Category: Swedish (svenska)

Treading in Spinach

By Simon

Language quiz image

A few posts ago I wrote about an interesting Swedish idiom – trampa i klaveret – to make a social mistake, put one’s foot in it, or literally “to step heavily on the accordion”.

Today I learnt the Danish equivalent – træde i spinaten (“to tread in the spinach”). For example, jeg har virkelig trådt i spinaten (“I have really trod in the spinach”) = I really put my foot in it.

Accoriding to Den Danske Ordbog, træde i spinaten means “utilsigtet sige eller gøre noget dumt” (to accidentally say or do something stupid).

Another version is træde/trampe i spinatbedet (“tread/tramp in the spinach bed”) [source].

Then there’s the spinatfugl or “spinach bird”, which is apparently a person who writes reviews or other cultural material in a newspaper without a journalistic background [source].

Does anybody know why such a person is known as a spinach bird?

The word spinach comes from the Middle English spinach, from Anglo-Norman spinache, from the Old French espinoche, from the Old Occitan espinarc, from the Arabic إِسْفَانَاخ‎ (ʾisfānāḵ), from the Persian اسپناخ‎ (ispanâx).

Apparently spinach cinema refers to “Movies that are not very exciting or interesting, but that one feels one must see because they are educational or otherwise uplifting.” [source]

Are there any interesting spinach or other vegetable-related idioms in other languages?

Bratislava

By Simon

I’m currently in Bratislava in Slovakia for the 2019 Polyglot Gathering, which starts tomorrow, although there was an opening ceremony this evening.

The Polyglot Gathering 2019 begins

Today I went on a tour taking in three countries – Slovakia, Hungary and Austria. I had conversations in English, French, German, Mandarin, Spanish and Irish, and spoke odd bits of Czech, Slovak, Russian, Scots, Hungarian, Portuguese, Welsh, Esperanto and Swedish.

Hainburg Castle

I probably won’t have much time for blogging with all the intensive polylgotting that’s going on. Normal service will be resumed next week.

Gender Matters

By Simon

In languages with grammatical gender, such as Spanish and Swedish, gender matters and can sometimes lead to misundertandings if you get it wrong.

Some words may sound the same, but have different genders and different meanings. For example, in Swedish a team is ett lag (neuter) and a law is en lag (common gender).

I haven’t come across any other homographs like this in Swedish, but there probably are others. Do you known any more in Swedish or other languages?

I found some in Spanish, including:

  • el coma = coma; la coma = comma
  • el mañana = future; la mañana = morning
  • el moral = blackberry bush; la moral = morale, morality
  • el papa = pope; la papa = potato
  • el pez = fish; la pez = tar, pitch
  • el tema = subject; la tema = obsession

Other Swedish words I sometimes get muddled include: väg (path, road) and vägg (wall), and svart (black, dark) and svårt (hard).

So it’s not just gender that matters – accents and spelling are also important.

How do you learn the genders of nouns in languages with grammatical gender?

Instrumental Idioms

By Simon

trampa i klaveret

The other day I learnt an interesting Swedish idiom – nu trampade jag verkligen i klaveret, which means “I really put my foot in it” or literally “now I really stepped (heavily) on the accordion / piano / keyboard”.

According to the Svenska Akademiens Ordböcker, trampa i klaveret means “göra en social tabbe” (to make a social mistake). Apparently it comes from the phrase “Det låter, sa bonden/klockaren, trampade i klavere” (It sounds, said the farmer / watchman, like trampling on the keyboard” [source].

To put one’s foot in it means “to say or do something tactless or embarrassing; commit a blunder or indiscretion.” [source]. The origins of this phrase are not known.

Other idioms involves musical instruments, or instrumental idioms, include:

  • rhoi’r ffidl yn y to = to give up / throw in the towel (“to put the fiddle in the roof)
  • to play second fiddle = to take a subordinate position to someone was is more important
  • to blow one’s own trumpet = to boast about your own sucesses
  • to blow the whistle (on sth/sb) = to report illegal / unacceptable activities

Do you know any more?

Wise Clocks

By Simon

city hall from Hantverkargatan Stockholm

The Swedish word klok [kluːk] means wise, sensible or intelligent. It doesn’t sound quite like the English word clock, but looks like it should. In fact it sounds more like cluck.

Some examples of how it’s used, and of related words:

  • klok gubbe = wise old man
  • klok gumma = wise woman
  • klok som en bok/pudel/uggla = as wise as a book/poodle/owl
  • En sådan politik skulle inte vara klok = Such a policy would be ill-advised
  • Detta är en klok rekommendation = This is a sensible recommendation
  • det verkar klokt = that seems wise
  • Är du inte klok? = Are you out of your mind?
  • Är du inte riktigt klok? = Are you crazy? Are you completely out of your mind?
  • Jag blev inte klok på det = I cannot make it out, It didn’t make sense to me
  • klokhet = wisdom, prudence, sense, wit
  • klokskap = cleverness
  • klokt = wisely, judiciously, sagely

Owls are also seen as wise in English, and although we don’t say ‘as wise as a book’, reading books can help on the road to wisdom. Poodles are not usually associated with wisdom in English, as far as I know, but it seems they are in Swedish.

In other languages, what is the equivalent of the phrase ‘as wise as an owl’?

Klok comes from the Old Norse klókr (arch, cunning, clever), from Middle Low German klôk.

