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FASHION

Essential vocabulary to help you get dressed (and undressed) in Swedish

Clothes. We all buy them, we all wear them, and we pile on seventeen layers when the winter comes. But can we pepper our Swedish conversations with the right wardrobe lingo?

Published: 1 September 2017 14:12 CEST
Updated: 13 July 2020 16:36 CEST
Essential vocabulary to help you get dressed (and undressed) in Swedish
How to talk about clothes in Swedish. Photo: Simon Paulin/imagebank.sweden.se

We'll start with a couple of essential verb constructions then work our way up from toe to top in a quest to ensure we have at least what it takes to tell a skirt (kjol) from a shirt (skjorta).

Let's get it on 

Traditionally first thing in the morning, after a shower and five mugs of tarry coffee, Swedes like nothing more than to get dressed (att klä på sig). Then when they go to bed, much like people anywhere really, they get undressed (att klä av sig). To fit right in, you should probably consider doing the same. 

It's also useful to know this informal word for a garment: ett plagg.


The Swedish word for tie is 'slips'. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT

Feet first 

Items of clothing suitable for feet include socks (strumpor), tights (strumpbyxor, or tights if you're feeling lazy), shoes (skor) with laces (skosnören), sneakers (gympaskor), boots (stövlar, kängor), Wellington boots (gummistövlar), high heels (högklackade skor). 

When the streets are icy it might even be worth getting spikes (broddar) attached. In the summer we can eschew the footwear and go barefoot (barfota), or throw on a pair of flip-flops (badskor… or flip-flop). 

You'll also get bonus points for knowing the most common term for Crocs (foppatofflor – Peter-'Foppa'-Forsberg-slippers). The legendary ice hockey player imported them to the Swedish market after they helped him get through a foot injury. 


To put on one's shoes – 'Att ta på sig skorna'. Photo: Tomas Oneborg/SvD/TT

Leg it 

You can cover your precious pins with trousers (byxor), shorts (the same word but pronounced like you're hocking up spit, or kortbyxor), a dress (klänning), miniskirt (minikjol or kortkort, literally short-short). Your suit trousers (kostymbyxor), leather trousers (läderbyxor) or jeans (jeans) will probably come equipped with a zipper (blixtlås) or buttons (knappar). 


A denim jacket is a 'jeansjacka'. Photo: Gunnar Lundmark/SvD/TT

Under the layers

Come to think of it, before putting on your trousers it's probably a good idea to pull on some underwear (underkläder). We could be talking gentlemen's underpants (kalsonger, often called kallingar), panties (trosor), or a bra (bh or behå, which are both short for bysthållare, literally 'bust holder'). 

Torso coverage 

If you support the right to bare arms, start with a t-shirt (t-tröja, or, you guessed it, t-shirt), a short-sleeved blouse (kortärmad blus) or a tank top (linne). If your tank top is made of linen you could amuse (annoy) everybody by insisting on calling it your linnelinne. 

If it's cold outside then a sweater (tröja) might be in order, or a hoodie (luvtröja), or maybe even a woolly jumper (ylletröja). If you want to look smart, sport a blazer (kavaj). When it's really getting cold throw on a coat (generally rock, överrock for men, kappa for women). 

For fancier affairs, you could chance a tuxedo (smoking – yep, just en smoking) or a ball gown (balklänning).


A striped sweater, or in Swedish, 'en randig tröja'. Photo: Kerstin Carlsson/TT

Atop your crown, and other extremities 

Sweden gets cold. This is a fact. A woolly hat (mössa) is a must. As are gloves (handskar) or mittens (vantar), and a scarf (halsduk). 

When the so-called winter half-year (vinterhalvåret) ends, why not celebrate with a hat (hatt), a cap (keps), or a beret (basker). 


Winter, when Sweden is awash with kids in 'overaller'. Photo: Carolina Romare/imagebank.sweden.se

Recycled clothes 

Now that we've got the wardrobe filled, let's look at how the Swedish language recycles words from the textile industry and forms new and exciting things with them. 

Skitstövel: If you think somebody's a boor you could say they're a poop boot. There are words for this in English that generally end with hole and head. 

Strumprullare: This one's purely for football enthusiasts. A “sock roller” is usually used to describe the kind of shot where a player miskicks the ball but is lucky enough to shin it into the goal. 

Byxmyndig: This is kind of a strange one. It literally means that someone has come of age trouser-wise. In other words they've reached the age of sexual consent, which is 15 in Sweden. 

Offerkofta: This a pejorative term, bandied around a lot these days, to describe someone who routinely plays the victim. 

Axla någons mantel: Literally 'to shoulder someone's cape', this means to fill someone's shoes, in the sense of taking on their responsibilities. 

Toffel: A toffel is a slipper, but the word is also used to describe a henpecked husband. 

Velourpappa: This is a term that emerged in the 1970s when stretch velvet, or velour, was a popular fabric for unisex garments. A 'velour dad' displayed a soft masculinity and shared childcare and household chores. The fact you don't hear the phrase so much any more is indicative of the fact that the phenomenon it describes no longer seems so alien. 

Det finns inget dåligt väder, bara dåliga kläder: We've got this phrase in our autumn list as well. Designed to irritate and educate in equal measure, it means: there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes. 

Throw it all together to achieve that perfect look 

Here are a few sentences to memorise when you want to show off your new words. They make some assumptions about the kind of person you are, but please don't take offence. 

Jag är väldigt modeintresserad. Igår shoppade jag verkligen loss, jag tillbringade typ tre timmar i omklädningsrummet och nu har jag en helt ny garderob. Dock är jag helt pank nu. Vad finns det för jobb i modebranschen? 

I really love fashion. Yesterday I did an awful lot of shopping, I spent like three hours in the changing room and now I have a completely new wardrobe. But I'm totally broke now. What kind of jobs are there in the fashion industry?

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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.

Published: 30 November 2021 13:04 CET
Updated: 4 December 2021 17:47 CET
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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