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SWEDISH WORD OF THE DAY

Swedish word of the day: ö

The Swedish language might be known for its lengthy complex words, but today we take a look at a word just one letter long.

Swedish word of the day: ö
Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

Ö is the 29th and final letter of the Swedish alphabet – unlike German for example, it's a distinct letter and not an accented o.

Note that in Swedish, instead of saying 'A to Z' you say 'A till Ö'. And be aware that of the Scandinavian languages, Swedish and Icelandic are the only ones with the letter ö.

It's also a word in its own right, meaning 'island'. And it happens to be the third favourite Swedish word of The Local's readers.

The letter and word are pronounced the same way, and it can be a tricky sound for non-natives to master at first. Listen to the clip below:

Sweden has a long coastline and many, many lakes, so it's a word you'll hear a lot here.

You'll spot it in place names of course, like Värmdö, Djurö, Älgö, Hönö and Björkö (literally meaning 'hot spring island', 'animal island', 'elk island', 'hen island' and 'birch tree island'). These are generally Sweden's smaller islands, while big ones like Gotland have names without the ö.

This can make things a bit complicated, because you generally use the preposition på with islands. For example, you would say 'jag bor på Värmdö' instead of jag bor i Värmdö. You would usually say 'på Gotland' too, but would say 'i Gotland' if you're talking about Gotland as an administrative region rather than a place – but it's not a major faux pas to mix up and i.

The word for peninsula is halvö, literally 'half island'.

Ö also features in a Swedish dialectal poem, in a line made up of single letters. You can read the full poem here, and the sentence goes: d’ä e å, å i åa ä e ö. In standard Swedish, that's 'det är en å, och i ån är en ö' (there is a stream, and in the stream there is an island). If that confused you, don't worry – the whole point of the poem is about a city visitor failing to understand the dialect! 

Examples

Jag bor på en liten ö i skärgården

I live on a small island in the archipelago

Ingen människa är en ö

No man/person is an island

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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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