Sweden, here I come! :-}

[Shelli]

The World's Best Country for Women (http://lifestyle.msn.com/mindbodyandsoul/womenintheworld/articlemc.aspx?cp-documentid=4951226&GT1=10215)

If you want to be happy, healthy, and powerful, you might consider packing your bags and moving to a picturesque country on the other side of the Atlantic. According to a new report, Sweden tops out as the #1 place for women to live. Is it the year-long maternity leave? The chance to date four men at once? The unisex public bathrooms? (Ewww!)

... read on (http://lifestyle.msn.com/mindbodyandsoul/womenintheworld/articlemc.aspx?cp-documentid=4951226&page=2) :flex:

[Novowels]

And the food's good too! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCJLCc8DRrk)

[Dingfod]

Say hi to Butch*.





*Butch, my little brother's friend, married a Swede and settled there, somewhere north of Stockholm.

[Zadalya]

Have a wonderful time, Shelli! It does seem like a great place :) You'll have to tell us all about it when you get back!!

[BDS]

Why Sweden is a living Hell:

According to one study, Swedish men do more housework than men anywhere else — an average of 24 hours per week!

I don’t do 24 hours of housework a year (and I’m single).

[Uthgar the Brazen]

Why Sweden is a living Hell:

According to one study, Swedish men do more housework than men anywhere else — an average of 24 hours per week!

I don’t do 24 hours of housework a year (and I’m single).

Eeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww......

[Sock Puppet]

I don’t do 24 hours of housework a year (and I’m single).Screw Hume, I perceive causation at work here.

[erimir]

But you have no idea of a necessary connection!

Också... När går du till Sverige, Shelli? :)

[BDS]

I don’t do 24 hours of housework a year (and I’m single).Screw Hume, I perceive causation at work here.

No doubt. If I were married, my wife would nag until I did more housework.

[Shelli]

Också... När går du till Sverige, Shelli? :):?

[erimir]

I guess you gotta practice more before you go :-p

It says "Also, when do you go to Sweden, Shelli?"

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

Perhaps I should marry a Swede instead of a German-born Aussie..


Hey erimir, I know you don't swing my way, but wanna run off? ;)

[Shelli]

Yeah, I guess it might help to learn the language first. :giggle:

[erimir]

Nah, they all speak English there anyway.

You won't understand most of the signs tho.

[Dingfod]

I have an advertisement for a Swedish fishing boat on my wall that is actually amazingly easy to figure out what it's saying. I know that fiske, as in lutefiske, has something to do with fish, and båtar is boat, båtar du fiske must be fishing boat. There are many more words in the ad that are close enough to English to decipher. What do you think "sittkonsol" means? Or lanternor? Or kabin? Or familj? Under durk? Nordiska klimatet? I think we must share a root language somewhere back in history.

[Shelli]

You won't understand most of the signs tho.
Hey, as long as the men there understand the signs when I'm hungry :hungry:, when the dishes need to be done, my clothes need to be laundered :rinse:, the rugs need to be vacuumed :vacuum:, and when I need a massage :massage: from all the hard work of watching them do all that. :tea:

:giggle:

[Watser?]

I have an advertisement for a Swedish fishing boat on my wall that is actually amazingly easy to figure out what it's saying. I know that fiske, as in lutefiske, has something to do with fish, and båtar is boat, båtar du fiske must be fishing boat. There are many more words in the ad that are close enough to English to decipher. What do you think "sittkonsol" means? Or lanternor? Or kabin? Or familj? Under durk? Nordiska klimatet? I think we must share a root language somewhere back in history.

Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, German, Dutch and English (and some minority languages like Scots and Frisian) are all Germanic languages. Dutch is even closer to English than Swedish (and Frisian even more than Dutch).

[erimir]

I'm not quite sure what "båtar du fiske" means.

Båtar means boats
du means you
fiske means fishing (noun)

So I'm not quite sure how that makes sense unless there are more words in the sentence.

[Watser?]

Boat your fishing!

Hey, boat your fishing young man! Or you will feel the back of my hand!

[Dingfod]

I don't know, those were just a few words I plucked out of the ad. In context or even out of context those few words are simple enough for me to sort of understand what they're trying to convey.

[California Tanker]

I think we must share a root language somewhere back in history.

Ireland has determined that when foreigners come a barging onto your shores with big pointy things, and sometimes stay, the locals often pick up bits of the language. (As do the foreigners of the local language, to a lesser extent)

NTM

[erimir]

Ya well, a lot of the cognates with Swedish just have to do with the common Germanic roots.

