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Basic Swedish - Native review

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Category: Learning Languages
Forum Name: General Discussion
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URL: http://fsi-language-courses.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=300
Printed Date: 16 January 2009 at 3:21am


Topic: Basic Swedish - Native review
Posted By: Eriol
Subject: Basic Swedish - Native review
Date Posted: 26 January 2007 at 3:27pm
Since there have been comments about how some of these old FSI courses are quite outdated I decided to have a look at Basic Swedish to see what it's like. Hopefully I can provice some tips for learners of the language. If anyone is interested, I will try to answer questions too.
 
Swedish hasn't really changed much in the last 40 years so this course should be perfectly usable today. My ambition is to go throught the whole course quickly and comment on everything that I find strange, outdated or outright wrong. Since it's quite a lot of material it will be done in smaller chunks, perhaps a chapter at a time.
 
I haven't listened to all of the tapes but I must say that the audio seems for the most part very good. The voices are all clear and speak a very neutral swedish dialect. There is just one small problem with one of the female speakers, she has definitely been living too long in the US since her 'R':s are all over the place and not always the distinct trills they should be. The learner should of course be aware that real life native speakers will talk faster, slur words together and will be harder to understand.
 
 
A Guide to Swedish Pronounciation
 
In all a very good introduction to pronounciation. Everything except the most rare exceptions seems to be covered.
 
Note that this chapter tells how you should pronounce letters, not how all native speakers will pronounce them. A few examples: 
 
- In southern Sweden most people use an "R"-sound more similar to the french and german "R", which is very different from standard Swedish.  
 
- In some dialects the short "E" is pronounced exactly the same as short "Ä".
 
- I personally pronounce the short "Ö" almost the same as the short "U". This is quite common in Stockholm and surrounding areas.
 
- There are no diphtongs in standard Swedish, but if you go to Gotland or Skåne you will hear them in every other word.
 



Replies:
Posted By: Eriol
Date Posted: 27 January 2007 at 7:03am

Unit 1

What was regarded as formal language at the time of writing the course is even more formal now. You can generally assume that everyone can be addressed with "du" nowadays.

- "Hej då" (or just "hej") is a much more common phrase for goodbye than "adjö".
- The use of "herr", "fru" and "fröken" is very formal, much more than the English counterparts.
- "Dagens Nyheter" is still the most important morning newspaper in Sweden, but it will cost a little bit more to buy now.

Unit 2

- "Bo" is a quite common name in Sweden but 95% of the time people will use the nickname "Bosse" instead. Using "Bo" when you are talking to the person in question is pretty awkward.

- Passenger flight has become a lot more common since this course was created and some new flight-related words has entered the everyday language. For instance, to use the compound word "direktflyg" instead of "direkt flyg" is the norm. Taking the boat from America to Sweden doesn't seem very likely either.

- To start short sentences with the word "men" is okay in spoken language, but I think you should avoid it in writing.

- "Öl" is a quite tricky word since it can be both an "en"-word and an "ett"-word. My personal opinion (I'm not sure everybody will agree) is that you use "ett" when talking about a brand of beer, but "en" when it is a glass, bottle or can that you are drinking from. "Staropramen är ett berömt tjeckiskt öl." (Staropramen is a famous czech beer.) but "Kan jag få en stor öl, tack?" (Can I have a large beer please?).
 


Posted By: daristani
Date Posted: 27 January 2007 at 7:13am
Eriol, thanks very much for taking the time to go through the course and making these observations; I think anyone working on Swedish will find them very helpful, as well as interesting in terms of seeing the subtle ways that Swedish has changed over the past few years.


Posted By: Eriol
Date Posted: 29 January 2007 at 1:37pm
Unit 3

- The verb "fara" isn't really that common in the spoken language anymore. Instead "åka", which has almost exactly the same meaning, is used. The exception to this is northern Sweden where "fara" is used a lot, even in some contexts where it sounds completely ridiculous to southerners.

- I know very few people who call their dad "far" instead "pappa" or "farsa" is used. Note that sometimes also the definite form "farsan", literally meaning "the dad" (but in reality more like "my dad") is used.

- Nobody would ever substitute "Sverige" with "det". Instead of "Nej, det har tio hamnar." say "Nej, Sverige har tio hamnar." or "Nej, landet har tio hamnar."

