Chru's Swedish Class!
 

Well, while English is the most important language in the world, a lot of people decide to learn Spanish, French, German, even Russian, Korean, Japanese or Chinese these days. Swedish is, quite simply, not the most common language to learn these days, but as it's based on Latin just like English, it would be quite a bit easier to learn than French, assuming there were equally many classes and helpful people to help you out in both cases.

Anyway, so why would you want to learn Swedish? While the native country of the Swedish language, Sweden, has a population of merely 9 million people, you'll also get a greater understanding for Norwegian and Danish if you learn it. In fact, you'll be able to communicate with people using these languages fairly easily as well. Oh, not to mention that a large fraction of the population of Finland are learning Swedish these days as well. So excluding Iceland, Swedish is quite an important language in Scandinavia. Some of you might have relatives over here, and learning a phrase or two of the language would certainly not be a bad thing.

As with any learning process, it's quite good to start from the base and work your way up to the top by learning things gradually, rather than be forced to ram a dictionary packed with words into your right ear and hope your brain will absorb them all.

So, out of laziness, I'll just jump straight in and show you a few examples of Swedish words and phrases. The Swedish translation can be seen in an Italic font.

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What time is it? - Hur mycket är klockan?
Can I use your phone? - Kan jag låna din telefon?
What's up? - Hur är läget?
My name is Chris - Jag heter Chris
Where can I find a library? - Var kan jag hitta ett bibliotek?
What's your name? - Vad heter du?

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Can't seem to find a pattern, eh? Well, don't expect to master a language in a couple of seconds, it will take you a long, long time to master any language. Of course, as I stated earlier, both English and Swedish are based on Latin, so quite a few words are very similar in one way or another. Take a look at these examples:

Red - Röd
Green - Grön
Blue - Blå
Magenta - Magenta
Pink - Rosa
White - Vit
Yellow - Gul
Black - Svart

Well, hopefully you found some similarities there. What about counting in Swedish?

One - Ett
Two - Två
Three - Tre
Four - Fyra
Five - Fem
Six - Sex
Seven - Sju
Eight - Åtta
Nine - Nio
Ten - Tio
Eleven - Elva
Twelve - Tolv
Thirteen - Tretton
Fourteen - Fjorton
Fifteen - Femton
Sixteen - Sexton
Seventeen - Sjutton
Eighteen - Arton
Nineteen - Nitton
Tweny - Tjugo
Thirty - Trettio
Forty - Förtio
Fifty - Femtio
Sixty - Sextio
Seventy - Sjuttio
Eighty - Åttio
Ninety - Nittio

One hundred - Etthundra
Two hundred - Tvåhundra
One thousand - Ettusen
A hundred thousand - Hundratusen
One million - En miljon
One billion - En miljard
One trillion - En biljon
Five trillion, four-hundred and ninety-nine billion, six hundred and fifty-four million, three hundred and two thousand five hundred and twelve - Fem biljoner fyrahundranittionio miljarder sexhundrafemtiofyra miljoner trehundratvåtusenfemhundratolv.

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So anyway, here is a small text I put together in both English and Swedish:

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Once upon a time, there was a dwarf called Igor who really liked to eat tables. The table he ate one day tasted a bit like wood, so he decided to call his insurance company. Sadly, they only told him the reason why it tasted like wood was because it was actually MADE of wood. Later, he went to see an attorney, and Igor successfully sued the company that created the table for millions of dollars. Then he lived happily ever after, bathing in an ocean of money.

Det var en gång en dvärg som hette Igor som verkligen tyckte om att äta bord. Bordet han åt en dag smakade en aning träaktigt, så han beslöt sig för att ringa sitt försäkringsbolag. Olyckligtvis talade de om för honom att anledningen till att border smakade trä var att det faktiskt var GJORT av trä. Senare gick han för att se en advokat, och Igor lyckades stämma tillverkaren av bordet på miljontals dollar. Sedan levde han lycklig i alla sina dagar, badande i ett hav av pengar.

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Here are some things to be aware of:
* There is quite a difference in punctuation when you compare Swedish to English. In this particular case, Swedish generally has quite a lot less commas in texts than in similar stories found in the English language.


* The English has a lot of double words compared to their Swedish equivalents:

Toilet paper - Toalettpapper
Car seat - Bilsäte
Driver's license - Körkort
Sleeping pill - Sömnpiller
World domination - Världsherravälde
Art of war - Krigskonst


* A definite article, such as "the", cannot simply be translated to Swedish. For instance, if you want to translate "The car" to Swedish, you need to use the suffix "en" or "et" after the Swedish translation of the noun. Here are a few examples of this as well:

The airplane - Flygplanet
The car - Bilen
The computer screen - Datorskärmen
The idiot - Idioten


* Indefinite articles, such as a or an, are replaced with the prefixes "en" or "ett". These prefixes, however, do not follow the same rules as their English equivalents. A LOT of foreigners in Sweden have problems with these words. It's just a sense of style you require to learn them. If you've ever read French before, the prefixes "un" and "une" are working in about the same way; by not following any real rules at all.

A car - En bil
A railroad - En järnväg
An apple - Ett äpple
An hour - En timme
A flamethrower - En eldkatare
A table - Ett bord
A house - Ett hus
An orange - En/ett apelsin

In the case of the orange, you can use both En or Ett, although this is a very unique example you are not likely to find ever again in the Swedish language.

Whew, that was one messy lesson. While I've only scratched the surface of this whole, huge language (which consists of about 300,000 words, compared to 500,000 words in the English language), the chances are you might have learnt something at least, or so I hope. In the next lesson, I will ramble a bit more about random words and things I might find essential for you to learn. After all, you DO know some peoplein Scandinavia, don't you?

Either way, at least you don't have to pay for the class. :)

HAHA ägd, lär er Svenska ^_^, :p

Can you explain how you would pronounce some of these, and what the new letters (letters not found in english) mean?

I wonder if the glyphs in common even sound the same.
In Russian, C is an S, P is an R, H is an N, B is a V, 3 is a Z, y is a u (kinda), X is an H (kinda), not to mention all the "backwards letters"

I know russian caligraphy, but can't speak or understand a word of it.

Actually, the whole deal with letters works about the same way as in English, with only some minor differences in pronounciation. Å, Ä and Ö are only three letters that follow Z. There's really nothing special about them, they just follow up to build certain words. Actually, both "Å" and "Ö" are entire words. They mean River and Island, respectively.

so if I master this, will I instantly become a swedish model? will chicks dig me? these are the most pressing questions

Hehe, six is sex in sweden...*does a little perverted dance*

That is actually true of several languages.

he needs swedish VTMs

Slika jag lik!

:wierd:

I dont understand what you're trying to say.

I believe it means "Lick my body."

The whole setence is almost wrong:

"Lick my body"
"Slicka min kropp"

Jag Heter Robin

I was close.

Just visit this page:

http://home.swipnet.se/~w-52132/te3a...diom.html#hear