Etikettarkiv: #learning Swedish vocabulary

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The three hundred and eighty-sixth åsic- Höstlöv, höstlov, hostlov, Fall Break!

A recycled blogpost from my visit in Pitman New Jersey 2014!

#höstlöv, #asaole

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Four different spellings means four different things, of course they do, but let’s take a closer look at it!

  1. höstlöv= autumn leaves→ when days get colder and leaves change colours from green into more colourful yellow, orange or red
  2. höstlov=fall break→ when Swedish school kids have a week off while teachers either go to conventions or work with their local projects, or get a chance to get some busy time back.
  3. hostlov= a coughing  ”break” meaning that the planned ”höstlov” would be a week when you had to stay in bed because of coughing… 😦
  4. Fall break=höstlov
  5. Ö→In Swedish we have three different letters that you can’t find in English. They are å, ä and ö.

If I would use a computer keyboard here, in the US, I would need to find some solution to writing the Swedish letters, which would cause problems since I’m not that much of a computer person. Instead I tend to write ”Swedish” with the computers I find here, but replacing the å, ä and ö with a, a and o. There! See??? Already we have a chance to mix them up, since å and ä are not the same as a and a… So how would one tell whether the intention is to write å or ä? Knowing what reading is about, one might pretend to be Sherlock Holmes and try to find out by checking the meaning of the words around…or perhaps being Swedish might be of help…? Check these two chunks of Swedish, but spelled without the å or ä:

  1. Ett far kan braka.
  2. Titta en bat!

Let’s say you don’t know Swedish at all… Then you would think it’s something wrong with the grammar in the first sentence, I guess… or you would just assume that this person has missed out a word of maybe is dyslectic.

The first sentence may mean several things in Swedish, but knowing Swedish properly means knowing whether you would use ”en” or ”ett” (comparable to the use of ”a” or ”an” in English). A Swedish person would know that if ”far” in the first sentence actually is correct (meaning ”father”) then there has to be ”en” rather than ”ett” if written with correct use of grammar. Suppose this person assume it is a father then… On to the problem with ”braka”… That word is a verb and you would mainly use it to describe what happens if a construction of some sort break apart, such as if a tree falls over a shed in your garden, you would say that the tree fell over the shed: ”skjulet brakade sönder”. The use of ”braka” might also suggest the sound of something, not necessarily something nice… Suppose you lunch was beans… After a while you really have to fart… If that happens and you can hear a sound, you would in colloquial or dialectal Swedish say ”han brakade” meaning ”he farted”. Then, what happens with the first sentence is that you have different options now, right? Either the meaning is ”en far kan braka” meaning ”a father can fart” or we need to doublecheck the meaning of the word braka… Is there any chance for that word being spelled with either å or ä??? Oh… as a matter of fact, both would be possible to use… ”En far kan bråka” means ”a father can be messing/fighting”… ”En far kan bräka” means that the father makes the sound of a sheep. Would a father to that? Yes, maybe if he plays with his kids or something, but it is more likely that we didn’t guess right when we picked either å or ä here… So then… What next??? I suggest for us to go back to the noun… ett far… We already know that ett far is not how we would say in Swedish. We would say ”en far” if it HAD meant father…but suppose it doesn’t? ”Ett får”= a sheep, YES!!! A sheep can bleat= ”ett får kan bräka”. Guess what??? This is what you and I do in a matter of SECONDS when we read a text!!! I think that’s amazing! Don’t you?

Let’s repeat the concept…by checking the second sentence!

”Titta” means ”look”… ”en” means ”a”… bat is a word in English, but not in Swedish. A Swedish speaking person has two options here. One is to assume that the word ”bat” means the currency they use in Thailand and then also assume that the person who wrote it has missed an ”h”  in ”baht”, but more likely is for the person to read between the lines and understand that nobody would comment on Thai currency in that way and rather suggest that the ”bat” has to be spelled with either ”å” or ”ä”. When picking one of these this time it’s easy! Why is that? Well, there IS no such word as ”bät” in Swedish, so problem is solved with ”båt” meaning ”boat” and the sentence will be ”Look, a boat!”

