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SWEDISH WORD OF THE DAY

Swedish word of the day: förort

The word of the day is a suburb with a twist. 

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

Förort used to be the equivalent of the English ‘suburb’. It is made up of the two words för and ort, which mean ‘before’ and ‘locality’ respectively. Ort shows up in other words like bruksort meaning a ‘mill town’ or a locality where some form of countryside industry was or is the main employer. But beyond being an area on the outskirts of a city, förort has other connotations.

Förort, you see, generally refers to housing projects that were built as part of the Million Programme in Sweden between 1965 and 1974, and that today are primarily inhabited by people of immigrant background, many of whom are low income earners or unemployed.

Förort can be said to have clear racial and social class connotations. When someone says they are “förort”, they might mean that they come from “the hood”, for those of you who are American English speakers, “a housing estate” in British English, or “la banlieue” for French speakers. The French word banlieue is actually closest to förort – not by etymology, but by its modern meaning. Banlieue also means a suburb filled with housing projects with a population primarily consisting of people with an immigrant background with low income jobs. 

Förort also, by extension, implies areas where there are problems with crime and gang violence. And since Swedish rap is seriously dominated by gangster rap, naturally the word förort appears in a ton of rap songs. You will see it either just as “förort”, or as “orten” (‘the hood’), “min ort”(‘my hood’), but sometimes also as “trakten” (‘the area’), or ‘programmen”/”programmet” (from the Million Programme). 

Try going on Youtube and search för “förort” and you will get most if not all of the connotations. 

It’s important to know is that förort or orten can also be used as an adjective, which would be the equivalent of saying someone is ‘ghetto’ – so you can be very “förort” or “orten”. 

If you want to use the word, you might ask, kommer du från förorten?, which is roughly the same as asking, ‘are you from the hood?’. Just be mindful that some might take offence at the question, whereas others might be very proud of their origin.

This is mainly because förorten is somewhat stigmatised for being at the heart of an ongoing Swedish political debate about gun violence and gang crime, a topic many have strong feelings about.

To end on a positive note. If you are looking for hard-to-find international culinary items, förorten is usually the place to go.

Example sentences:

Visste du att en del inte vågar åka ut till förorten? Galet va?

Did you know that some people are afraid to go to the suburbs? Crazy huh?

Var är du uppvuxen? I förorten.

Where did you grow up? In the suburbs/hood.  

Villa, Volvo, Vovve: The Local’s Word Guide to Swedish Life, written by The Local’s journalists, is now 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

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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