In the immortal of words of John Major ‘it is time to get back to basics.’ Today was not good. Not good at all. Allow me to elaborate.
In our second session of the day our teacher asked us to work in pairs to complete a relatively routine exercise which was describing items in a typical Swedish kitchen. Now my classmate and I weren’t exactly au fait with what we had to do and to put it frankly, we made an absolute balls of it. A double act of Stevie Wonder and David Blunkett would have done better than us chancers. At one point we started to draw random kitchen appliances in our notebooks. Embarrassing.
Twould be nice to think that was the nadir of the day but it got even worse in our weekly conversation class where a polite old lady attempts to gauge us into speaking Svenska. I hesitated with my answers and generally struggled to understand a word this old dear was rambling on about. I think she mentioned knitting at one point but then again I did resemble a lost boy in need of assistance. Bloody hell my head hurts…
Hahahah look who it is!
Ya Bloody Irish hick lol
Your accent really comes out in your writing.
Paul
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Don’t worry, I firmly believe that one can go through ex-pat life perfectly fine without ever learning the names of birds, flowers or kitchen appliances in a foreign language.
I’m a Swede living in Dublin since 2006, and I don’t know what a visp, maskros or talgoxe are called in English, and I’d be very surprised to find me in a life or death situation where these words are required.
Thinking about it, I hardly know the English word for kastrull.. hmm.. pot? saucepan?
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I am a Scotsman living in Malmo, and I also followed the girlfriend trail back to Sweden.
Good luck with your work at SFI. It’s not a easy task to learn a new language, more so Swedish. I studied at SFI Komvux (Malmo) last year and I also was the only english speaking person there. It may seem as a disadvantage but it forces you to speak the lingo faster.
Do people find it hard when you speak Swedish with an Irish accent?
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Hej Martin
Hope you’ve managed to discern the differences between the Dublin accents. Not sure if there is a direct translation for ‘gurrier’ and ‘gouger.’ You were spot on with kastrull as I got a present of WordFinder. Will check if it translates into Dublish also
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Cheers for the feedback. I’ve been told my Irish accent is fairly thin so on the few occasions I pipe up with some svenska I’m told I sound English. As a Scot I’m sure you’ll appreciate how disturbing this is so a few slaps are usually given in response. Learning a new language certainly gets you out of the comfort zone and it’s definitely best to not sit beside any native English speakers if you want to progress. I’m slowly getting there…
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Cheers mate. Where were you today? Your Aussie wit was sorely missed!
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Yeah, the Dublin accents are fine, I still have some troubles with a colleague from County Tyrone though. And when I first got to Dublin I moved into a place called the Custom House Harbour. No Irish ever understood my address on the phone until I learned the trick of replacing u:s with å. “Cåstom House Harbour” has worked fine ever since. As has Dåbblin, påbb and, bågg
Oh, and by the way, back in 2006 I made this little list slightly inspired by some Australians who have compiled a “you know you have been in Sweden too long when…”-list:
YOU KNOW YOU HAVE BEEN IN IRELAND TOO LONG WHEN…
When something is good bad or indifferent you say “grand”
You don’t do a double take when you see people in the street wearing pajamas
You accept that “half four” is 4:30 and not 3:30.
You sit and pretend that Rugby is a great substitute for Ice Hockey.
You can keep a two-way conversation going for more than 5 minutes with the taxi driver
You learn to listen to somebody from Cork without laughing.
You regard Guiness and Chicken Wings a gourmet dinner
You consider a sandwich to be a reasonable lunch.
You accept that crisps are eaten at lunch together with sandwiches.
You think nothing of wearing shoes indoors.
You accept wall to wall carpeting.
You accept your friends entering your wall to wall carpeted apartment with shoes on.
You try to change your accent so it sounds less English.
You accept that you can no longer take the ferry to Finland to resupply your stock of cheap duty free alcohol.
When opening the sports pages you easily distinguish between articles covering Hurling, Gaelic Football, Rugby and Football.
You accept that there are no timetables for busses, and that you have to wait at least 25 minutes for a bus if you are in a hurry.
When going to England you use the word Garda instead of police
You start spelling days of the week in upper case! Måndag, Tisdag …
Paying €5 for a pint seems normal
And paying €400 000 for a small two bedroom brick house in a suburb of Dublin seems cheap [this one might need updating]
You accept that incoming packages can only be picked up 9-17 on business days in a post office at least 10 miles from where you live.
You start caring about who wins the Heineken Cup.
You know who Ronan O’Gara is.
You finally give in and buy an umbrella
When using a Swedish version of excel you get error messages because you have used periods instead of comas
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Your list made me laugh big time. Jätteroligt! Happy Saint Patrick’s Day and I hope you are sinking a few non expensive pints in the auld capital city. I spent my day trying to communicate with a Mongolian student på svenska. The language Gods were surely not amused. Jaysus
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Before you run into another dreaded household exercise in your Swedish classes, grab yourself a DVD of the Bent Hamer film “Kitchen Stories” (IFC Films, 2003 – in Norwegian and Swedish). You’ll never look at that type of assignment the same way again….
I am still enjoying the expressions on my Norwegian friends’ faces as I attempt their language, merrily combining it with Spanish, French, and the odd mispronounced Swedish words, overlaid with an American accent and boosted by a tendency to come out with British expressions of mild dismay (“oh, bugger”). It only gets harder as you get older, so you’re on the right track, and I’m enjoying following your journey.
Should you ever attempt German and find yourself in a similar situation, by the way, one word for “breadboard” is “das brettchen.” It was the only free-standing German word my grammar-school teacher ever managed to get me to remember, and I’ve remembered it for roughly 35 years, heaven help me. As the 10 of us who took the class for two years pretty much learned to sing “Stille Nacht” and how to polka, we should be a great hit if we ever have a reunion in Leipzig.
A belated Happy St. Patty’s Day to you, and lycka till!
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Thanks for the message. Made me smile
I’ll definitely check out the DVD and report some feedback. Strangely enough the only language I ever really wanted to learn was German probably because I spent many hours of my misspent youth watching RTL and DSF on Sky. Something to do with the pronunciation or maybe it’s simply because I’m used to being shouted at! Going to stick with Swedish for the time being but perhaps ‘Germtalker’ will be the next project. Mind you that sounds like some kind of disease.
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