Swedish Language Learning Humor Posted by Marcus Cederström on Jan 12, 2012 in Uncategorized
There comes a point in every language learner’s studies that the language is just frustrating. Swedish is no different. For some, that frustration sets in early. As early as learning you first few nouns even. En or ett? I just have to know it? There is no set rule? Nope. You just have to know it. There is no set rule.
For others it comes a bit later. Like with plurals. There are five different endings to choose from. Luckily, here you’ll at least find some general rules to follow:
ETT words that end in a consonant = NO ENDING
EN words that end in A = OR
EN words that end in E = AR
EN words with stress on last vowel = ER
ETT words that end in a vowel = N
EN words that end in a consonant but do not have the stress on the last vowel = AR or ER
Or how about words that have several different meanings? Like sex. Or val. Or damm.
When you get to that point there are a couple of things that tend to happen. One, yoy get frustrated. Makes sense. Learning a language is difficult. So be frustrated. But work through it. The next thing that happens is you start to laugh. Sometimes it is that high pitched frustrated laugh that only comes when you are at your wits end. That makes sense too. It’s usually at that point though that I try to find something actually worth laughing at. Luckily for Swedish learners everywhere, there is plenty of good material online that plays with the Swedish language. Like Henrik Schyffert and his Swenglish clips that can be found on YouTube. But for the true Swedish language learner, there is no better clip than Simple Swedish: Episode 1. There are a couple of episodes that follow, but I’m a fan of the first one which you can watch below.
Be warned, the clip does include some questionable language and even mentions sex. The act, not the Swedish number. If you don’t mind that, enjoy (and pay attention to some of the very interest linguistic points that are brought up.)!
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