Swedish birthday celebrations

According to my own little statistics, looking around on everyone I know, there is a huge chunk of people who has a birthday at the end of March, and April. Actually some official statistics also point to those months with the most birthdates in Sweden.
This is not a big suprise, if we start counting 9 months back that a woman usually is pregnant. That will take us right to Midsummer, and into July, the month when the big majority of Swedes have vacation. Hmmm...
Hense, this is a good time to talk about how Swedes celebrates birthdays.

What to give to a Swede for birthday?

Flowers or chocolate works in Sweden too. A gift in this form, or at least in the form of a thing, is more appreciated than a birthday card with nice words. I find this being a big difference from culture here in North America, where I spend this year. Swedes are not so sentimental and emotional, so Hallmarks birthday cards are not really a big deal for Swedes. The purpose of giving a card is more just to show who the present is from.

Ha öppet hus vid födelsedag | To have an open house at a birthday

Att fylla jämnt = to turn "even"

This is a big deal and it means that someone turns the big "zero" (20, 30, 40, 50 ...). The older we get, the more common it is to celebrate this with an "open house". By an ad in the newspaper, or simply by mouth to mouth, we welcome everone we know and who wants to come and celebrate in our own house. The open house is usually a full day thing, from morning till late night, and each guest may stay a couple of hours. One tricky thing is that you never know how many guests you will have and when they come, so make sure to be prepared with cookies, cake and "smörgåstårta" all day long. An advice is to ask someone to help with the serving part.
If you don't want a crowd to come to your house on your big day, you can also put an ad in the newspaper saying this: "All uppvaktning undanbes." (= All petitions are declined)

Att fylla halvjämnt = to turn half even

Not only the "zeros" mean something special, but also the "5's". When turning 25, 35, 45, we can also make sure to celebrate ourselves a bit extra. Maybe not with an open house, but a big party with friends, or throwing a surprise party for the one who has the birthday is common.

Hissa flaggan

A lot of Swedes have their own flag pole, and for every official flag day in Sweden, the flag needs to be hissed. But you can also have it up during the private special Days, like the birthday, to show that this is a special occasion.

Breakfast in bed

Frukost på sängen is a very common tradition. The family members that are to celebrate the birthday "child" (this is not only for children though), sneak up, make breakfast and put it on a tray together with a candle or flower. Then head to the birthday childs bedroom and start singing: "Ja må han/hon leva...". Of course there are presents brought too, but they are not to be opened until the breakfast is eaten (or is that rule maybe just in my family?)

Hooray x 4 | HURRA HURRA HURRA HURRA

We sing to the birthday child several times throughout the day, depending on the situation. After every time, we say the four "hurra hurra hurra hurra". This is introduced by someone saying the phrase (and learn this, because it may be you who wants to do it one day):
Ett fyrfaldigt leve för (NAME). Hon/Han leve:
Everyone: HURRA HURRA HURRA HURRA!
The reason we say this four times comes from the 1600's, when war ships needed to identify which country they belonged to. Sweden had the code 2 canon shots. When the King was present this was doubled, hense our 4 "hurra" today.

Important Swedish birthdays

All the "zeros"
7: You begin first grade of school.
15: You get to drive "moppe" = moped.
16: You can begin your driving practice.
18: You come of age = Du blir myndig.
20: You can buy alcohol from the liquor store "Systembolaget".
30/40: With some employments, especially within the public sector, you get an extra week of vacation (5 weeks being very short according to Swedes).
50: You get a day off from work to celebrate your big birthday.
65: (This may vary between 61 -67) You retire, if you want to.

In the video from Swedish2go you also get to know some useful words about birthdays in Sweden. Have a look at that!

One phrase I should give you here, right away though:

Grattis på födelsedagen!

Easter in Sweden | Påsk i Sverige

What is an Easter witch?

The children soon has Easter break, but long before that many of them has started to prepare their Easter letters, colourful drawings with the text GLAD PÅSK (Happy Easter), and thereafter folded them together in the special Easter letter way. The more letters prepared, the more neighbours to visit and that gives more candy!

Which day to expect a visit from an Easter witch depends on where in Sweden you are. Some has the tradition of going out as Easter witches on the Thursday, while other wait until the Saturday.

We have the custom of Easter witches because of traditions from the old folk belief, which is mixed in with the traditions from Christian traditions.

The children dress up by putting some old clothes on, often found in mom's closet, take som make up from mom and paint some rosy cheeks and freckles in the face. And one shouldn't forget to bring a basket or bag to be able to carry all the candy home. After all the preparations, the children bring their Easter letters and go from door to door, wishing everyone a happy Easter. Once back home again, they have more candy than mom and dad allow them to eat.

What do Swedes eat for Easter?

Påskafton (="Easter eve") is like any other eves in Sweden the day we celebrate the most. We often visit with our family and have an Easter buffé. The ingredient that is on everyone's Easter table is egg. Other than that, this buffé is similar to the julbord (Christmas buffé). Of course both alcohol and alcohol free drinks, such as must, are being served on the table.

What is Swedish must?

Must is a soft drink that we often have to our buffés and often as an alternative to alcohol drinks, like beer. We can buy it in any food store. At Christmas we call it julmust, and at Easter - guess what? Yes! Påskmust. The recipe is the same though.

Easter eggs

The Swedes don't have a strong tradition of Easter egg hunt, or Easter Bunny. Instead we buy cardboard eggs, påskägg, and give those to the children, filled with candy or maybe a Little toy. The bigger egg the better!

