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Swedish language For Members

12 Swedish words with great literal translations

The Local Sweden
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12 Swedish words with great literal translations
12 Swedish words with great literal translations (Photo by OLI SCARFF / AFP)

One of our favourite things about the Swedish language is its wonderful compound words, which range from being utterly bizarre to making perfect sense.

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It may be a tricky language to master, but one of the great things about Swedish is that you don't actually need a particularly large vocabulary. That's because rather than inventing new words, the Swedes are big fans of creating compound words out of existing ones.

This means that you get words like sammansatt (meaning compound, or, even better: together-put), can create random words like korvbrödsförsäljarstånd (a stand belonging to a seller of hot dog breads: sausage-bread-salesperson-stand).

These are some of our favourite compound words, both wonderfully simple (sick house) and some real head scratchers (you dirty lobster, you!). Can you think of any other ones?

Tjuvlyssna

Word for word: Thief listen

English equivalent: Eavesdrop

Tandkött

Word for word: Tooth meat

English equivalent: Gums

Sjukhus

Word for word: Sick house

English equivalent: Hospital

Skitstövel

Word for word: Shit boot

English equivalent: Douchebag

What a shit boot. Photo: AP Photo/Eric Gay

Skrivbord

Word for word: Writing table

English equivalent: Desk

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Mormor/farmor

Word for word: Mother mother/father mother

English equivalent: Grandmother

A Swedish grandfather is either farfar (father father) or morfar (mother father). Brilliantly, it can be used for your great-grandparents too (mormorsmor – mother mother's mother) or your entire extended family (morbror – mother brother, or uncle; barnbarn child child, or grandchild).

Bröstvårta

Word for word: Breast wart

English equivalent: Nipple

Sköldpadda

Word for word: Shield toad

English equivalent: Turtle/tortoise

Look, a toad with a shield. Photo: Jennifer Reynolds/The Galveston County Daily News/AP

Bajskorv

Word for word: Poo sausage

English equivalent: Poo

Kofångare

Word for word: Cow catcher

English equivalent: Bumper

Snuskhummer

Word for word: Dirty lobster

English equivalent: A pervert

Grönsak

Word for word: Green thing

English equivalent: Vegetable

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