The Viking is working a late shift tonight, so this morning as we shared breakfast, I asked him to start teaching me some Swedish. I will take real classes of course, but I haven’t yet received the personal-number-thingy that will make me eligible for Swedish for Immigrants, and I suddenly got impatient to get a wriggle on.
I don’t know if this is breaking my week resolution about happy things or not, because we ended up laughing hysterically, but… well, it seems I pretty much suck at Swedish. I optimistically thought that as I’ve heard it a lot over the past few weeks, my ear would be, I don’t know, tuned into it or something, but… not so much. It was a little like this:
The Viking would say: Jag heter Regan (My name is Regan)
And I would basically say: flumph flumph ABBA
Then the Viking would say: Trevligt att träffas (Nice to meet you.) (He wrote these out for me, BTW)
And I would repeat: flumph flumph IKEA.
Viking: Regan!
Me: Meatballs!
And he would start cracking up, and I would be like, “Dude! I’m trying my best here!” And he would claim that wasn’t possible, and I would insist it was, but I would be laughing too.
Hmm, maybe I need to wait until I can start SFI after all, it seems I require the services of a professional.
Then he taught me the best word ever: snuskhummer. It translates literally as “filthy lobster”, but means pervert… because lobsters are sleazy? Who knows how Swedes’ minds work. Whatever the origin, it is an excellent word: it sounds funny and conjures a great image. I don’t yet know quite how I’m going to contrive a situation in which I’ll get to call someone a snuskhummer, but you can trust I will try my darndest.
July 22, 2013 at 12:41 pm
‘Snuskhummer’ is now my go-to insult! Get away from me, you filthy lobster!!! (OMG cannot stop laughing!)
July 23, 2013 at 10:42 pm
Awesome, isn’t it? Even better if you could hear my Viking say it – the emphasis is on the ‘hum’, which makes it almost snusk – hoooom – er and it is hysterical to hear!!
July 22, 2013 at 4:16 pm
LOL. Most informative. I love your Viking.
July 23, 2013 at 10:41 pm
LOL… me too!!
July 22, 2013 at 4:52 pm
Hej Regan. Jag heter Dan. Wait until you start SFI. You won’t be laughing, I can assure you. Remember when you took Spanish or French in high school and the teacher could explain things in English? Those days are over. Because there are people from so many different countries in SFI, they teach the entire course in Swedish from Day 1. Once in a while they will use English as a default because so many people speak some English but mostly it is Swedish all the way. Still, you are a bright girl and I am sure will do fine.Lycka till!
July 23, 2013 at 10:41 pm
Ahh that sounds terrifying!! Am excited, but it’s been a loooooong time since I was in a classroom…
July 22, 2013 at 7:50 pm
Throw yourself into SFI and really try, otherwise you will end up like me, not knowing my snusk from my hummer and being really bummed about it.
July 23, 2013 at 10:39 pm
Thank you, that’s what I’m afraid of… 😉
August 6, 2013 at 11:31 am
Watch Swedish TV, listen to the radio, read the newspaper and get your hands on a really good dictionary. Immersion is the best way to go!
August 6, 2013 at 11:32 am
Ask TV what a word means, build your vocabulary, buy childrens picture books – guaranteed to help with growing your vocabulary 🙂 at least there are similarities between English and Swedish, Finnish has none of that 😉