Reaction To Swedish Slang (and Idioms)

[@andersmalmgren6528]

Vaska means what he said to vaska for gold. But here vaska comes from the noun vask or sink. Vaska is a verb meaning to pour something into the sink. And that something is usally expensive to show off your wealth

[@svenjonsson4275]

Most of that slang is almost only used in Stockholm.

[@actionalex3611]

@@svenjonsson4275 Worst example i heard of was when they "vaska" a cab, ordering 2 cabs and having one of them go empty following the first one. Makes your head boil over. lol

[@xDraZtiCx]

You're freaking good at copying swedish and understanding the basic flow of the words or sentences! Loving it 😍

[@lottaroos5566]

My favourite idiom is "Nej, här blir inga barn gjorda!", "No, there are no kids made here!". Meaning that you're just hanging around and not doing anything constructive. With a slight undertone of restlessness.

[@EEmB]

The Australian version of this is "We are not here to f*ck spiders"

[@lottaroos5566]

@EEmB Eeeeewwww

[@Zeelian]

More proper translation would be *No, there are no kids getting made here"

[@JekGamerYT]

I think my favorite Swedish idiom is "Du har satt din sista potatis". Literally "You have planted your last potato" and it's used when you want to tell someone that they've messed up big time

[@TheInkSpoots]

One fun Swedish phrase that wasn’t in the video is ‘klart som korvspad,’ which means something is completely obvious. Literally translated, it’s ‘clear as sausage water,’ which probably sounds strange, but it makes perfect sense in Swedish!🎉

[@Joacim-A]

That bärs comes from Bayersk Öl (Bavarian Beer) goes back to when the Bavarians invented Lager beer, Sweden wanted to know how to brew this new type of beer so they invited brewmasters from Bavaria to Sweden to start brewing it. Unlike any ale (porter and stout are also ales) Lager are brewed chilled while ale are done in room temperature, the chilled process allows the yeast to sink to the bottom while brewing ale it floats on the top. So even though bärs is used today for any beer its origin was for lager and pils. The idioms, "ingen fara på taket" (no danger on the roof) and "Ingen ko på isen" (no cow on the ice) sounds funny when you translate them but it's because these are only half of the original idioms, the whole idioms are "Ingen fara på taket så länge skorstenen står" (There's no danger on the roof as long as the chimney is still standing, meaning it has not fallen) and "Ingen ko på isen så länge baken är på land" (There's no cow on the ice as long as its behind is on land, meaning even if the cow breaks the ice it can just back up and won't fall through).

[@Joacim-A]

One word that comes from the Romani language, and is so old in Swedish now that it's hardly called slang anymore, is "Tjej" (this starts with a Ch-sound) which means girl in Swedish. Actually, the word has changed meaning over time, in Romani the word means daughter, and when it was introduced in Swedish it meant something like Daugther of a Whore (many people disliked the Romanu traveling people and called them Gypsies or Ziginare in Swedish), but later just meant a young girl, but today a girl or a woman of any age can call themselves a Tjej as long as they're young at heart.

[@dracopticon7788]

"Det är som att gå över ån efter vatten" - "That's like crossing the river to fetch water", meaning you do or procure something unnecessarily, because you already have it (or have an easy access to it).

[@EEmB]

"No cow on the ice" 🐄🐄 comes from when most of Sweden was farm land. During the winter, some times the water troughs in the barn froze over and you had to herd your animals down to the lake to get them to drink. This could be dangerous if the cow wandered out on the ice and it broke. But as long as it had it's backside on land, there was nothing to worry about, the cow would be safe. Hence, "There is no cow on the ice (nothing to worry about/there are no danger) as long as the butt is on land"

[@jumpman8282]

"Nu har du skitit i det blå skåpet" is a line from the Swedish movie 'Göta kanal'. The actor Janne "Loffe" Carlsson ad libbed that line, which he actually got from his father, because in Janne's childhood home there was a blue cabinet where his parents would keep the more expensive dining equipment and such, and one time when Janne had misbehaved, as children do, his father said "this time you've taken a shit in the blue cabinet" as a descriptive allegory for the severity of Janne's misconduct.

[@unowestlund1848]

When you talk about incompetent police officers, you can use "Kling and Klang" after the two not so bright polices in the children book Pippi Long stocking.

