![]() These Swedish fillers often correspond to “like,” but are used a bit differently. You know, those kind of words that your grumpy uncle told you to use less of when you were a teenager. They’re all filler words, which means that they don’t really mean anything - their function is merely to fill out the pauses in speech. You probably won’t learn these words in any formal language-learning setting, which is why I’ll teach you them here. Meaning: like, kind of, like, kind of like… Literal Translation: type, like, so, like this… Ja, det är fett! (“Yeah, it’s awesome!”).Nice! Är det ett soft ställe? (“Nice! Is it a cool place?”).(“I had a beer with Berit in the XYZ bar yesterday.”) Jag tog en öl med Berit på XYZ-baren igår.A conversation among Swedish 20- or 30-somethings is quite likely to go something like this: (“I’m going to Mallorca next week.”)įett, literally “fat,” is used when something is really awesome, and nice has taken on the function of a general answer to any positive statement. Soft in Swedish, however, has little to do with sensations or materials, and more to do with a feeling of satisfaction, and good times in general: Swedes use the English adjectives “nice,” “cool,” and, more surprisingly, “soft” a lot. These adjectives are great for the many occasions when a simple bra or trevligt (good, great) is not enough, which is - if you ask anyone under 40 - almost always. Okay, it might not necessarily make more sense now, but we just have to live with that. Easy!īut wait a minute, how exactly are human buttocks and your favorite chip flavor similar? Well, this Swedish phrase makes no sense unless you know how it ends: Smaken är som baken: delad (“The taste is like the butt: divided”). And if you realize you can’t agree with someone, then it’s better to leave the discussion at a courteous “let’s agree to disagree.” So, instead of debating for hours and hours whether sour cream and onion or dill is the best chip flavor, you can just say, Ja, ja, smaken är som baken. Ideally, everyone should be happy with every decision ever made. Meaning: different strokes for different folksĬonsensus is very important to the majority of Swedes. Literal Translation: the taste is like the butt Tjena Freddie! Bra! Själv? (“Hey Freddie! All good! And you?”).Tja Bosse! Läget? (“Hi Bosse! What’s up?”).This is frequently used both by teenagers and men in their fifties when they meet their polare (“friends”). I still encourage you to use that one, since it works with all demographic groups, but it also comes in handy to be able to use the more informal Läget? or, in its full version, Hur är läget? (“How does it lie?”). You might have learned “ Hur mår du?“ as the key Swedish phrase to ask how somebody is doing. Den här räkmackan kostar 190 kronor! (“This shrimp sandwich costs 190 kronor!”).But the expression is also often muttered in a sarcastic way, that is, when you actually don’t think it’s worth the money. Smakar det så kostar det is an expression meant to console you after you’ve decided to pay 6 dollars for a kanelbulle (cinnamon roll): good things in life will cost you, but it’s probably worth it. Scandinavia has a nasty habit of eating its way through your wallet immediately after you get off the plane or train. Literal Translation: tastes it so costs it It also comes in countless practical compound variations, such as kaffesugen, godissugen or shoppingsugen (“feeling like coffee, candy, shopping”). Jag är sugen på glass (“I feel like ice cream”). However, the most common way to use this Swedish phrase is when you’re talking about food and drinks, i.e. A Google search suggests, in addition to the above mentioned examples: sugen på golf, sugen på att ha en shetlandsponny, sugen på att julpynta and sugen på rött hår (which tells us that Swedes on the internet are likely to feel like playing golf, rearing Shetland ponies, putting up Christmas decorations or having red hair). No? Well, in Swedish it’s called sugen and is, as you can see, applicable to almost anything. You know that feeling when you really really want a coffee/fries/more snow/a beer/to swim in a lake/to have children/to travel to Kenya/to enter the Eurovision song contest? Meaning: the desire to do or have something craving Here are some of the most useful Swedish phrases if you want to sound like a native. That’s why we’ll try to explain here what it means to be sugen, when you ask Läget? And why - trust me on this one - personal taste is like a person’s backside. Speaking a language is about more than knowing enough words and mastering the grammar - it’s also about those strange yet specific phrases and sayings that your teacher wouldn’t tell you.
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