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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Swedish word of the day: tråkig

Today we're looking at yet another Swedish word which doesn't always mean what you might assume.

Swedish word of the day: tråkig
Image: nito103/Depositphotos

Tråkig usually appears in dictionaries as the Swedish equivalent of ‘boring’ or 'dull', but it’s not always easy to translate directly. Hear how it's pronounced in the audio clip below:

Tråkig is more versatile than English ‘boring’, and is often used generally to describe something bad, sad, unpleasant, or annoying.

For example, if your bike is stolen or you injure yourself, a Swede might say Oj, vad tråkigt! They’re not telling you that your bad luck is boring them; it’s a sympathetic expression, which in English we might translate as ‘oh no, how annoying/sad’ or ‘oh, what a pain’. 

This is especially true in the expression tråkigt nog, which means ‘sadly’, as in: Tråkigt nog finns det många exemplar av ojämställdhet i världen (sadly, there are many examples of inequality in the world). 

But in other situations, tråkig can be ambiguous. For example, if you share an anecdote with Swedish friends and they reply 'det var en tråkig historia' (that was a sad/boring story), you'll need to rely on other clues such as their tone and the general context to work out what they mean. If you want to be clear that you mean 'boring/tedious', you can use the word långtråkig, a more emphatic form of tråkig.

Tråkig comes from an old Swedish verb, tråka, which originally meant ‘to push together/to clamp’ and is related to the words trycka (to push) and tryck (pressure) in today’s Swedish.

Over time, the meaning of this word developed from referring to physical pushing to metaphorical pushing, in the sense of going over and over the same point. From there, it soon came to mean 'to walk/move slowly' and was also used to mean 'to work slowly'.

Today, the verb tråka is still used, but usually combined with the preposition ut to mean ‘to bore’, for example: jag ska inte tråka ut dig med alla detaljerna (I won’t bore you with all the details). 

Examples

Vi läser en mördande tråkig bok i skolan

We're reading a deathly boring book at school

Det var tråkigt att höra att din hund är forsvunnen

It was sad (note: not boring!) to hear that your dog's gone missing

Do you have a favourite Swedish word you would like to nominate for our word of the day series? Get in touch by email or if you are a Member of The Local, log in to comment below.

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SWEDISH WORD OF THE DAY

Swedish word of the day: shit

Before you get offended by this potty-mouthed word of the day, we should probably tell you that this English swear word is a lot milder in Swedish.

Swedish word of the day: shit

The word shit in Swedish is, as you may have guessed, a loanword from English. It has its roots in Middle English schit and scythe, meaning “dung”, which in turn originated in a Proto-Indo-European word meaning to split, divide or separate.

There are a number of words in other European languages which have the same root, like schijt in Dutch, Scheiße in German, skidt in Danish, skit/skitt in Norwegian and the Swedish word skit.

So, why does Swedish have two words for shit? Essentially, they’re used (and pronounced) in different ways.

Shit, pronounced similarly to the English word but in a Swedish accent, is essentially only used as an exclamation, whether that’s for something good or bad, and most adults in Sweden wouldn’t bat an eyelid if they heard a small child saying it. 

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It normally indicates some sort of surprise or shock, similar to “wow” or “oh my god” in English. You might also hear it in the phrase shit pommes frites, which literally translates as “shit, French fries!” which a Swedish speaker might use to express surprise: shit pommes frites, har du fått en ny mobil?! (“shit French fries, have you got a new phone?!”)

If you accidentally bumped into someone in a queue, for example, you could say shit, förlåt (shit, sorry), and if you came to some sort of realisation, you could say oj shit! (oh shit!). In general, saying shit would be acceptable even in professional situations with Swedes.

Skit, on the other hand, is pronounced with the sort of whooshing sj or sk-sound at the beginning, kind of like the word wheat, but with a whistle at the start.

It’s used in Swedish in broadly the same ways you’d use shit in English, both in the sense of actual faeces (as a noun and a verb) but also as a vulgar way to describe some sort of undesirable material or thing: jag har tröttnat på den här skiten (I’m tired of this shit) or ta bort din skit från bordet (take your shit off the table).

You may also have come across it in the term skit samma (the milder variant would be strunt samma), which can be translated as “never mind” or “forget it”, or skit också if something unfortunate happens (skit också, jag missade bussen – damn it, I missed the bus).

You can also describe something as being skit, use it in phrases like jag förstår inte ett skit (I don’t understand shit) and as an intensifier: han bankade skiten ur honom (he beat the shit out of him).

In contrast to shit, skit is generally considered less acceptable to use in a professional situation… although you will probably still hear children say it.

Example sentences:

Oj shit, spelar du in det här? 

Oh shit, are you recording this?

Ska vi inte åka snart? Shit, ja, klockan är redan 12!

Shouldn’t we leave soon? Shit, yeah, it’s already 12 o’clock!

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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