[@TordBärnfors]

I think he missed some of the best most used idioms like: "gå över ån efter vatten" (roughly means "to cross the river in search of water" - doing something in an unnecessary complicated way). "sälj inte skinnet innan du skjutit björnen" (don't sell the skin before you've shot the bear, meaning don't take success for granted). "göra en höna av en fjäder" ("make a hen out of a feather", meaning to wildly exaggerate). Also, this is a funny one: "nu har dom skitit i det blå skåpet" (roughly means "now they have taken a dump in the blue cupboard" - origin seems to be a a character in a popular comedy (Göta Kanal) shouting this when he is furious about someone. A funny way of saying "now they have done it/now they have crossed the line!".)

[@pellejonsson7933]

some favorite slang from my region (Östergötland) Bluddra - talking bullshit Glutta - stare Blänga - stare Kuckla - tinkering, fixing (can also mean to have sex) va' styr du mä'? - literal translation: "what do you steer with?" meaning "what are you doing?" often used when someone is doing something reckless, dumb

[@audhumbla6927]

Blänga och glutta säger vi i Stockholm också. "Har du käkat blängsylta eller" som tilltal till någon som glor på en, har jag dock bara hört min mor säga :'D men den är bra

[@pellejonsson7933]

@@audhumbla6927 haha jag trodde inte blänga användes i stockholm.. men jag tror att ursprungligen kommer det från östgötskan. Source: låter väldigt östgötskt :D

[@audhumbla6927]

@@pellejonsson7933 jag tror dig och kommer sprida den faktan vidare :D👍🏻

[@Covenantt666]

Its a good video, but about half of the slang words are specific to the Stockholm-area (and maybe the surrounding region/s).

[@Zeelian]

And there was a section on "Rinkebysvenska" which is pretty much only used by immigrant kids and "Gangsta"-wannabees.

[@Covenantt666]

@Zeelian Yes, but at least in that section it's specified that that's what it is. While the rest is just presented as swedish slang.

[@susi_gron]

Have you heard about the Sámi people? They are a group of people that are living in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia there are some video about it. What the culture of them are they have a lot of reindeer’s. 🦌❄️☃️

[@susi_gron]

Sámi video kzbin.info/www/bejne/lWfWgoOAq6yUhZIsi=QmLlDlKjA5Jl6k_W

[@johnbellamy3406]

A Swedish idiom that I like is, "Han/Hon spottar inte i glaset," Translated it says 'He/She doesn't spit in the glass'. It means that somebody maybe drinks too much...because he only takes liquid from the glass and doesn't put any back.

[@KjellEson]

Something is fat = Comes from suburbs with many immigrants who mixed up the Swedish language. 6:36 Vaska = Old Norse for wash Vaska händerna Wash your hands 7:27 Kefft, para, aina Used by younger generations in, for example, Stockholm's suburbs and Malmö. Sweden is a relatively large country. Words from immigrants are rare outside of Stockholm and Malmö.

[@audhumbla6927]

Fett är från danskans fedt = häftigt

[@mnemetotoro]

@@audhumbla6927Exactly.

[@matshjalmarsson3008]

Some ideoms: Det finns mycket på ett järnspett (Ther's much on an Iron Bar), meaning even seemingly simple things are more complicated than you think. Det är jag som ska tacka (det är herrn som har gjort det mesta besväret), which means "It's I who should thank you (it's you sir who did most of the work)" Det luktar herre, men jag ser ingen (It smells like a noble man, but I don't see one) meaning you smell that someone is smoking a cigarr

[@SteamboatW]

There are literally thick books written with Swedish slang or idioms... Hard to pick a favourite. 😊

[@deluxeviking]

There was a lot of slang in Sweden, but with immigration, we quickly learned new ones. Then different cities a little more different slang. No, we drink beer differently and it doesn't depend on the types of beer. I lived in Stockholm 36 years ago, moved to Småland in the south and they have old Swedish still and their own slang that I learned. Swedish has many words for many things. Like u videos and fun to Watch !

[@roxyhart5692]

Ok that was so cute you saying "Är du fortfarande bakis?" - you have a pretty good pronunciation for someone who isn't formally learning the language

[@disadisa86]

Se ut som en fågelholk = To look like a bird house Meaning to look very surprised, stunned or like you haven't understood something, with your mouth wide open like the hole in a bird house

[@giajensen1689]

The slang words, most of them I never even heard and they all seemed to be centered around drinking. We have a lot of slang that is not centered around drinking, so it would have been more balanced if he had used them as well. Also, plätt is a smaller kind of panncake that is maybe 6 cm in diameter and thin like a crepe so they are light and also as you said it rhymes.❤❤❤🇸🇪

[@everygreatway]

More like 10 cm, I'd say. 🙂

[@jerryhall5709]

The police in Sweden is sometimes called "farbror blå". Uncle blue if you translate it. Referring to the blue beacons on a police car.

