Bilingual Family Fun

I never imagined that I would one day speak another language fluently (I certainly studied a bunch of languages, but never to true fluency), but here I am living in a Swedish/English speaking family.

Having a different 'mother tongue' than your family has a lot of frustrating moments, but a lot of funny ones as well. In our household we are lucky, we both speak and understand the other's native language at a very high funtional level – which means that we can each speak whatever language we feel like. This has made us very LAZY with language – something we are trying to mend due to the prescence of a new language learner in our midst – but it is not easy.

My Swede speaks amazing English, and sometimes when he makes a mistake it catches me by surprise, because I don't expect it. I, on the other hand, still make a bunch of Swedish mistakes, and they can also bring the laughs.

Take, for example, the discussion we ended up having last night. My Swede was trying to put LO to bed and he had a loaf of bread baking in the oven. (Yes, my Swede is awesome).

Trying not to disrupt our almost sleeping child, The Swede says “Please take the bread out of the oven at sharp.”

I am confused. “Huh?”

“Sharp!”

“I don't understand,” I stagewhisper upstairs.

“At eight o'clock, take it out at eight!” He whispers loudly and I hear LO stirring.

I cannot remember the last time I gave the phrase 8 o'clock sharp that much thought, but all of a sudden I was thinking about when we use sharp, and why and how with time. And that is what rocks about having a bilingual relationship. You suddenly get a whole new perspective on the words you use.

If you say sharp, you need to give a specific time that it needs to be completed by, otherwise sharp has no meaning. But I did have a nagging sense of self-doubt and double checked on the internets. Because after living abroad for ten years, sometimes I wonder what constructions in English are real, and what just exists in my head.

Has bilinguilism affected your family in any fun and amusing ways?

Learning Swedish - fun Swedish words

One of the questions amongst the infamous questions James Lipton always asks Hollywood celebs in his bastardization of Proust's Questionnaire is 'What is your favorite word_.' Of course this can only be asked with the overdramatization and English accent in which Lipton excels.

Myself, I love words that roll of the tongue in a fun and pleasing way - the meaning I am less amused by. My favorite words are the ones that are fun to say.

My ideas are a bit along the lines of the mismatched history of 'cellar door' even though cellar door is not my favorite selection of words in English (check out Donnie Darko if you haven't heard of this phenomenon - or check it out if you haven't seen it yet - or just do an internet search and then check out Donnie Darko)

My favorite Swedish word?   ömsesidig - pronounced Ohmseseedee (g) (it is my understanding that the final g kind of dances off your tongue at the end)

For me, ömsesidig (despite its confusing spelling) is a word that rolls off the tongue in a most pleasing manner.

It also means something positive - mutual - unlike one of my favorite English words - perturbation which feels almost as uncomfortable as it is.

If you have a favorite word in English or Swedish - what is it? And why?

ETA: For some reason my unedited version was posted here - so I've touched this up. Sorry! Oh, and The Swede says omsesidig starts with an ö.

When Languages Collide: Learning Swedish and Speaking Swenglish

Learning another language as an adult is never easy – it's frustrating, nonsensical and a bit like discovering a new, dumber, slower side of yourself. Suddenly the person who you've always been is gone, and they've been replaced by someone who has a hard time stringing a simple sentence together.

I want to write a little bit about language on this blog – both non-natives speaking Swedish and Swedes speaking English – so I thought I would start by hanging my self out there before I start making fun of or pointing out other peoples mistakes.

There are 2 memorable 'early speaker' mistakes I've made that I will never forget.

1. I was watching a friend's kid and took him to a soccer game. At the time I must have been about 22. The kid was 7. One woman, as we were leaving, after several strange looks asked me 'Ar du hans mamma?'

'Nej', I answered proudly 'Jag är hans barnmorska.'

Let me explain: Barnvakt – is the word for babysitter, barnmorska – is the word for midwife.

I was so happy that I had understood the question and answered in Swedish it took me about 1 minute before I realized that my answer made no sense what so ever. By that point I was almost to my car. I'm sure she wondered about that for awhile, too.

2. A member of my husband's Swedish family called me up after I'd only been in Sweden a year or so and we were chatting in Swedish on the phone for awhile. After about ten minutes he says something that I interpret to be 'Oh and me and my girlfriend got married this weekend at city hall.' Now remember, I don't speak great Swedish after only a year and this is on the phone. Also, we speak to this family member regularly and I am friends with his girlfriend – I should have known they were getting married, so I am super unsure.

'Gratis?' I say – not sure if I have understood this correctly.

'No, it wasn't 'gratis' he says, it actually costs money to get married at the town hall and we went out for a really expensive dinner.

Let me explain: One of the things that still stumps me in Swedish is the double consonants. There are two words in Swedish – Gratis (pronounced 'Gratis' meaning free) and Grattis (pronounced grat-tis meaning 'Congratulations). I still screw this one up in various forms – flyta vs flytta etc.

I had to have the Swede call the relative and double check that A) They really had gotten married and B) He wasn't totally insulted

The best thing about both of these mistakes? I remember them clear as day and I learned a lot from them! Making mistakes when learning a language = positive!