- The sentence "Många klockor, som kostar 10 kronor, är bra." is really stilted and strange. If we assume that the watches cost 10 kr a piece (which is not really 100% clear) then a much better way of saying the same thing would be "Många av klockorna, som kostar 10 kronor, är bra."

- To me it seems like the verb "prata" has replaced "tala" in almost all uses in the spoken language. In modern Swedish "tala" (and its conjugated forms) more or less implies that the speaker is delivering a speech. If someone would approach me and say "Jag talar bra svenska." my immediate reaction would be "Yes, but you learnt it from some old coursebook".
 


Posted By: Eriol
Date Posted: 31 January 2007 at 12:34pm
Unit 4

- I would rather say "Ursäkta, var ligger stationen?" than "Förlåt, var ligger stationen?". Both are perfectly polite ways of addressing a stranger, but to me "förlåt" sounds a little silly or oldfashioned. I'm not sure everybody will agree with me about that though.
 
- Notice how "det" as a substitute for cities and countries make a comeback here, this time it's a lot more sensible. "Det ligger" for the location of geographic objects is completely normal, maybe it's because "ligger" is more like a descriptive verb. Note however, that if a geographic name contains a "den"-word it's better to use "den ligger" instead. For instance: "Var ligger Kapstaden?" (Cape Town) - "Den ligger i Sydafrika".
 

 


Posted By: Eriol
Date Posted: 02 February 2007 at 2:12pm
Unit 5

- "Våning" for apartment in general seems a bit outdated, "lägenhet" is a more common word. "Våning" does also mean "floor" (as in "tredje våningen" = "third floor"), and it somewhat implies that it is a large apartment that takes up a whole floor in the building. A one-room-apartment in the suburbs would always be called "lägenhet", never "våning". Poor people like me live in a "lägenhet", rich people like Gordon Browning live in a "våning" on Östermalm.

- Note that "på" (="on") is used with "Östermalm", which is a district in Stockholm (not an island), instead of the more natural "i" (="in"). This is the case for some districts in cities and it's almost impossible to predict. Note what local people use if you want to fit into the neighbourhood!

- In Practice G the story is quite hard to follow both in the present and in the past tense. I guess it's hard to write a coherent text using just one tense and still get the chain of events to stick together. My advice would be to just use it as an exercise and don't worry to much about what it really means.
 


Posted By: Eriol
Date Posted: 05 February 2007 at 1:02pm
Unit 6

Comprehension quiz, just one minor point about this chapter:

- My gut feeling is that the sentence "En sekreterare talar aldrig på telefon." should really be "En sekreterare talar aldrig i telefon." Using "på telefon" feels a bit strange together with "talar", but I can't really say that it's outright wrong. On the other hand, you can call ("ringa") someone "på telefon" but when you speak you do it "i telefon". I guess the fact that English uses "on the phone" all the time is what makes this so difficult.


Posted By: Eriol
Date Posted: 13 February 2007 at 4:39pm

Unit 7

- The rule that all adjectives in the definite form get the ending -a is a gross oversimplification. The truth is, the -a-ending can be used all the time except in formal writing for nouns that are "true" masculine gender (that is an actual male person). These adjectives get an -e-ending instead. Throughout the first 70 years of the 20th century there was a deliberate movement towards getting rid of this last remnant of the old swedish four-gender-system, but it halted and failed. Nowadays, using the -e-ending is seen as the only correct way of writing these adjectives.

For the spoken language the situation is a bit different though. In southern and western Sweden most people use the -e-ending, while in the northern and eastern part of the country the -a-ending is more common. People won't normally notice which one you use. Just make sure that you never use the -e-ending for feminine words, it both sounds and looks completely ridiculous. If you need to guess an ending, always go for the -a.

There are also cases where the noun is omitted and the ending itself carries meaning in a sentence. For instance, Hemingway's novel "The old man and the sea" is translated as "Den gamle och havet". There is no "man" in the title, the -e implies that it's a man we're talking about. Likewise, "The old woman and the sea" would be "Den gamla och havet".