However, the pronouns "they", "them", "their" are from Norse, as are many sk- words, like skirt (shirt is actually its cognate, since in Old English sk changed to sh sound), sky, skull, skin, etc. As well as some assorted other words, like egg, ugly, weird, bylaw (by meant town in Old Norse, and still does in Swedish).

But words like boat-båt, hand-hand, book-bok, fish-fisk, shall-skall (usually ska nowadays), should-skulle, can-kan, must-måste, etc. are simply our shared inheritance from our common ancestor.

[Watser?]

Hand = hand in Dutch and German too.

Arm = arm in Dutch and German as well.

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

You will want to learn the following:

Idag har jag cyklat ned i skorstenarna!
Sir, where is the ladies' room in your fine establishment?

Mitt huvud trillar av och det är fullt av godis.
I would like to order a beer, please.

[California Tanker]

If I were you, I'd run those phrases through Babelfish first, just in case...

NTM

[Dingfod]

Babelfish don't have no Swedenese on it.

[Miisa]

Hand = hand in Dutch and German too.

Arm = arm in Dutch and German as well.
Ah, but then you have words like
vrist = ankle.

[viscousmemories]

I used to play an online game (a MUD) that was hosted on a server at the IT University of Göteborg, in Göteborg, Sweden. So when I was working in Hamburg, Germany in '97 we drove to the University to check it out. Lovely little town, that Göteborg. And (oddly) almost no tall blonde women. Everything I'd ever heard about Sweden turns out to be lies.

[Miisa]

Yes, they are a pack of liars, those Swedes. Believe nothing.

[viscousmemories]

It wasn't the Swedes that were lying to me, it was the Americans! I grew up believing that Sweden was the land of tall blonde women. I don't even have any aesthetic preference for tall blonde women, it's just the betrayal that hurts.

[Watser?]

It hurts when people lie to you about tall blonde women :sigh:

[Miisa]

Yeah, but the original perpetrators of the lie were Swedes. Blatant propagenda to make themselves look more fun and interesting.

The tall blonde women are, of course, in Finland.

[viscousmemories]

Ah, of course! Thanks for the clarification. So how YOU doin', Miisa? :wink:

[California Tanker]

It wasn't the Swedes that were lying to me, it was the Americans! I grew up believing that Sweden was the land of tall blonde women. I don't even have any aesthetic preference for tall blonde women, it's just the betrayal that hurts.

It works both ways.

When I told my friends and colleagues in Ireland that I was moving to California, the general perception amongst both themselves and myself was that I was heading to the land of sun, beaches, and babes in bikinis.

I woz robbed, I tell you.

NTM

[viscousmemories]

Hey now, I lived in Pacific Beach and that's exactly what it was like. Plus an annual average temperature of 70:degrees:. :bliss:

[erimir]

You will want to learn the following:

Idag har jag cyklat ned i skorstenarna!
Sir, where is the ladies' room in your fine establishment?Today I have cycled down a chimney!

Which is of course nothing but a Swedish idiom for "Where is the ladies' room?" Although strangely, in Swedish, they end it with an exclamation mark rather than a question mark.
Mitt huvud trillar av och det är fullt av godis.
I would like to order a beer, please.My head rolls off and it is full of candy.

Godis is a pretty similar word to English "goodies" (pronounced pretty similarly too).

That's not the way to order a beer tho, that's probably something you might say if ordering a piñata shaped like yourself.

Another useful phrase would be, to order some Swedish meatballs

Jag skulle gilla bajs med mina köttbullar.

Ok, and this one is real!

Kissa på mig!

Kiss me!

[Miisa]

:giggles:

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

:innocent:

[Shelli]

:tsktsk:

[Shake]

year-long maternity leave
Ooh! I know Mrs Shake would have loved that! As it was, she was able to take 6-months without fear of losing her position at work. She actually could have taken a year, but then all they'd guarantee is that she'd still have a job when returning.

[Uthgar the Brazen]

My head rolls off and it is full of candy.

:lick:

[Shelli]

:giggle:

[Miisa]

year-long maternity leave
Ooh! I know Mrs Shake would have loved that!
That's paid leave. In Finland we get a further two years "unpaid", probably at least as good in Sweden.

[erimir]

I guess if nobody's gonna comment, I can reveal that "Kissa på mig!" actually means "Piss on me!" not "Kiss me!"

That's one of those funny false cognates :P