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Verbs

13 June 2011, 12:14 pm

When I first started to learn Swedish I found everything went really well and really smoothly until I hit verbs.  At that point in my education it all unravelled, my confidence took a beating and I found it really hard to get my head around what to use when and how to recognise them.

Teachers used different words to mean the same thing, I was lost and confused and couldn’t work out my supinum from my infinitiv.  One day a teacher wrote a few words above the columns of verb tenses which showed when to use each and bang it all became clear.

I have put together a booklet which I hope will help people who are new to Swedish not hit the fences that I did and have a reference to help you through all the lingo.

You can download the booklet here.  It is in PDF and will open in a new window from which you can print off a copy or save it to your computer.  There is no charge or cost involved but any feedback you have would be greatly appreciated.  I apologise in advance if there are mistakes or errors, I have had my Swede check it over (tack älskling!) but we are only human and are not geniuses when it comes to grammar!

I hope this can help at least one person in their quest to learning Swedish as a second, third, fourth or even fifth language!

Enjoy and good luck!

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Heatwave hits Umeå

13 June 2011, 12:02 pm

I am sure those of you who are living in here in Umeå that last week we had the most glorious weather one could wish for this early in June.  The temperatures were well over 30°C for most of the days and that was in the shade!

One thing that I love about Umeå is the climate.  In winter it gets extremely cold (but doesn’t rain!)  and in the summer it gets extremely hot.  Northern Sweden is not exactly the first place one might think of when planning a sun soaked trip abroad but seriously now that I have lived here it is my number one recommendation!

Last week we were foruntate enough to be able to make the most of the lovely weather and spent one of the days at Kont by the ocean and another by Nydala…and yes we did go swimming in both.  OK so admittedly I didn’t go ALL the way in to the sea but I at least got to my hips which I thought was brave enough!

Something which I dislike about northern Sweden, and those of you who have read my other posts and my website will know I rarely dislike anything about this beautiful area, is the mosquitos.  (The link  will take you to one of my previous rants about these beasties!) Those little blighters get everywhere and bite a lot!  I think it must be the foreign blood or something but I always seem to get many many more bites than anyone else.  There are also little tiny pinhead sized bugs called “knott” which like to attack you, heads in particular and their bites are unbelievably itchy!  Usually the mosquitos are still few and far between this early int he year and you are pretty safe all the way up until Midsummer.  Unfortunately this year with the heatwave and very mild spring that we had that beasts are hunting early.

The weather has now broken and is back to a grey and dreary 9°C today (hence being inside and by my computer writing this entry!) but don’t fret that wasn’t all the summer we will see here in Umeå – there will be many weeks of lying on the beaches, bathing in the lakes to come so watch this space!

Ha det så bra!

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Filed under General Life in Umeå, Observations, Personal Experience, Weather, Wildlife.
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Curtains!

18 February 2011, 10:12 am

Now I appreciate this might be a very odd thing to write about to it occurred to me that people coming to Sweden to live or visit may not be familiar with the Swedish use of curtains!

In the UK, in my experience, curtains are drawn to keep bedrooms dark at night, keep out nosey neighbours and make rooms all nice and snug.  Not so here in Sweden, curtains are usually to be seen and not used!  They are mere window dressings, an accessory, an interior design statement, rarely are they even long enough to be drawn over the entire window and often they are so opaque it wouldn’t make a difference if they did.

Here in Sweden curtains are used for decoration, to the point where they are even changed at Christmas to fit in with the seasonal decorations.

Of course there will be exceptions to this and I would not want to over generalise this rule to all places in Sweden but it has, so far, been my experience with drapery!

So if you find yourself staying over in Sweden, especially in a Swedish home, look first for some blinds to pull before trying to tug the tiny drapes over your window – it might save you the embarrassment of having to explain to your hosts that you have accidentally tugged their decorations off the wall!

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Melodifestivalen 2011

5 February 2011, 1:20 pm

It is here…the wait is over…Melodifestivalen 2011 begins TONIGHT!

I LOVE melodifestivalen, I love the songs, the good, the bad, the banter – last year I loved Dolph Lundgren doing all sorts of weird and wonderful things and this year I can’t wait to see what treats they will have in store for us.

For those of you thinking I have gone crazy and have no idea what I am talking about this is how Sweden go about choosing their song to send to the great Eurovision Song Contest! There are weeks of heats and ridiculously crazy judging processes which all lead up to one big final where ultimately the wonderful Swedish public and “a panel of distinguished people from around Europe” decide who is worthy to walk in the footsteps of the legends that are ABBA.

If previous years are anything to go by I wouldn’t even bother to try and work out how the voting process works as some people went straight to the final, others to a series of head to head heats and I was lost. There is likely to be pop like you have never heard, some Swedish folk singing, some crazy people who surely can’t think they really have a hope, something completely out of left field and of course those few precious songs that you will be hearing non stop on the radio for the next 12 months!

