A Canadian in Sweden

Pidgin Swedish

I am at the point now in my Swedish where the vocabulary is being held back by the grammar. Nouns are coming along nicely. Finding the names for things is sometimes a struggle, but with a bit of reflection they eventually come (for common daily objects, of course. Don't ask me what a rear differential is in Swedish).

One thing that still trips me up though, is inserting German words into perfectly good Swedish sentences. This happens particularly frequently with numbers: I still catch myself asking for "funf köttbullar, tack" rather than the proper "fem köttbullar, tack" (five meatballs, thanks)

This seems to be terribly confusing to Swedes, who often squint at me to see if I am pulling their leg or something. Apparently, my pronunciation is not too bad, which leads people to think I am better at Swedish than I actually am. So by throwing German stuff into the middle of my sentence, folks seem to think I am trying to be a comedian. I am not, I am just a moron.

I am glad we cleared that up.

posted by Jeff @ 2:32 AM