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SWEDISH WORD OF THE DAY

Swedish word of the day: björntjänst

Today we look at one of those words whose meaning is very hard to guess without being told.

Swedish word of the day: björntjänst
Warning: Many native Swedish speakers use this word in the wrong context. Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

Björntjänst can be broken down into two words you might know fairly early on in your Swedish-learning journey.

Björn means “bear”, and the word has existed in almost the exact same form for centuries, probably coming from an older word for “brown”.

Then we have tjänst, which means “service” and is used in a wide variety of contexts: a company or an app might offer various tjänster, kundtjänst is “customer services”, and a tjänsteman (literally “service man”) is a category of professionals, which originally meant providing services rather than products but these days usually refers to professions requiring tertiary education.

So what on earth could björntjänst mean?

It comes from a 17th-century fairy tale, The Bear and the Gardener by Jean de La Fontaine (the story itself probably has even older origins).

In the story, a gardener befriends a bear, and entrusts the animal with several tasks including keeping flies away from the gardener while he takes his nap (tupplur). All is going well until one especially persistent fly appears, and the bear tries to crush it using a paving stone, killing the fly, but also the gardener. Hoppsan (oops), as the Swedes would say.

In the Swedish translation, the final line of this slightly bleak story is: Även om mo­­tivet är ädelt, vill man helst slippa en björntjänst! (Even if the motive is never so lofty, it’s always best to avoid a bear-service).

So a björntjänst is a well-meaning action that has negative or even disastrous consequences. There’s an equivalent term in Russian (medvezhya usluga) and German (der Bärendienst) and the French expression le pavé de l’ours (the bear’s paving stone) refers to the same thing.

However, many Swedes aren’t aware of this backstory, so you might hear björntjänst used in different contexts today.

For example, it might be used in the sense of “a disservice” without the implication that the motives were good (in Swedish a more accurate translation would be otjänst), or it may even be misused to mean something like “a big favour” by people who think the word björn is being used for emphasis.

One example of the latter came in 2015, when a municipal council put up posters advising residents to gör både dig och miljön en björntjänst (literally: do both yourself and the environment a favour that backfires) while trying to advertise electric bikes and hybrid cars. You could even say that by creating these posters, the council did themselves a björntjänst.

Example sentences

En björntjänst gör ju ingen glad.

A well-intended disservice obviously makes no one happy (a line from the Swedish version of Jungle Book song The Bare Necessities).

Om du pratar engelska med nyanlända som vill lära sig svenska, så gör du dem en björntjänst.

If you speak English with new arrivals who want to learn Swedish, it’s a well-intended action with negative consequences.

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

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SWEDISH WORD OF THE DAY

Swedish word of the day: släkt

Here’s another Swedish word where it’s important to remember the difference between ä and a.

Swedish word of the day: släkt

Släkt is a useful word to know in Swedish, as it’s one of the ways Swedes refer to family. It’s used roughly where you’d say “extended family” or “relatives” in English, and refers specifically to family outside of your core family unit.

If you were visiting family back home, for example, you would say jag ska hälsa på min släkt. If you used the word familj instead of släkt here, it would sound like you were visiting your immediate family – partner and children, or parents and siblings – rather than other relatives.

You can also say jag ska hälsa på mina släktingar. Think of släkt as the collective noun and släktingar as the individuals.

When discussing a royal or noble family, you would use the word ätt instead.

Släkt can also be used as an adjective – vi är släkt (we are related) – and you’ll see it in a number of compound words, like släktforskning (genealogy, literally “extended family research”), släktled (lineage), släktträff (family reunion) and släktskap (relationship or kinship).

You may also come across the phrase släkt och vänner (family and friends), which featured in Björn Afzelius’ 1999 number one single Farväl till släkt och vänner (“Goodbye to family and friends”).

  • 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

Another word which is useful for Word of the Day articles is besläktad, used to describe words which are related to each other.

Släkt originally comes from Old Swedish slækt, which has its roots in Middle Low German slecht (meaning family or lineage). 

There are two other Swedish words which look similar to släkt. The first is släckt, which is used to describe a light which has been turned off, or a candle or fire which has been extinguished. The second word, slakt, means “slaughter”, so it’s a good idea to keep an eye on your spelling.

Example sentences:

Har ni några planer för sommaren? Ja, vi ska besöka min frus släkt i Indien.

Do you have any plans for summer? Yes, we’re visiting my wife’s family in India.

Vi brukar ha en stor släktträff minst en gång om året.

We usually have a big family reunion at least once a year.

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 USAmazon UKBokus or Adlibris.

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