[@pellejonsson7933]

also "bängen", which refers to the police as stupid

[@annicaesplund6613]

Also "aina".

[@Tguson]

Farbror Blå is also a character in the Elsa Beskow children's book "Tant Grön, tant Brun och tant Gredelin".

[@audhumbla6927]

och icke att förglömmas; SNUTEN. snutbil. snutstation. snuttätt. snutspan.

[@mnemetotoro]

These examples are far more wide spread in Sweden, both geographically and among different age groups, than aina. ’Aina’ is a relatively new thing among (some) city kids. ’Farbror blå’ and ’snuten’ would make way more sense to teach as examples of Swedish slang, imo.

[@roxyhart5692]

BIRA BIRA BIRA, BÄRS BÄRS BÄRS 🎶

[@jonasseger]

"Kasta inte sten i glashus." - 'Don't throw rocks in a glass house.' Means you shouldn't criticize someone for something you do yourself. I prefer the variant "Kasta inte spjut i radhus." - 'Don't throw spears in rowhouses.' because it makes no actual sense.

[@MrJamesBanana]

I also like to reverse it, just to confuse people. Don't throw glass in a stone house.

[@jonasjyleback1670]

This is more slang in the stockholm area. They don't speak like this in the south ore north of sweden. Funny to watch you try it out, you du a good job👍👍

[@matshjalmarsson3008]

There are at least 10 different slang areaas/dialects/accents in Stockholm alone. Many words that are now recognized came from Finnish, Jiddish, and other languages, there were also slang invented by shady people, kind of like Cockney, that are now proper words. Eg tjej (Girl), originally meaning Prostitute, I'm not sure where tjack came from, but it used to also mean prostitute, but now it means Amphetamine and can also be used as a verb tjacka which means to buy something, in modern slang you'd probably use haffa, which means to get (something) and it also means being caught by the police. Slang and dialects are one of the deepest Rabbit holes you can get into

[@annicaesplund6613]

Tjej kommer från romani och betyder flicka, inte prostituerad.

[@matshjalmarsson3008]

@@annicaesplund6613 SAOB säger "(ogift) kvinnlig prostituerad, glädjeflicka. ÖB 70 (c. 1712). Bellman 3: 212 (1790). Ach, min herre, jag är en flicka! jag har intet att göra med samhället. Almqvist Col. 10 (1835). De flesta dölja .. under skänkjungfruns namn den offentliga flickans yrke. Beckman Främl. 64 (1885). Vi armbåga oss in på närmaste bar för att i en larmande, stinkande hop af boxare, judar, sluskar och flickor få oss en whisky and soda. Engström 5bok 108 (1910). - jfr GLÄDJE-FLICKA.", men de tar även upp andra betydelser

[@matshjalmarsson3008]

@@annicaesplund6613 Jag hittade också detta, men det är från en inte jättetrovärdig sajt "Romer har i många hundra år bidragit till det svenska samhället. Ett av deras största bedrifter och bidrag är att de kallade svenska kvinnor för "tjej", som betyder Hora på romani. Med tiden blev "tjej" ett allmänt accepterat ord som används om alla kvinnor"

[@Murvelhund]

We have quite a few brewery in Sweden and beer is a popular beverage.

[@Chakeis]

I definitely use "fett" a lot to describe things as it's more weighty than just saying "good". Some of the idioms I've never even heard of, same with the turkish/arab slang. "Stekare" are indeed mostly used to describe people in Stockholm that behave like spoiled brats. The stockholm dialect are even associated with people sounding like they're spoilt and think higher of themselves than others, even if that's not true. Our idioms are all over the place, but a ton of them are literal translations of commonly used ones worldwide. For example: "Inte vassaste kniven i lådan" - Not the sharpest knife in the box (which would be tool in the shed in english).

[@audhumbla6927]

o- in the beginning of a word isnt slang. just like un- something in english isnt slang. its just that swedish is freer, you can create new words if they make sense. how many o- words there are differ drasticly depending on region and local dialect.

[@fredrikjosefsson3373]

Do note that a lot of these are stockholm slang. I know them all but we have our own in gothenburgh

[@peartree8338]

Am I the only one who makes the connection between "däckad" and tired as in däck-tire?

[@Zeelian]

The English connection is to "deck" ie the upper flooring of a boat, and falling down and hitting said deck.

[@LenaLindroth-g1v]

You are really good pronaucing swedish!!

[@dracopticon7788]

Pronouncing. Annars jättebra skrivet.

