clear your throat'.
7) Feel the beat!
In Swedish, a 'pulsgenerator' is exactly what it sounds like, because a 'pulsgenerator' literally generates your pulse. As we would call it in English, it's a pacemaker!
 |
| Swedish dictionary writer: "Bah, almost! We nearly had a legitimate situation where someone could use the word 'solkatt'." Swedish dictionary writer's colleague: "Yes, if only he'd turned his wrist slightly in the sun's direction." Swedish dictionary writer: "Oh, well! I'm sure one day the word 'solkatt' will come in useful." Swedish dictionary writer's colleague: "Yes, er ... I'm sure you're right." (Glances shiftily from side to side.) |
8) And the award for the most unnecessary word goes to...
When it comes to unnecessary words, as I've reported in earlier blog posts, Japanese has some great examples. However, the Swedish language also has the occasional unnecessary word, and my personal favourite is 'solkatt'.
'Solkatt' is a Swedish word to describe 'the sun's reflection off your watch'. I have to admit, in my entire life I can't recall many occasions when I've had to need to say 'the sun's reflection off my watch' so I'm not entirely sure that 'solkatt' is in common enough usage to merit its own specific word.
Who knows though, perhaps Swedish people have exceptionally reflective watches.
9) Time waits for no man.
As William Shakespeare once said, 'Better three hours too soon than a minute too late." We've all got that one friend who repeatedly ignores Shakespeare's wisdom, and is constantly late for everything. If you tell them you're meeting at 7:23pm, they won't arrive until 8:00pm.
Well in Swedish there's a word to describe your habitually late friend, and that word is 'tidoptimist'.
The literal translation of 'tidoptimist' is 'time optimist' which I think is a really cool way to describe someone who's always late.
 |
| Cat's aren't very good at fetching things, but they're experts at sniffing things! |
10) Fetch!
When you played football as a child, if the ball got kicked off the pitch and someone had to run and get it, in English we don't have a particular word to describe that person.
However, in Swedish, the boy who ran off to get the ball would be called 'bolkalle' which, rather bizarrely, literally translates as 'ball skull'.
- - - - - - - - - -
You can find more Swedish themed blog posts below posts:
Modern Swedish words
10 cool Swedish words and expressions (Part 3)
Footnote: Strictly speaking, I suppose this blog post should have been called '9 cool Swedish words and expressions, and 2 boring Swedish words'. That's because 'mormor' and 'farfar' are quite boring functional words, rather than cool words.
However, '9 cool Swedish words and expressions, and 2 boring Swedish words' would have been a rather long-winded post title, so in the interests of catchiness I decided to compromise my journalistic integrity and go with a catchier title, rather than an accurate title. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.
No comments:
Post a Comment