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SWEDISH WORD OF THE DAY

Swedish word of the day: vår

Here's a Swedish word that you may or may not feel hanging in the air.

Published: 6 May 2020 17:00 CEST
Updated: 22 February 2024 11:40 CET

Swedish word of the day: vår

Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

The noun vår is Swedish for spring, the season between winter and summer that many people in Sweden start longing for from, say, October onwards.

(Don’t confuse the noun with the pronoun, the latter vår meaning “our”, for example vår katt – our cat)

Don’t miss any of our Swedish words and expressions of the day by downloading The Local’s new app (available on Apple and Android) and then selecting the Swedish Word of the Day in your Notification options via the User button

Våren, the meteorological spring, officially starts in Sweden when daily average temperatures stay above freezing for a week. In 2024, it arrived in southern and south-western parts of the country on February 15th.

But most people probably only think of våren as having begun when the grey skies have cleared, the sun has appeared, and people in Sweden start to come out as if from a long hibernation.

With those first hesitant sun rays or vårsol (spring sunshine), masses take to the streets, start barbecuing in public parks, drink coffee on cafés’ outdoor seating.

Others have their ritual vårstädning, their big springtime clean-up, inside their homes or outside in the yard.

For some, vår means the onset of their pollenallergi or hay fever. For others, it mostly marks the northbound flight of migratory birds.

Vår is thought to be derived from the Low German vorjar, meaning “the first part of the year”.

Examples

Nu har våren kommit.

Spring has arrived.

I vår tänker jag gå ut och vandra.

This spring I want to go hiking.

Villa, Volvo, Vovve: The Local’s Word Guide to Swedish Life, written by The Local’s journalists, is available to order. Head to lysforlag.com/vvv to read more about it. It is also possible to buy your copy from Amazon US, Amazon UK, Bokus or Adlibris.

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Swedish word of the day: nyckelpiga

Nyckelpiga, or nyckelpigor in the plural, is the Swedish word for the red and black spotted insects known in English as ladybirds or ladybugs.

Their name is made up of two words in Swedish, nyckel, which is the word for key, and piga, meaning a maid or other female servant, so it could be literally translated as a “keymaiden”.

In many European languages, these insects have names which relate to the Virgin Mary.

In English, legend has it that farmers prayed to the Virgin Mary asking her to protect their crops, and when ladybirds appeared to eat aphids (a common garden pest), they called them “Our Lady’s birds”, which over time was simplified to ladybirds.

They’re known as mariquita in Spanish and marieta in Catalan, while in Danish and Norwegian they’re called mariehøner or marihøner (literally: Mary hens), and in German they’re called Marienkäfer (Mary beetles).

The Swedish term has a less obvious relationship to the Virgin Mary, and dates back to Sweden’s Catholic past.

Mary is believed in Catholicism to have seven sorrows, which are all events in her life often depicted in art by seven swords piercing her heart. The most common ladybird in Sweden has seven spots, which were seen as representing these seven sorrows.

Don’t miss any of our Swedish words and expressions of the day by downloading our app (available on Apple and Android) and then selecting the Swedish Word of the Day in your Notification options via the User button

Seven was also considered to be a holy number in general, and it was believed therefore that ladybirds held the keys to heaven on behalf of Mary. According to an old Swedish folk tale, anyone who releases a captured ladybird would be let through the gates of heaven, and in many countries they are believed to be able to reveal when someone will marry.

In Sweden, it was said that if one landed on your hand and walked along your fingers, it was measuring new gloves for you, which meant that you were either going to attend a wedding or a funeral, and in France, a woman could put a ladybird on her finger and count out loud until it flew away, with the number reached representing how many years would pass before she would marry.

Another word for ladybird in Swedish is gullhöna (yellow hen), which most likely refers to the less common yellow ladybirds with black spots.

These ladybirds were believed to be able to predict the weather in some parts of Sweden. In Bohuslän, ladybirds meant good weather, and if you saw one, you were supposed to say gullhöna, gullhöna, flyg, flyg, flyg, så blir det sommar och gott, gott väder (ladybird, ladybird, fly, fly, fly, then it will be summer and good, good weather). In Värmland, however, seeing a ladybird meant the opposite: bad weather and rain.

Example sentences:

Tycker du inte att det har varit ovanligt många nyckelpigor i år?

Don’t you think there has been an unusually large number of ladybirds this year?

Nyckelpigor är ett bra nyttodjur att ha i trädgården då de äter bladlöss.

Ladybirds are a good beneficial insect to have in the garden, as they eat aphids.

Villa, Volvo, Vovve: The Local’s Word Guide to Swedish Life, written by The Local’s journalists, is available to order. Head to lysforlag.com/vvv to read more about it. It is also possible to buy your copy from Amazon US, Amazon UK, Bokus or Adlibris.

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