Compounding the problem

Swedish is not an easy language to learn.  And no, it's not because I am American and speak nothing but English all day long...I actually do know other languages.  Living in Sweden and not speaking the language makes me feel like an idiot.  I'm a relatively smart person and can get out of a pickle pretty easily, but in Sweden I feel trapped inside a body that can neither make the necessary phonemes nor employ the standard Swedish musicality and tone to my speech. No matter what, I feel like a walking imbecile some days. 

This became more evident just the other day when I saw a sign on the local cafe's door and snapped a picture to ask my coworkers about it.  This time last year we were still settling into the newness of living in Sweden, intimidated by everything, and barely understanding questions akin to "how are you?"  So now with a little more confidence (though, remember, still a walking imbecile some days) I take in the things around me, gathering pictures and notes to ask friends and coworkers.

Dave and I learned the hard way that Swedish has a lot of compound words.  And, I recently learned that one way to tell if someone is new-ish to Swedish is by their use of (or more accurately, lack of) compound words.  Looking things up in the dictionary is complicated because of this, and until you have some basic vocabulary it is hard to know where to parse the compound words into smaller units.  The dictionary is almost useless sometimes.  A great example from wikipedia is nagellackborttagningsmedel which means nail polish remover but really is more like nail polish away taking stuff (1).

Walking around town I realized that a little knowledge can in fact be a dangerous thing.  Dave and I stood across from a business which said sjukgymnast.  Is this sjuk + gymnast or sju + k + gymnast?   Gymnast can be inferred from the similar English word, but we had sick (sjuk) and seven (sju) and k (which, I didn't know what it would be but I wasn't going to judge).  Open to all possibilities.  Sick gymnast or seven k gymnasts?  I opted that it meant physical therapy, but it took a few minutes to convince myself.

Which takes me back to last week.  I took this picture thinking to myself:  Sunday soup...what's that?  And why is it only served in December?  Is it a special Christmas-time thing that we missed last year?  I will definitely have to ask about it.  

Good thing I waited a few minutes and figured out that those were just the Sunday hours for the month of December (Söndags=Sunday's + öppet=open).  But now I do want some sort of imaginary Sunday soup (which might be something like Söndagsoppa).

Comments

[Mom/Eileen]

but .... "December" .... "From"....
ummmm... aren't those English? What's up with that?

[julia]

Even more confusing is that if you look up "from" online:

adjective
1. PIOUS
2. DEVOUT
3. DEVOTIONAL
4. RELIGIOUS
5. PRAYERFUL
6. QUIET
7. GENTLE
8. GOOD-TEMPERED

But I think it's supposed to be "from" (från in Swedish). very confusing.

[Jonny]

December is spelled the same in Swedish. If you look a little closer you will see that there is a point after from. And it can be seen as a sign that it is short. From an abbreviation of "Från och med" which, ironically, when you translate it into English becomes From. My teacher I had in school, always said "Swedish is one of the more difficult languages to learn. It is equally difficult for a foreigner to learn Swedish as it is for us to learn Japanese" Maybe he was right.

[Julia]

Tack, Jonny. That's very interesting. And yes, it's a difficult language to learn.

So for those who don't know, though "från och med" means "from", the direct translation would be "from and with".

[Jonny]

Varsågod! A new tricky compound word :)

Normally I’m lurking around in different blogs written by Americans living in Sweden (BTW why is it just Americans and a couple of Canadians that writes blogs about living in Sweden? Strange) without leaving any trace. Today I felt it was time for an exception. :)

For some reason I've become very interested in people who have moved to Sweden. See what you think about Sweden and Swedes. Also see how you take up in their daily lives with language and everything.

Maybe it's a strange way to see if the grass is greener on the other side of the fence?

[BLambert]

As an American recently landed in Oslo, I'm finding much the same; I feel like a gigantic bag of fail when somebody says something simple I'm incapable of understanding.

I've found that SMS'ing and IM'ing coworkers/friends in the local language helps (I've apparently become good at it, but can't really speak Norwegian at all).

Also, reading and rereading comic books.

And I've just borrowed some Disney read-along-to-the-CD books that I can barely follow.

[Patti aka pingdk]

Danish has that same compound issue - but it does get easier over time!