Swedish Translation
Swedish is a North Germanic language and is spoken by approximately 10 million people. As a North Germanic language, it’s similar to German, and mutually intelligible from Norwegian and Danish. Even though Danish is more related to Swedish than Norwegian, its pronunciation is an obstacle when Danes and Swedes speak with each other, which is why most Swedes would consider Norwegian much easier to understand.
Besides being the official language of Sweden, Swedish is spoken by a minority in Finland as the official secondary language and the primary language on the island of Åland. Furthermore, it's spoken by around 70,000 people in the U.S. (most descendants of the 1.3 million Swedish emigrants during late 19th/early 20th century), and 40,000 in Spain.
Swedish uses a 29-letter alphabet that includes the basic 26-letter Latin alphabet plus the additional letters Å/å, Ä/ä, and Ö/ö. W/w is used – particularly in names and words of foreign roots – but is pronounced as V/v.
Photo Credit: Christopher Neugebauer
Tips on Translating Swedish
Word OrderEven though the basic word order in Swedish is similar to English's Subject Verb Object, Swedish is similar to German in the regard that it uses verb-second word order in main clauses (e.g. after dependent clauses and adverbs). However, there is plenty of flexibility in acceptable word order for a particular statement, which gives the writer/speaker plenty of freedom to be creative when constructing a sentence.
False Friends
Due to its proximity to other fellow European countries, its import/export driven economy, its high ratio of multi-linguals, and a higher than average consumption of foreign media, Sweden has traditionally had a large exposure to foreign languages, and particularly English. One consequence of this is that Swedish has imported numerous loan words (like radio, trottoar, toalett and strejk). Another consequence is that Swedish acquired a number of false friends to keep track of when translating, particularly to and from English, such as:
- Actual: Not aktuell but faktisk.
- Ankle: Not ankel but vrist.
- Wrist: Not vrist but handled.
- Sheet: Not skit but lakan.
- Shit: Not kitt but skit.
- Gymnasium: Not gymnasium but gym.
Capitalization of First Letter
Swedish uses capitalization of first letters very sparingly, and generally restricts it to only the beginning of sentences and names. Hence, capitals are not used in nouns as in German, nor are names of months and weekdays like e.g. in English. Titles - like Baron, Count, and Sir – are also written in lower-case.
Swedish Translation Topics
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Translate SwedishmyGengo can help you speak IKEA or any other language for that matter.
Types of Swedish Translation
Useful Resources
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Wikipedia: Swedish
For a great and quite exhaustive list of content on the Swedish language.
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Online Swedish Dictionary
A bilingual dictionary from ECTACO for Swedish and English.
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Swedish Grammar Guide
A primer to fundamental Swedish grammar from Linkoping University.
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Swedish Basics from ielanguage
A guide to Swedish grammar and vocabulary ordered by categories.
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Language Distinctions
This article tells you how Swedish is different from English.
Photo Credit: archer10 (Dennis)
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