I had always said that if we were to move back to Sweden it must not be during the dark and cold season. To me the climate was one of the best things about having expatriated from Sweden. I knew it would be tough moving back, and I had also not forgotten the long, dark winters in Scandinavia – they wouldn’t exactly be helpful. Hence repatriating in the late spring sounded like a plan. Now my dear readers, do you think it worked out? Nope. Mid-December we left to resettle on the Swedish west coast. Yes, you heard me – December. As far as I could possibly get from late spring. December was pretty exciting though – the novelty of being in a “new” place, Christmas with family, old friends. Swedish food, shops. Lights and comfort, no need to spend much time outdoors. But after that … re-entry shock set in, largely due to the worst winter weather I can recall. Ever.
Swedes and our precious weather talk #10
Swedes like to talk about the weather. Or do we really? I mean, the weather in Sweden itself is usually not very fun. To me it´s more like a mandatory subject as small talk. Sometimes I think we resort to climate talk when we don´t know what else to say. Because silence can be awkward, even though Swedes are known for not being bothered by that. Tonight weather has been brought up four times in my life. First, a dad on the door, picking his son up from play date. Then a mom, picking her daughter up. After dinner I started on a couple of blog posts related to the topic (don´t want to repeat the word again). Later I received an email from a Swedish expat friend – we exchanged weather status. Of course!
I honestly don´t think it would have been such a big deal had we had more of the really good weather here. As an expat I loved being able to relax about it. There was no stress going outside, or going to the lake. There would be nice days, sooner rather than later.
Can´t wait to see what the weather will be like tomorrow!!
Just kidding.
Try not to worry too much #9
Swedish proverb “Den dagen, den sorgen” translates to “that day, that sorrow”. It means cross your bridges when you reach them. I try not to worry beforehand. It doesn’t help, and all I get is a bad night’s sleep (or several).
Stop and listen #8
How was your day? Did you have time to enjoy it; time to reflect over whether you enjoyed it or not? Did you take your time to just stop and use your senses – see the beauty around, smell the air, feel and listen? It’s easy to be far too busy.
A trailing spouse is usually also fully occupied with seeing to that the family is settled – schools, activities, medical health care, friends, sports, pets, getting tv & telephones, internet, electricity, taking language courses, grocery shopping by dictionary, apart from tedious but necessary paperwork, furnishing the house when the shipment finally arrives as well as feeling the need to be to the point of aggressively social to try to make new friends and creating a network. Seriously. Where’s the time to stop and think about yourself? Well make sure you do – you are the glue holding your family and the assignment together! Take good care of you!
A built in reminder is to be found in the streets of Kungsbacka, Sweden. In case one forget. Some of the paving stones have been replaced with art pieces of messages. I guess to make you pause for a minute to just … be. The stone in the picture urges you to listen. Did you today? Stop everything and listen?
Could it be false friendship? #7
False friendship in a language?
I am fascinated by words, especially the written word, and languages. The more languages I learn the easier it gets, and that sure comes in handy in expat life! It’s captivating to recognize similarities between languages, and to explore possible roots in common. Could it be a cognate or a false friend? Now if that doesn’t sound intriguing … 😉
I´ll explain it to you.
Cognates are words in different languages that have a common linguistic heritage. Examples are night natt nuit notte Nacht. Loanwords does not count.
Cognates within a language are known as doublets. Doublets are words that look similar, existing within the same language. Meaning of the words is irrelevant – they don´t have to mean the same thing, but could of course. An example is shirt and skirt in English.
False cognates are words that to the eye and ear appear to have the same origin but don´t. The meaning of the words is irrelevant here – it doesn’t matter if they are false friends or have the same meaning. An example hereof; mamma and pappa in Swedish – not related to similar words in other languages, merely stemming from baby language! (Svensk etymologisk ordbok – the Swedish etymological thesaurus, digitalized at http://runeberg.org/svetym/)
What about the false friendship? Well, false friends are words in different languages that appear to have the same meaning but don´t. Here is a link to some false friends Swedish/English, serving as examples.
Primary sources
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kognat_(lingvistik)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognate
My brain. 🙂
Want to know more on Swedish language training with me? Head over!
Swedish tongue twisters #6
Good morning! Let´s warm up our voices today with some Swedish tongue twisters. Let´s start with an easy one:
Får får får? Nej, får får inte får, får får lamm.
Do sheap have sheep? No, sheep don´t have sheep, sheep have lambs.
Now that was easy yet … odd.
Time to move on to those you try to repeat correctly as many times as possible.
Sex laxar i en laxask.
Six salmons in a salmon-box.
Packa pappas kappsäck.
Pack daddy’s suitcase.
Lastly and usually the most tricky one for non-native speakers. Unless you´re Dutch and go for a Gothenburg-accent – there are similarities to your advantage!
Sju sjösjuka sjömän på det sjunkande skeppet Shanghai.
Seven seasick sailors on the sinking ship “Shanghai”.
If you aim higher try to add “sköttes av sköna sjuksköterskor” – nursed by beautiful nurses. I get a lot of questions on this sound from expats and during my Swedish classes. Listen to the sound via Forvo.com
I will do some recordings and add to the topic!
These are classical tongue twisters from Sweden. Want to add to the list? Pls do so in a comment!
#5 how to learn a language
Best language tutor has to be immersion. And a perfect way to learn a culture is learning the language.
Attitude is everything #4
A little bird told me … #blogg100 #3
A little bird told me spring flowers are the best.
Read about Swedes craze for tulips here. Not to be mixed with a tulip craze.
#2 Embrace the cold! #blogg100
A visual reminder to embrace living in a different climate – it´s a lot easier if you dress accordingly! “There´s no bad weather, only bad clothing” is one of the proverbs we grow up with in Sweden. I know expats who hate this saying, but truth is I guess we need it to survive! 🙂 Swedes are usually outdoorsy people; we need good and proper clothes for snowy, cold, rainy, windy, wet days. The first winter I spent back in Sweden after several years abroad I was constantly freezing. I had a winter jacket, right? The following winter I bought a new winter jacket – a Swedish one! Thick, fluffy and a fake fur lined hood. What a difference it made! I had failed to see the climate from the right cultural perspective.
One of the ladies in my expat network told me it is so easy to spot Swedish people in the alps – it´s the ones with the most appropriate winter wear! And not only in the slopes.