Trygg is the Swedish word for “safe.” This is at the top of a beautiful old insurance company building in Stockholm.
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Step aside “Where’s the beef?” There’s a new catchphrase in Sweden, and you’re starting it!
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Correcting the New York Times is like getting a gold medal in the Nerd Olympics. I got my trophy on Thursday.
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K Composite is a magazine of engaging, colorful interviews with regular people.
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Thoughts on honorifics and the prevalence of casual conversation.
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I’ve received a few requests from readers in America to show some images of simple, regular, everyday stuff in Sweden that looks different. So here’s the first of a few installments: Grocery store items! If you’re interested in groceries, you can see more in a couple previous stories Inside the
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As I’ve mentioned many times, most Swedish people speak perfect English and they love doing it. It’s the opposite of French people. The French can speak English with you but they don’t want to. The Swedes only want to speak English with you. As soon as you say “hej” (hello)
to articleGrab a warm sweater or safe blanket and sit thee down fore thine flickering computer screens, dear friends, for I am about to weave a bone-chilling tale, the likes of which may well travel like a demon through your dial-up Internet service and petrify you in your very home. While
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Villechaize taught himself the language entirely by watching television in New York City.
to articleI don’t know how to say this delicately, so I’ll just come right out and say it: Swedish girls think that tights are pants. If this were happening in America, where much of the citizenry is Super-Sized, it would be torturous to the eyes. However, in Sweden, where 99% of
to articleYou may remember a story from back in June when I had just attended the music festival in Stockholm called Where the Action Is. A portion of that yarn included some gushing over the singer/songwriter of the band Hello Saferide. I was introduced to the music of Annika Norlin last
to articleA word of warning to our more impressionable readers: Today’s story may include some risqué language, namely English. No coverage of Swedish culture would be complete without an article about the abundance of common words in the Swedish language that look like dirty English words. Perhaps nothing could illustrate it
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One of the challenging things about learning to speak Swedish – and there are a few – is the process of becoming familiar with the sequence that words should appear in sentences. Many years ago, someone told me, “Swedish is just German words with English grammar.” Ehh, well, guess what.
to articleSaturday afternoon I went for a long walk and relaxed in the park to recover from Midsommar festivities. During my sunshiny day, I enjoyed some Reese’s peanut butter cups my parents recently sent from America. Mmmmm…. A couple people were also taking advantage of the gorgeous weather to row a
to articleBack in March, my friend Johanna interviewed me about my move. She is a student at Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (The Swedish Royal Institute of Technolgy) where she is studying, well, it seems she is studying just about everything. I’ve heard her talk about the Media Technology program she’s in and
to articleEnough about Sweden already. Let’s talk about me. Today’s story has been in the works for more than a few weeks. It has a lot of personal information about my thoughts, feelings, and ideas, so if you’re more interested in the Swedish culture stuff, pictures of stairs, and fake charts,
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In an earlier story, I mentioned that the Swedish-English dictionary I got for my iPhone has a penchant for displaying English words I have never seen before. Well, the phenomenon has continued! Here is the latest installment of new English words I have recently seen. I have been making notes
to articleAs I mentioned before, most of Sweden’s coins carry a picture of King Carl XVI Gustaf, a man who is still alive and just 62 years old. Every time he buys something, he pays with money that has his own picture on it. I’m sure he’s used to it now,
to articleLife in this socialist hellhole is just awful. Finally, the American news media has sent an investigative journalist to uncover the real story of what the radical leftist Obama regime is trying to do to our beloved United States. “Wyatt Cenac travels to Sweden to wake them up from their
to articleLanguage, temperature, currency, distances, weight, geography. I thought my list of things I have to re-learn was complete. Then it came time to do the laundry. This control panel greeted me: Needless to say, I had to look up some words, Google some symbols, and convert some temperatures. I had
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Because only about 10 million people speak Swedish, the language has considerably fewer words than English, a language that there are easily over a billion people using. English is a primary language in Great Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and has tens of millions of speakers in
to articleThis morning I attended the first of ten 2.5-hour Swedish language classes at Stockholm’s Medborgarskolan. I’m not a fan of school, but I have dedicated myself to becoming proficient in using and understanding the Swedish language, so taking classes is obviously the most efficient way to speed up that process.
to articleThis weekend, Iida, Erik, and I spent some quality time with Erik’s parents. We visited their house on Saturday for a delicious Easter feast which I would compare to Thanksgiving in America. There was more amazing food than you could eat, plenty of candy, drinks, and football (er, soccer) on
to articleHere are some scenes from Friday night’s Påsk ägg (Easter egg) party in Haninge. What would the chickens think if they saw us painting their eggs? Camilla and Cookie. A nice collection of Påsk äggen (Easter eggs) art. Cookie’s egg is hatching a demon squirrel. Iida’s shark egg. Axel (whose
to articleHere is a screenshot from the English/Svenska dictionary application on my iPhone. It allows you to search for a word in English or Svenska, or to scroll through the alphabetical list. As I mentioned a few days ago, sometimes when I look up a Swedish word, the English translation is
to articleI recently noticed that the Tunnelbana trains have names. A nice touch, I think, although I don’t care for the font. Here are Ted and Maria. You would expect a transit system to give them catchier names like TF0142581 and XG532014. While riding inside the T-bana (I almost wrote “when
to articleThis is a photo of the television playing the amazing movie “King of Kong” which is a documentary from 2007 about the fight for the world record Donkey Kong score. As you can see, it is subtitled in Swedish. All the programming shown here is run in its original language
to articleA mail train passing through Stockholm Central Station – quite pretty compared to US freight trains.
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