[@LenaLindroth-g1v]

@ sorry dyslektiker

[@dracopticon7788]

@@LenaLindroth-g1v Då är det jag som ska be om ursäkt!

[@LenaLindroth-g1v]

@ ingen fara🤣 det är bra att få en uppdatering om när jag stavar fel. Hur ska jag annars bli bättre?🥰

[@dracopticon7788]

@@LenaLindroth-g1v Det stämmer ju förstås! Tack för vuxen kommunikation.

[@loading...9920]

as someone from Jönköping )about 4h drive south from stockhold, Ive never heard Stekaren before

[@jonathanhuusko9154]

What?! Maybe that's more something we outside of Stockholm use (Från Göteborg här)

[@LolTollhurst]

I grew up in Jönköping 20 years ago and we said stekare then, strange. It was said interchangeably with backslick and preppy and brats. Feels like I'm forgetting one? I was a hipster and we came later

[@Covenantt666]

Even if I feel it was more common in the Stockholm-area, I think it has more to do with age. It was common around the year 2000 +- 5 years.

[@bullfidde]

I think most of these are generally more used in Stockholm and not as frequently used in proper Sweden. Åäö is not pronounced as a or o it's more like french Å= AU , Ä= AE and Ö = OE . In Stockholm the Ä is pronounced just like Swedish E .

[@valandhol9four680]

Rarely people use "o"-word like obra or ocool. But there are som o-words that we do use. Examples: osmakligt=untasteful, oattraktiv=unattractive, oaktsam=unaware, oberäknelig=erratic/wayward, okänslig= unsensitive

[@titanuranus3095]

People in Norrland use o- all the time. Its like that joke about "In" and "Out" being the same thing.

[@Lithanell]

Not just that we use some "o" words. The swedish languagr is filled with them, it all depends on how developed your vocabulary is.

[@johankaewberg8162]

@@Lithanello-oinformativt.

[@kreftan]

ocoolt av dig att ljuga.

[@Lithanell]

@@johankaewberg8162 Om en Oblat är en helig brödbit, vad är då en blat?

[@annelinilsson8037]

It's a bit strange. Maybe they talk like this in Stockholm. I don't think that we use all of this in the south of Sweden.

[@pankob4953]

We dont use these in sthlm either. This is how i imagine my dad would sound if he attempted to teach swedish to a refugee

[@johankaewberg8162]

E du god, änna!

[@jerryhall5709]

Lack means angry. You can also say "lacka ur". Han lackade ur (He lost his temper).

[@tellurian2263]

Another version is "om man bäddar får man ligga"

[@larsprestberg7791]

Om man ligger får man bädda.

[@annacederwall3309]

We just to say the stekare comb thair hair with a steak so they got the typical back slick.

[@johankaewberg8162]

All of this is true. We also have Finnish and Spanish imported words.

[@pvakt]

I think this way about English-speaking countries: when you have to pronounce Swedish words, you read them too fast. You miss how the letters fit together. I often hear how, in most cases, the Americans say the Swedish words completely wrong. They don't take the time to look at the words. So that's why it sounds really weird to us Swedes when they try to pronounce Swedish words. Just read slowly and we'll understand =)

[@matswinberg5045]

"Baxa" in Swedish means "push and drag" . "Baxa" as "steal" is immigrant slang, to my knowledge it is not used in that sense by the general Swedish population.

[@simpaa9]

I've always understood it as "steal" so when a guy offered to bax my car I didn't really know what to say. To me it seemed like a regional thing at the time

[@pellejonsson7933]

it was used by everyone I knew as a kid, born early 90s. but you may be right that it comes from immigrant slang

[@TordBärnfors]

@@pellejonsson7933 Agreed, I was born in the 70s and baxa has always meant to push or drag. The meaning in the video was totally new to me. It was also used by our finance minister Kjell-Olof Feldt as early as 1983 in a written sentence that became a scandal, so it was very well established slang.

[@falukropp2000]

Baxa is old, at least 70's, 'swedish criminal slang', for example 'baxa ett skåp' = break in to a safe, steal a safe. To steal a safe involves a lot of push and drag to get it out on the street and into a car... later on it came to mean to nick something in general. I'd expect it to be well known and understood in Stockholm area, but not as common elsewhere. The 'proper' meaning of baxa involves to move something using a skewer, like to lift a stone out of the ground with a shovel or a skewer. Using something for leverage as you move it.

