English may be the world’s richest language, but it’s far from perfect. In fact, it’s somewhat limited.
Why do we not have a word for “the day after tomorrow”, for example? Swedish does.
Sure, English does have some unusual and fascinating words (the little plastic thing at the end of a shoelace is called an aglet, for example), but these words are impractical and seldom used.
I bet the only time you’ll ever hear the word aglet again is in a word list or a pub quiz.
RELATED PHOTO GALLERY: Ten more Swedish words you won’t find in English
Too many times you’ll see that the Italians have a word for the bit of milk that stays on your lip after you drink it, or that the Japanese have a word for a person who giggles too much on the subway. But these are words we don’t have for a reason – we don’t need them.
What’s more interesting is when a word or concept is simply missing from English, even though it’s something we regularly say.
A concept yet to be coined. A word yet to be whispered.
We’ve written about this before on The Local, but now it’s round two – here are ten more Swedish words that you just can’t find in English.
As always, the words fika (meaning coffee – “let’s grab a coffee sometime”) and lagom (the final bowl of porridge was lagom for Goldilocks) are NOT included in the list.
Oliver Gee
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