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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

What’s your favourite Swedish dialect?

The Local's regular panel grapples with Sweden's many dialects and tries to decide whether they should be classified as throat diseases or things of poetic beauty.

What's your favourite Swedish dialect?
Image: Paulo Correa

Tiffany Hoffman

Tiffany Hoffman

Since I’m still new to the Swedish language, it’s quite difficult for me to distinguish between the dialects, but I can recognize a few. Here in Linköping, I think the dialect is easy to understand, but Skånska–really deep Skånska–is like its own language.

Because of my own southern American accent, I can definitely appreciate and respect the Skåne dialect–and the teasing that comes with it–and I think it’s fun to hear. I haven’t heard many dialects from the north, but I look forward to the day when I’m fluent enough in Swedish to pick them out.

Robert Flahiff

Robert Flahiff

Dalarna’s Dalmål! C’mon, who doesn’t get a chuckle from “Jordpäron” (Earth Pear), which is a potato in my parts. Funny part is that we have so many sub-dialects that old-timers can tell people their neighborhood or village just by listening to them for a few sentences.

But I think the real reason I like Dalmål is that I just don’t comprehend Skånska – it sounds like somebody speaking out of their nose with their mouth full of gravel. And I know I may take some heat for that, but if you are speaking in Skånska, I just won’t be able to understand you anyways….

Sanna Holmqvist

Sanna Holmqvist

Without any trace of doubt in my mind – Skånska. The Skåne dialect. That is what I have grown up with and that is what makes me feel comfortable and at home.

There are so many kinds of Skånska, every district or city has its own. Within the cities, the different parts may have their own too. Old people in Malmö, where I live, tell me that in their youth, they could easily decide from which side of town someone was (so it is worth remembering that the city used to be perhaps even more segregated than it is today).

Posh Fridhem or workers’ Möllan; Kirseberg, Holma or Kulladal; your specific version of Malmöitiska gave you away instantly (to native Malmö ears). But this is probably true in many cities.

Skånska is soft and singing, yet with a rougher touch from the r’s (that are pronounced as in Denmark, Germany and France) and the diphthongs, somehow: cursing or getting angry in Skånska is more efficient than in other dialects… But when spoken in a friendly voice, there is nothing that sounds nicer and kinder.

And Skånska is absolutely impossible to imitate, if you don’t speak it naturally. So many actors and comedians and imitators have tried and failed (embarrassingly enough, often without realising). It is almost impossible to get the melody absolutely right and the r’s flowing effortlessly.

We mostly get embarrassed and feel awkward when people try. Especially if they think they are funny. I haven’t ever heard anyone succeed. I don’t know if this is good or bad – it is simply how it is.

Nabeel Shehzad

Nabeel Shehzad

I am very new to the Swedish language and still do not understand it fully. In the beginning all the dialects were the same to me. I couldn’t understand anything. Now when I have started understanding, I can see the difference in dialects too.

The Swedish dialect spoken in southern Sweden, like Gothenburg, seems best to me as it is easy to understand. I think they speak it very calmly. Stockholmers on the other hand speak much faster and always look like they’re in a hurry and skip over words. I find it very difficult to understand even a single word sometimes.

Then there is this Rinkeby Swedish, Swedish spoken by immigrants mostly. I like it too as it comes in a different flavour, a bit harsh and a bit loud and with an Arabian accent to it, though a friend of mine calls it a throat disease.

I am still in the learning process and since I am living in Gothenburg I have more influence from Gothenburgish (that’s what I call it at least). To me it is simple, slow and easy to learn and the good thing is people are very cooperative even if you speak it wrong.

Marcus Cederström

Marcus Cederström

I am constantly amazed by the number of dialects in Sweden. In a country of only nine million people there seem to be countless dialects, some that differ significantly from one another in regions that are just a few Swedish miles apart.

But of all those different dialects, my favourite by far is Skånska. And I blame my father completely for that.

My father and his family originate from Skåne. He spent his childhood there and still carries the classic dialect of the region. While he spent his childhood in Skåne, I spent mine in the next best thing. Colorado, in the middle of the United States. Which is almost the same.

Seeing as how my old man was the only Swedish speaker for miles around though, I grew up hearing nothing but Skånska. When we returned to Sweden for our summer vacations, we travelled to Skåne. I have been inundated with the dialect all of my life. And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Living in Stockholm, I am surrounded by the classic accent of the region, but every time I hear that Skånsk accent, my ears perk up and I feel like I’m home.

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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Le Havre rules: How to talk about French towns beginning with Le, La or Les

If you're into car racing, French politics or visits to seaside resorts you are likely at some point to need to talk about French towns with a 'Le' in the title. But how you talk about these places involves a slightly unexpected French grammar rule. Here's how it works.

An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre.
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre. It can be difficult to know what prepositions to use for places like this - so we have explained it for you. (Photo by AFP)

If you’re listening to French chat about any of those topics, at some point you’re likely to hear the names of Mans, Havre and Touquet bandied about.

And this is because French towns that have a ‘Le’ ‘La’ or ‘Les’ in the title lose them when you begin constructing sentences. 

As a general rule, French town, commune and city names do not carry a gender. 

So if you wanted to describe Paris as beautiful, you could write: Paris est belle or Paris est beau. It doesn’t matter what adjectival agreement you use. 

For most towns and cities, you would use à to evoke movement to the place or explain that you are already there, and de to explain that you come from/are coming from that location:

Je vais à Marseille – I am going to Marseille

Je suis à Marseille – I am in Marseille 

Je viens de Marseille – I come from Marseille 

But a select few settlements in France do carry a ‘Le’, a ‘La’ or a ‘Les’ as part of their name. 

In this case the preposition disappears when you begin formulating most sentences, and you structure the sentence as you would any other phrase with a ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in it.

Masculine

Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)

A good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor. 

Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition

Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.

Because Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris). 

For place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this:

Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet

Je suis au Touquet – I am in Le Touquet 

Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet 

Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet

Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty

Feminine

Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example.

In French ‘à la‘ or ‘de la‘ is allowed, while ‘à le‘ becomes au and ‘de le’ becomes du. So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions:

Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle

Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La Rochelle 

Plural

And some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there. 

When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so:

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas 

Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas

Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas  

Islands 

Islands follow more complicated rules. 

If you are talking about going to one island in particular, you would use à or en. This has nothing to do with gender and is entirely randomised. For example:

Je vais à La Réunion – I am going to La Réunion 

Je vais en Corse – I am going to Corsica 

Generally speaking, when talking about one of the en islands, you would use the following structure to suggest movement from the place: 

Je viens de Corse – I am coming from Corsica 

For the à Islands, you would say:

Je viens de La Réunion – I am coming from La Réunion 

When talking about territories composed of multiple islands, you should use aux.

Je vais aux Maldives – I am going to the Maldives. 

No preposition needed 

There are some phrases in French which don’t require any a preposition at all. This doesn’t change when dealing with ‘Le’ places, such as Le Mans – which is famous for its car-racing track and Motorcycle Grand Prix. Phrases that don’t need a preposition include: 

Je visite Le Mans – I am visiting Le Mans

J’aime Le Mans – I like Le Mans

But for a preposition phrase, the town becomes simply Mans, as in Je vais au Mans.

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