The Swedish word for clock is klocka [klɔkːa], which comes from the Old Swedish klockæ, from Old Norse klokka (bell, clock), from Late Latin clocca (o’clock), probably from the Proto-Celtic *klokkos (bell), from the Proto-Indo-European *klēg-/*klōg- (onomatopoeia).

Sources: bab.la, Linguee, Ord.se, Svenska Akademiens Ordböcker, DinOrdbok, Wiktionary

Det knallar!

By Simon

One of the Swedish phrases I learnt this week was Det knallar!, which means “it’s okay; it’s business as usual” [source] or literally “it bangs / crashes / pops”. I like the sound of it, so thought I’d write about it.

The verb knalla means to bang, crash or pop [source], and knall means bang, crash, pop [source]

Related words and expressions include:

  • knalleffekt = bombshell, sensation, sensational effect
  • knallgul = bright yellow
  • knallröd = bright / vivid red
  • knallhatt = percussion cap
  • knallskott = jumping jack / quockerwodger
  • det knallar och går = I’m jogging along, I’m managing

Is it used in any other interesting expressions?

Blue Ants and Pencils

By Simon

Blyant (pencil in Danish and Norwegian)

In Danish the word for pencil is blyant [ˈblyːˌanˀd], which sort of sounds like blue ant. When I learnt this, I wondered where this word comes from, and I thought I’d share what I found with you.

The word blyant, which is also used in Norwegian, combines bly (lead) with the French suffix -ant. It is an abbreviation of blyertspen [source], which comes from blyert (black lead, graphite), from the German Bleiertz (lead ore – lit. “lead earth”) and pen [source].

Related words include:

  • blyantsholder = pencil holder
  • blyantspenge = financial allowance for members of the European Parliament (“pencil money”)
  • blyantspids = the tip of a pencil
  • blyantspidser = pencil sharpener
  • blyantsstreg / blyantstreg = pencil line
  • blyantstegning / blyanttegning = pencil drawing

Source: Den Danske Ordbog

The words for pencil in Swedish (blyertspenna), Faroese and Icelandic (blýantur) come from the same roots [source].

The German word for pencil, Bleistift [ˈblaɪ̯ʃtɪft] comes from a similar root: Blei (lead) and Stift (pen) [source].

There is in fact a creature called a blue ant (Diamma bicolor) – it is blue, but is a species of wasp rather than an ant, and lives in parts of Australia [source].

Context Matters

By Simon

Context matters / Контекст имеет значение

When learning new words in foreign tongues I find that I can remember some words more easily than others, especially if they are similar to words I already know in English or other languages. Other words don’t seem to stick in my memory so easily, even if I try to connect their unfamiliar sounds to familiar words.

In Russian and Czech, for example, there are quite a few words that I can understand when I see them in a sentence, but may not be so sure what they mean when I encounter them on their own – having some context makes all the difference.

Another challange with Russian, at least for me, is recognising words at a glance. Words written in the Cyrillic alphabet don’t seem to have such distinctive shapes as those written in the Latin alphabet, which makes them more difficult to distinguish. This is probably because I haven’t spent enough time reading Russian texts.

Words in Swedish, Danish and Spanish, the other languages I’m working on at the moment, tend to be much easier for me to remember. Many of them are simliar to English, or to other languages I know. The ones that aren’t similiar tend to be short, especially in Swedish and Danish, and I find them easier to remember than longer Russian or Czech words.

Learning lists of words without any context can work with a lot of repetition, and maybe some mnemonic techniques, but it seems to be better to learn words in context.

How do you learn vocabulary?

Selective Understanding

By Simon

Do you ever find yourself listening a something in a language you thought you knew well, and having difficultly understanding it?

This happens to me, even with languages I speak fluently, such as Welsh and Irish, especially when people are talking about an unfamiliar subject, or using an unfamiliar vocabulary.

Yesterday, for example, I watched some videos on YouTube in Russian and Swedish. I don’t speak either language fluently, but I can usually get a least some idea what people are talking about in them. With these videos though, I found it difficult to understand very much at all, as they were talking about people and things I know little or nothing about.

This is the Russian video – something about US visas, I think:

This is the Swedish video – something about politicians, I think:

I can usually understand just about everything on Radio Cymru (a Welsh language radio station), but sometimes I find it difficult to follow what people are saying, especially if they’re using very colloquial or very formal language. So there’s always more to learn.

Knufflige Knuffelbeests

By Simon

Giant Giraffe

If someone called you a knuff, would you see it as a compliment or an insult?

Knuff is an obsolete English word that means a lout or clown, so it would be an insult. It comes from the Old English cnof (a churl). The k is silent, but I think in Old English the c was pronounced [source].

Possibly related Swedish words include knuff (nudge, push, boost, dig, shove) [source] and knuffa (to push, nudge, shove) [source].

Possibly related German words include knuffen (to nudge; to jab; to pinch (usually playfully or even tenderly)) [source] and knuffig (cuddly) [source]

Possibly related Dutch words include knuffelen (to cuddle, hug), from the Low German knuffen (to poke; bump; nudge) [source], knuffig (cuddly) [source], knuffel (hug, cuddle, stuffed toy) [source] and knuffelbeest (stuffed toy) [source].

The word knuff came up in one of my Swedish lessons this week, and as I like the sound of it, I thought I’d write about it. There’s something about that combination of k and n and the beginning of a word that makes it sound cute and cuddly to me.

Which sounds and combinations of sounds (in any language) most appeal to you?