By reading between the lines, one can get a lot of language learning, don’t you think?

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The eightysixth åsic- Höstlöv, höstlov, hostlov, Fall Break!

foto-canvas-canvastavlor-24.jpg (600×375)barn_host.JPG (510×315)hosta-300x252_150299504.jpg (300×252)

 

 

 

 

 

Four different spellings means four different things, of course they do, but let’s take a closer look at it!

  1. höstlöv= autumn leaves→ when days get colder and leaves change colours from green into more colourful yellow, orange or red
  2. höstlov=fall break→ when Swedish school kids have a week off while teachers either go to conventions or work with their local projects, or get a chance to get some busy time back.
  3. hostlov= a coughing  ”break” meaning that the planned ”höstlov” would be a week when you had to stay in bed because of coughing… 😦
  4. Fall break=höstlov
  5. Ö→In Swedish we have three different letters that you can’t find in English. They are å, ä and ö.

If I would use a computer keyboard here, in the US, I would need to find some solution to writing the Swedish letters, which would cause problems since I’m not that much of a computer person. Instead I tend to write ”Swedish” with the computers I find here, but replacing the å, ä and ö with a, a and o. There! See??? Already we have a chance to mix them up, since å and ä are not the same as a and a… So how would one tell whether the intention is to write å or ä? Knowing what reading is about, one might pretend to be Sherlock Holmes and try to find out by checking the meaning of the words around…or perhaps being Swedish might be of help…? Check these two chunks of Swedish, but spelled without the å or ä:

  1. Ett far kan braka.
  2. Titta en bat!

Let’s say you don’t know Swedish at all… Then you would think it’s something wrong with the grammar in the first sentence, I guess… or you would just assume that this person has missed out a word of maybe is dyslectic.

The first sentence may mean several things in Swedish, but knowing Swedish properly means knowing whether you would use ”en” or ”ett” (comparable to the use of ”a” or ”an” in English). A Swedish person would know that if ”far” in the first sentence actually is correct (meaning ”father”) then there has to be ”en” rather than ”ett” if written with correct use of grammar. Suppose this person assume it is a father then… On to the problem with ”braka”… That word is a verb and you would mainly use it to describe what happens if a construction of some sort break apart, such as if a tree falls over a shed in your garden, you would say that the tree fell over the shed: ”skjulet brakade sönder”. The use of ”braka” might also suggest the sound of something, not necessarily something nice… Suppose you lunch was beans… After a while you really have to fart… If that happens and you can hear a sound, you would in colloquial or dialectal Swedish say ”han brakade” meaning ”he farted”. Then, what happens with the first sentence is that you have different options now, right? Either the meaning is ”en far kan braka” meaning ”a father can fart” or we need to doublecheck the meaning of the word braka… Is there any chance for that word being spelled with either å or ä??? Oh… as a matter of fact, both would be possible to use… ”En far kan bråka” means ”a father can be messing/fighting”… ”En far kan bräka” means that the father makes the sound of a sheep. Would a father to that? Yes, maybe if he plays with his kids or something, but it is more likely that we didn’t guess right when we picked either å or ä here… So then… What next??? I suggest for us to go back to the noun… ett far… We already know that ett far is not how we would say in Swedish. We would say ”en far” if it HAD meant father…but suppose it doesn’t? ”Ett får”= a sheep, YES!!! A sheep can bleat= ”ett får kan bräka”. Guess what??? This is what you and I do in a matter of SECONDS when we read a text!!! I think that’s amazing! Don’t you?

Let’s repeat the concept…by checking the second sentence!