It is time to put last year’s travesty behind us – I am still bristling about how unfair it was that poor Anna Bergendahl didn’t even get to go to the finals of the actual Eurovision Song Contest – I was so sure she had a chance of winning overall!

The line up for the first night of the competition being brought us live from Luleå is – Pernilla Andersson, Danny, Swingfly, Le Kid, Jonas Matsson, Rasmus Viberg, Jenny Silver och Dilba.  You can get Swedish subtitles for the show but seeing as it is live then you might need to bare with it occasionally!

There were actually some great songs that came from last years competition and I am sure there will be many more from this years.  As for the year before last…well from the depths of Snälla Snälla with the incomparable Caroline Af Ugglas to of course the proud winner of that competition Malena “Inget konstigt alls” Ernman with La Voix…OK it wasn’t the finest hour for Swedish schlager (song competition) but hey at least they got onto the main show!

I will leave you with links to a few of my favourite Melodifestivalen moments so far -

  • 1 – The performance that made me fall in love with the wonder of Melodifestivalen of the classic – Snälla snälla by Caroline Af Ugglas
  • 2 – This just screams Eurovision to me – Pernilla Whalgren 2010 with Jag vill om du vågar
  • 3 – EMD (2009) with Baby Goodbye – I thought this was actually quite good.
  • 4 – Sanna Nielson (2008) with Empty Room – This was a beautiful song and really should have won, in my humble opinion of course!

Anyway, I would go on forever so feel free to share what your favourite melodifestivalen moments are – What has been good? What has been bad? What has been too cheesy even for Eurovision (the kebab pizza song for example – I am not kidding you check it out for yourself!)

Well you know what I will be doing every Saturday night for the next few weeks!

Ha det så bra!!

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Swimming

14 January 2011, 4:01 pm

I am a big fan of swimming, it is by far my favourite form of exercise.  I would swim every day if I could afford to or had my own facilities.  Sadly this is not the case, however, during January Medley are offering free one week membership to use their facilities – all you need to do is visit this page http://www.gratisbadtraning.se/ and you can invite your friends to join you.

You will receive an SMS  which has your private code on it so all you need to do is head to  Medley Umeå simhall and tell them you have the SMS, fill in a form and voilà, free swimming and gym membership for a week!

We went today for the first day of our free 7 days to check out the facilities and see what was what.   To be honest I was quite impressed.  There were two lanes for dedicated lap swimming (Motionssim), which did end up getting a bit busy, and there were numerous schools having lessons etc so it was pretty noisy but all in all for a public swimming pool it wasn’t half bad!  The changing rooms are big (take your own padlock to use the lockers), there are plenty of showers and two saunas, there is even a hair dryer – although you could probably have your friend blow on your hair and it have more effect!

Just before you invite everyone you know for a sauna and swim with you, just be aware bathing suits are not permitted in the sauna area – probably quite common for most people but being a very shy Brit that came as a little surprise to me!

The gym looked pretty cool although we didn’t try it out today.  I was a bit put off by the fact the aerobic machines were behind a glass wall adjacent to the main reception area but if you are fitter than me that might not cause you an issue!  I think we will go and try out the gym area in a few days so will be sure to let you know how that goes.

There is plenty of parking outside and a number of buses swing by that way, you could get any bus that goes to Gammlia for sure and walk the little way round the corner.  It is situated right next to the Football ground, the full address being Rothoffsvägen 12 – 903 42 Umeå.  You can find directions by going to hitta.se and searching on ‘Medley, Umeå’.

I just thought I would share with you this rare opportunity to do something fun, healthy and best of all free. I do love a good freebie, if you hear of any free offers etc that people in Umeå can take advantage of please share them either here or on the facebook page :) .

Ha det så bra!

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Mr & Mrs Von Snow

14 January 2011, 10:34 am

Last weekend as those of you who live in Umeå I am sure noticed we had a LOT of wet, heavy snow.  Mainly snow like this is a pain, it makes manoeuvring hard, walking heaving, digging your car out nigh on impossible (trust me we nearly broke our backs trying to get our car out of our parking  space last Sunday - still the pizza was worth it!!). However, snow like this does mean one good thing – SNOW PEOPLE!

As I may have mentioned before I am still very much a child at heart, especially when it comes to snow and doing fun things with it, building snowmen being the top of my list of fun things to do.  When I first heard how much it snowed in Umeå I was convinced I would be outside everyday  adding to my very own snow army and dismissed the very idea of there being a “wrong kind of snow”.  Of course, coming from the UK I had never experienced temperatures of -20 and had no idea snow could get too cold to stick together.  Regardless, I soon learnt my lesson and conceded that piling up snow drifts and putting a hat on them did not constitute the building of a snowman!