[@pellejonsson7933]

@@falukropp2000 as ive commented before, it was used by everyone I knew as a kid and im from Linköping... so it is/was probably well established here, atleast in the poorer, more criminal districts

[@olsa76]

"There is no danger on the roof when the fire is downstairs" is the whole expression, so you don't really reassure me that it's ok by saying "there is no danger on the roof". I rather interpret it as that for the moment everything is ok, but the threat of it changing remains.

[@PerDanell]

"Ingen fara på taket så länge skorstenen står rak" is what I've heard, or "No danger on the roof as long as the chimney is standing straight".

[@SwedenTheHedgehog]

I would say that about 25% of these slangwords are not used country-wide here. "Obra" sounds distinctly northern and "brorsan" sounds a lot like "immigration slang" which has seeped into some of youth-slang. Interesting overall, but not really representative of the language outside of, mostly, Stockholm.

[@lordnilsson]

In the end the voice is not in parity with the pictures..!?????

[@eh-modo]

Ja, j-igt irriterande 😠

[@karna6982]

I'm 50 and during my life the expression det suger (it sucks) has change meaning from something good to bad, influenced by the american language.

[@Kalleballethetwo]

never heard anyone say "obra"

[@lillemorhagglund1864]

Används i de norra delarna av Sverige. Vi har nippran på att i våra dialekter ( särskilt i de bondska dialekterna i Norr - och västerbotten) lägga till o framför ord för att få motsatt betydelse på ord.

[@mattiashedman8845]

I’d say that the negation is more common in the northen parts of Sweden. Where he also missed the best word of them all He/hä. One verb for give, place, throw… pretty much anything you can do with a thing.

[@UnusuallyLongCroissant]

Bro I am literally Swedish and I have never heard anyone use any of these idioms.

[@Inlanning]

Everyone of these was used frequently when I was young. Nowadays I rarely use slang and have no idea what words people use.

[@Vazlist]

Darjnål.

[@KungKokkos]

Dont you literally use the slang "phat" meaning good or excellent in English? Granted, it's more of an american black culture word, but pretty universal these days init?

[@Imevul]

Another similar that comes to mind is how "thicc" is considered good in recent years, and before that if you were "thick", you didn't have all your indians in the canoe. (Yes, I snuck in another translated idiom for fun...)

[@mnemetotoro]

In Sweden we got it from the Danish ’fedt’, where it’s used as slang for cool or awesome.

[@audhumbla6927]

He said "it might not count as slang cus its been around a long time". That doesnt make any sense at all. Slang doesnt mean new or modern at all. Obviously, there is new slang, but there is obviously many diffrent both dialects and sociolects of slang. And also ofcourse, over time, 00s slang, 90s slang, 70s slang, 50s slang, medieval slang, etc. Alot of slang words in modern swedish is many hundred years old. Some slang words from the 50s are used by everyone today, some are dead and gone. Slang doesnt mean modern it means casual, inofficial, speach.

[@Upe-f9c]

I think this video that you showed "sket sig" in the end, with his words not being synchronized with what was showed on screen. "Sket/ att skita" means to shit and "sket sig" means that it went totally wrong.

[@soHatey]

Ingen ko på isen, no cow on the ice

[@hedvignottheowl3583]

the Kurdish fled. Many came here, and we are better for it.

[@johnbellamy3406]

Did you know that Swedish has only one quarter as many words as English?

[@Inlanning]

That springs from colonial roots. More things to give name to when you speak English in every corner of the world.

[@johnbellamy3406]

@@Inlanning I think it has much more to do with the multitude of roots, from Lattin, the Germanic languages, Nordic languages and French, not to mention the original Celtic languages that would have existed here before any of those. The Scandinavian languages on the other hand have remained relatively pure due to very little influx from outside cultures over the Millenia. Icelandic is an extremely pure language that has changed very little.

[@freewill8218]

Slapptask.

[@tantsotis]

Enligt Google betyder det relax bag 😅

[@freewill8218]

@tantsotis lol

[@phnome123]

Lägga rabarber på [något] = Put rhubarb on [something] = To steal or take it from someone. Någon har lagt raberber på min bil. Someone ha put rhubarb on my car. WIerd one. And we got plenty of those.

[@andreastschig6905]

Att lägga rabarber på något betyder (som du skrev)att lägga beslag på något. Uttrycket finns belagt sedan slutet av 1800-talet och är en skämtsam ombildning av lägga embargo på något, som har samma betydelse.

[@johanlindqvist9308]

Yeah, but here they talk typical ridiculous Stockholm accent, which is absurdely phony and silly. Pff

[@Inlanning]

I bet your dialect would sound silly too for those who don't use it.