Here are some Words and phrases for you to learn to survive the Easter:

• Glad påsk = Happy Easter
• Påskkärrningar = Easter witches
• Skärtorsdag = Thursday in Easter
• Långfredag = Good Friday
• Påskafton = Saturday in Easter
• Påskdagen = Easter day
• Annandag påsk = "Boxing day" Easter
• Klä ut sig = Dress up (Klä ut is a reflective verb that you can learn more about from our Swedish grammar site)
• Smörgåsbord = you know this, this is one of few Words that has actually been exported from the Swedish language, and we are pround of it!
• Sill = pickled herring
• Pynta = Decorate with traditional arnaments
• Påskris = Easter twigs (we have it both inside and outside)
• Blåkulla = The place we say the witches fly to
• Lov = School break

Basic difference in pronunciation between the Swedish and English language

When it comes to pronunciation, you probably know, no matter if you are a beginner Swedish learner or an advanced, that the the way the Swedes pronounce their words are very different from the English language.

Here are som basic differences between Swedish and English:

W

Swedes don't really have the letter w. You may see it in last names and names of places, but really no. When we sing our alphabet song in Swedish we skipp it. Therefore, if we do happen to find the letter that has snuck in to our language, it is always pronounced as v. So if a Swede, while speaking Swedish, want to say Washington, for example, it will sound like: Vashington.

Å Ä Ö

No need to say, the extra three vowels are of course a major difference between our languages.

Å is pronounced ... similar to the sound in Awesome (if you are speak the Brittish English)

Ä is pronounced... kind of like the long a-sound in glad. Close, but not really...

Ö... do you know French? More similar to the French long u-sound in un, for example. I have a tough time finding an English equivalence.

G

The English word gym has a g-sound that the Swedes don't have. Whenever a G shows up in the Swedish language, it's always pronounsed y (a Swede would describe it as a j, but that doesn't help an English speaker) or the hard G (sometimes it's a sj-sound, but not that often). What am I trying to say? That the "dj"-sound that the English speakers do, Swedes never do.

Of course there's more differences between Swedish and English pronunciation. But not for now.

Blog about Melodifestivalen in Sweden | Swedish phrases and words to know for the Eurovision song contest

Swedes are coming in to a favourite season. No, they don't love slushy winter/spring, but inside by the TV, every Saturday night, it's their highlight of the year: Melodifestivalen 2013!

Also called Mello, Swedes love to hate this contest. What is it? In English it’s the Swedish song contest to elect the best song the Swedes can come up with for the Eurovision song contest. Normally Swedes have bad music taste, according to the rest of Europe, but last year we found the right hit with the help of Loreen, and won Europe’s hearts with the song Euphoria. Sweden finished number one (!) and the Eurovision contest will therefore this year be held in Malmö, Sweden.

But, what are the Swedes doing during the 6 weeks long season of Mello?

Other than watching song contests on tv 6 weekends in a row, complaining about the songs, the artist’s hair and clothes, eating snacks and drinking beer?

Well… we do other things… we... uhm… discuss the songs and artists every weekday on facebook, twitter or blogs, we find out more about the artists personal life in newspaper, on the radio and on every tv channel, we bet on the songs...

See! We have a life.

But for you who learn Swedish and want to be able to have a conversation with a Swede between February and May and to understand the media, here are some important words and phrases to know in Swedish:

Fel låt vann! = Wrong song won

Den var kass = It was terrible.

Den var kanon. = It was awesome.

Rösta på Carola! = Vote for Carola!

No, just kidding… she is actually not competing this year, nor Danny – another Mello-artist. But we could say:

Rösta på Army of Lovers/Ulrik, David Lindgren...

Jag älskar schlager! = I love ... well, this is the Swedish word for hit song and a type of Music that almost only configure in the Melodifestivalen.

Storfavoriten höll/föll. = The mega favourite artist won/failed.

And the headlines will likely include the word Eufori, just to be witty, like:

 

EUFORI I MALMÖ I MAJ

 

Read more about it (but in Swedish) here.

 

Another good blog about this phenomenon.

The king's name day!

Kungens namnsdag!

The king of Sweden has his name day today! Today's name is Karl, and therefore we celebrate everyone called by that name, and one of them is the king of Sweden.

This blog is maybe not so much about our king, but about the name day celebration in Sweden.

What's wrong about celebrating? And celebrating one's birthday once a year isn't really enough for us Swedes, so celebrating our name days is a really good complement. (Which also is another great reason why many Swedes not only have one middle name, but often at least two.)

How do we celebrate name days?

Well... some totally forget about their name day. Some gets a small card or a phone call from someone saying "Grattis på namnsdagen". In some families they make this a bigger occasion, by inviting friends or family over for a name day fika, or actually kalas (which is the same as fika, but the word we use when celebrating birthdays - or name days). For people concerned about their age, celebrating the name day could be an awesome alternative to the birthday.

Back to the king of Sweden and his name day. Do we acknowledge that in any way? Yes, of course! It is an official flag day, meaning that everyone owning a flagpole (which is quite a few) must hoist the Swedish flag that day. In a Swedish calendar (svensk almanacka) you can see which days are official flag days, which is a good thing for flagpole owners. And of course, in the same almanacka, you can see what date you have your name day. (The chance of finding your name in the almanacka strongly increases if you have a Swedish name though.)

Is your name not in the almanacka? Do like many others: make one day Your name day! And celebrate!

 

Grattis på namnsdagen, Karl!

By the way: The name of the Swedish king is Carl XVI Gustav Bernadotte.

And if you want to know more about the reasons and rules around our Swedish name days, svenska namnsdagar, then follow this link.