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SWEDISH WORD OF THE DAY

Swedish word of the day: strul

The word "strul" has two very different meanings in Swedish, let's dive into them.

Published: 22 March 2022 16:09 CET
Swedish word of the day: strul
Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

The basic meaning of the noun strul is “trouble” or “tangle”, and can be used in a number of different ways depending on the context.

One of these is as a suffix, used to describe some sort of issue you’re having.

You can simply attach it to the end of a word, depending on the issue. If you’re in the office and your laptop shuts down, or the internet doesn’t work, you’re experiencing teknikstrul. And if you’re planning on taking the bus at 1pm sharp on your way to work, but the bus is running late, you might be suffering from some buss-strul, or tågstrul, if you’re taking the train.

But if you’re talking about ett strul or the verb att strula, you’re talking about something completely different.

Att strula med någon means to temporarily hook up with someone in a casual way, for example if you make out with a random person on the dance floor, or have a one-night stand. The verb strula is mostly used by so-called fjortisar, a negative word for “immature teenagers”.

But watch out for the tricky part. When talking about teknikstrul, while your laptop shuts down, you could say min dator strular. That doesn’t mean that your laptop is having a casual fling with another laptop, it means that you laptop is not working correctly.

If you watch your friend making out with a random person at the dancefloor however, you could say min kompis strular med någon, which in this case, does refer to a casual hook-up.

Examples 

Jag strulade med någon på festen igårkväll

I casually hooked up with someone at the party last night

Min dator strulade hela dagen igår på jobbet 

My computer didn’t work correctly the entire day at work yesterday 

Det var lite tågstrul på vägen hem idag

There were some problems with the trains on the way home today

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 – or join The Local as a member and get your copy for free.

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

Swedish word of the day: annandag

Today is annandag pingst, but what does annandag actually mean?

Published: 20 May 2024 11:16 CEST
Swedish word of the day: annandag

Many Swedish religious holidays last three days, starting with the afton celebrated the day before the holiday, then the dag, which is the actual day of the holiday, then annandag, the day after the holiday.

Some examples of these are Christmas (jul), Easter (påsk) and Pentecost (pingst), where annandag refers to Boxing Day, Easter Monday and Whit Monday, respectively.

Annandag itself is a compound word consisting of two words: annan and dag. Let’s look at annan first.

Annan comes from the Old Swedish word annar, meaning “second”, “other” or “one of two”. In the accusative case, this became annan, which has hung on in modern Swedish. (For the purposes of this article I’ll be skipping the explanation of Old Swedish grammar, but the grammatically-inclined can read more on the accusative case here.)

It can be complicated to translate into English, and the fact that the word can appear as annat, andre or andra, too, depending on the object it refers to, doesn’t make this easier. 

Here are a few ways it can be translated: 

Vill du ha någonting annat? (Would you like something else?)

Jag vill ha en annan tröja (I want a different top)

Har du några andra leksaker? (Do you have any other toys?)

Den andre prinsen heter André (The second prince is called André [you could use andra here, too])

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Dag, meanwhile, comes from the Old Norse dagr via Old Swedish dagher, with the same Proto-West Germanic root as the English word “day”. 

It differs from the word dygn, which refers specifically to a 24-hour period (as an aside, there is a rarely used word for this in English, too, nychthemeron, from an Ancient Greek term meaning “lasting a day and a night”). 

As far as annandag is concerned, the annan here means “second”, so it literally translates to the second day of whatever holiday it’s referring to.

Usually, an annandag will be written alongside the name of its respective holiday, like annandag påsk or annandag pingst. If you see it written alone, it’s probably referring to annandag jul, which is December 26th or Boxing Day.

Although most holidays in Sweden have an afton and a dag, not all of them have annandagar, so you’ll probably raise a few eyebrows if you ask your colleagues about their plans for annandag midsommar. 

We won’t stop you trying to get your friends and family to celebrate you for an extra day on annandag födelse (second birthday), annandag mor (second mothers’ day) or annandag far (second father’s day), though.

Example sentences:

Annandag pingst var allmän helgdag i Sverige fram till 2004

Whit Monday was a public holiday in Sweden until 2004

Vi brukar fira med min pappas familj på annandagen

We usually celebrate with my dad’s family on December 26th

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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