Some examples from the course:

I would never write in Swedish "Den trevliga mannen står vid hörnet." instead I use "Den trevlige mannen står vid hörnet." The sentence "Den vänliga läkaren står vid hörnet." is quite interesting since the adjective ending depends on if you know the gender of the doctor. If I know that it is a male doctor it will be "den vänlige läkaren", but if it's a female or I don't know the gender I would use "den vänliga läkaren". The situation is the same for other occupations such as "advokaten" but for "mannen" I would never use anything other than the -e-ending.

Also note that in plural, such as in "de snälla morbröderna" the ending is always -a.



Posted By: Eriol
Date Posted: 15 February 2007 at 3:59pm

Unit 8

- For the color "beige", the forms "beigt" and "beiga" are about as common as "beiget" and "beigea". I don't really know what is considered correct since I hardly ever use those words myself. The form "beiget" seems rather clumsy to me though, it somehow implies that the silent 'e' at the end should be pronounced. Compare it with the word "garage" with a silent 'e' at the end which has the definite form "garaget" where the 'e' is pronounced.

- Practice B seems a little unclear to me. Since there is no context it's impossible to tell when you should use "vilken", "vilket" or "vilka" and when you should use "vem" or "vad". For instance, "Vad köpte hon?" and "Vilket talade herr Stenmark om?" are perfectly correct sentences (at least if there were several different people talking about different countries).

- Note that "any", "anything", "anyone", "anybody" can't always be translated with "någon", "något", "några", "någonting". When "any" is used in the sense "whatever possible" Swedish uses the construction "vad/vem/vilken/vilket/vilka som helst".
 
"I would do anything for you." = "Jag skulle göra vad som helst för dig."
 


Posted By: Eriol
Date Posted: 01 March 2007 at 1:57pm
Unit 9

- "Vaktmästaren" seems like a pretty oldfashioned way of addressing a waiter. To most young people a "vaktmästare" is more like a janitor. Also, the habit of using a title when addressing someone is quite obsolete in itself, to just say a polite "Ursäkta!" is usually enough to get the attention of a waiter or waitress.

- Nowadays there is normally no service charge added on the bill in Sweden. Tipping is totally up to the customer and you may tip as little or as much as you wish.

- I have a similar objection to the superlative definite form of irregular adjectives like I had to the positive form of all adjectives. The adjectives modifying masculine nouns do sometimes take an ending in -e here too. For instance "den störste mannen" and "den tyngste pojken" are seen as the correct written form. The female and neuter forms always end in -a, like in "den yngsta kvinnan" and "den bästa bilen". Note that this concerns only the irregular forms, it's always "den vackraste kvinnan" and "den vackraste mannen".

 


Posted By: Eriol
Date Posted: 11 March 2007 at 11:27am
Unit 10

- The alternative form "glädjer" is sometimes used in both writing and speech instead of "gläder". "Gläder" is considered more correct though, The situation is the same with the verb "stödja" = "support" which has the alternative forms "stöder" and "stödjer".

- In everyday speech the phrase "klä om sig" isn't that common. Nowadays people tend to say "byta om" (which is not reflexive) instead. It is also possible to use "klä om" without the objective form personal pronoun or "sig". Example: "Margit ville byta (klä) om innan hon gick ut."

- The text in Practice F is in my opinion not very well-written. One of the first things children who study Swedish in school learn is that you should never start two clauses in a row with "sedan".
 


Posted By: Eriol
Date Posted: 18 March 2007 at 2:54pm

Unit 11

- Lots of native speakers break the rule about using the indefinite form of the adjective "egen", "eget", "egna" after a possessive adjetive on a daily basis. It's pretty common to hear things such as "mitt egna rum" and "sitt egna språk". Most likely nobody will notice even if you make this error in writing.

- The alternative translation to "Americans", "amerikanare", is nowadays more often used in reference to american cars than people.

- The question about what you should call a Finnish citizen when speaking Swedish is a bit more complicated than it is told in this course. For "finländare" there is also the alternative form "finn/e -ar", but this word (and the female counterpart "finsk/a -or") should only be used if you are sure that the person you are referring to is not part of Swedish-speaking minority in Finland. About 6% of the Finnish population has Swedish as their mothertongue, and for those you should only use "finlandssvensk"/"finlandssvenska" or the generic terms "finländare"/"finländska".

- I think there is a semantical difference between "I Polen bor det polacker." and "Poles live in Poland." To me, the english sentence implies that all Poles live in Poland while the Swedish sentence is more like "There are Poles living in Poland."

 




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