”Titta” means ”look”… ”en” means ”a”… bat is a word in English, but not in Swedish. A Swedish speaking person has two options here. One is to assume that the word ”bat” means the currency they use in Thailand and then also assume that the person who wrote it has missed an ”h”  in ”baht”, but more likely is for the person to read between the lines and understand that nobody would comment on Thai currency in that way and rather suggest that the ”bat” has to be spelled with either ”å” or ”ä”. When picking one of these this time it’s easy! Why is that? Well, there IS no such word as ”bät” in Swedish, so problem is solved with ”båt” meaning ”boat” and the sentence will be ”Look, a boat!”

By reading between the lines, one can get a lot of language learning, don’t you think?

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The Twentyfourth åsic – Herons for dinner!

 

“Bing tells me you’re eating herons for dinner- How unusual!”

First I thought that it’s strange that my dear friend refers to anything in particular that I might have for dinner, since I knew I hadn’t mentioned the menu for the evening… Then I thought there must be some kind of misunderstanding… This friend and I have had a few funny conversations where misinterpretation or misunderstanding was the reason. I needed to check my vocabulary, since I wasn’t familiar with the word “herons” at first. I thought maybe it’s some vegetable or some odd animal we don’t have in Sweden, or maybe a pastry of some sort. After I realized the mistranslation I smiled, of course! Herons are lovely birds and I admire their beauty and noble looks compared to other more ordinary little birds I may see through my kitchen window. The phrase my friend referred to, ”kvällens middag hägrar” does not suggest that we eat herons, although Bing was right about the GENERAL translation, since hägrar means more than one of a heron (=häger).  In My sentence however, I wasn’t talking about the food at all, merely about the dinner I was waiting for. I used the word “hägrar”, which is the present tense of the verb HÄGRA. The looming dinner… To loom… att hägra, något hägrar. I thought it quite fun that you Americans have turkey for Thanksgiving, and we have herons an ordinary Friday. Turkeys are farm animals, but we would definitely need to hunt for our herons… J

If you know the Swedish culture a bit, you may have noticed that some dishes preferably would be served certain weekdays. One such dish is pancakes, not the American type, with maple syrup, but the Swedish type, thinner, served with jam and sometimes whipped cream or ice-cream.

 

For some the only topping would be sugar. A long time ago, it was more common to have pancakes for dinner on Thursdays than it probably is now. One of the reasons for this dish returning weekly was simply that it was affordable for all, since it’s cheap. Nowadays when people are more aware of the connection between food and health, many avoid pancakes since its anything but a low carb diet. in the old Swedish  tradition we didn’t just have our pancakes on Thursdays, we also had a typical kind of soup, made of yellow peas spiced with thyme and served with mustard.

Pancakes every Thursday is not at all a varied diet. But who would want to skip the lovely pancakes? There are several similar dishes made with the same ingredients and sometimes a few more added. One of those dishes is in Swedish called “plättar”. The most equivalent translation would be a “blini” but that’s not really the thing… Plättar are smaller than pancakes and they take an eternity to make, since you need about seven of them to get the same amount of food as one single pancake. I have no patience whatsoever, so I make the ordinary pancakes, but my husband sometimes have time and patience enough to make plättar. Oddly enough, the kids love plättar more than pancakes, although it’s made of the same ingredients. As if this wasn’t enough, another dish we would make out of the same batter is called fläskpannkaka in Swedish. Fläsk means “pork”, and the reason why the pancake has this odd name, is that it’s filled with diced pork. When I’m in hurry or when I’m hungry, I’m not fully aware of what I say and my regular skills in translation seem to have disappeared completely.

As my American friend and I were chatting on ICQ about ten years ago and I was about to sign off, I was BOTH hungry and in a hurry! I mentioned that since it was Thursday we would have “what many Swedes have on Thursdays” for dinner. My friend asked:  ”And what is that?” I said: ”It’s yellow pea soup and flesh pancakes”.  After I had eaten and thought things over, I realized what his remark meant: “So you are a cannibal, are you?!” I’m glad he didn’t comment on the pea soup… What if I had spelled the word ”pee”?