Anyway, after a pretty marvellous lie in and leisurely breakfast last Sunday S and I donned our outdoor clothes, hats and gloves and headed out behind our apartment with our dog to make our first annual snowmen.  It was blinking hard work as the snow we were standing in was past our knees, which wasn’t so bad for me but poor S doesn’t have any waterproof outdoor trousers and so was soaked through within just a few minutes :(  Anyway, we rolled our balls of snow, providing assistance to each other for the heavy lifting, tried hard to convince our dog that they were not massive snowballs for her to eat or dig at and eventually made ourselves a beautiful pair of snow people!  S even put eyelashes on hers, I can honestly say I have never seen such a pretty looking snow in all my life – but lady Gaga called and wanted her fake eyelashes back!

We had so much fun and they are still happily outside looking at us from over our balcony – did I mention they ended up about as tall as we are?!   I suspect if there is more wet snow this weekend the little Von Snow family might grow a little!

Have you been enjoying the snow or hating it?  Why not share some of your opinions here or on the Facebook page?  Whatever you are doing I hope you are having fun.

Ha det så bra!

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God fortsättning!

7 January 2011, 2:35 pm

This is a phrase you might here when out and about talking to Swedes at this time of year. It is said usually after new year and wishes the person you are saying it to well.

I guess the pronunciation of it will differ depending on your accent but I would pronounce it along the lines of “Gude fur-setning” if that helps at all.

I just thought you might want to know that little nugget as I know it really confused me the first times I heard it and was happily still wishing people a happy new year!

So to all of you hej och god fortsättning!

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Julrim – Christmas Rhymes

20 December 2010, 2:52 pm

It is traditional when giving gifts at Christmas for the person giving the gift to write a little Julrim on the outside of the package.  This is a rhyme, can be any length you choose, to give the receiver of the gift clues as to what might be inside.  When the gifts are handed out on Christmas Eve the rhymes are then read out to the group so that they can all join in the guessing of the gift.

In todays world of technology giving a helping hand there are of course websites to help you create the rhymes where by you can pick the gift you want to give and it comes up with all sorts of possible rhymes for you.  Here is just one such website – http://www.julrim.nu/ Of course the rhymes and categories are in Swedish but here is a translator to help you out – http://folkets-lexikon.csc.kth.se/folkets/.   Good luck and have fun with it!

God Jul!

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Lussebullar / Lussekatter Recipe

13 December 2010, 2:38 pm

Here is the recipe I promised for Lussebullar / Lussekatter – Saffron Buns!

Ingredients:

  • 50 gram yeast for sweet dough  (jäst för söta degar)
  • 150 gram butter or margarine (smör eller margarin)
  • 5 dl milk (mjölk)
  • 2 packets of saffron (förpackningar saffran)
  • 1 tub of kesella or creme fraiche works too (burk kesella)
  • 1,5 dl sugar (socker)
  • ½ teaspoon salt (tsk salt)
  • ca 17 dl flour (vetemjöl)
  • Raisins for decoration (russin)

Method:

Crumble yeast in a bowl. Melt butter and pour in the milk, pop your finger in to make sure the that mixture gets to be finger temperature. Then pour the mixture in the bowl and stir the yeast. Pour in the saffron and stir, add sugar and salt and kesella/crème fraiche and mix it all together. Finally add the flour until the dough has become firm but not dry!

Let the dough rise for about 30 minutes. Roll it out into a sausage shape and then cut it off shaping the dough into S shaped buns (or whatever shape you want but S shape is traditional) and place on plate. Cover and let rise again for another 30 minutes. Brush the buns with beaten egg and add the raisins (if desired), then bake in oven at 225 degrees for about 8 minutes or until the buns have become golden brown.

Smaklig Måltid!

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Lucia – 13th December

10 December 2010, 2:06 pm

This has crept up on me a bit this year as time seems to be flying, but soon it will be Lucia – a day traditionally celebrated throughout Sweden.

This the celebration of St Lucy and  is one of the few saints days celebrated in Sweden.  You can read more about St Lucy here.  In Sweden children dress up in long white gowns, one is chosen as a Lucia and wears a crown of candles in her hair (I say her as I understand it to be a female chose as Lucia, of course this may be wrong so apologies to any boy lucias out here!).   The remaining children form a train behind her carrying candles, the girls usually with glitter in their hair and the boys with tall white paper cones on their heads with stars on them.  All of the children sing traditional Lucia songs and hand out saffron buns or Lussekatter.

Here is a little video clip for your delight!

You can buy Lucia outfits in most supermarkets, including the candle crown in either electric or traditional varieties so there is no excuse but to join in!  At least have a Lussekatter or two, they are really good!

Ha det så bra!

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