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Swedish-English false friends
Hey!
Answering a question got me thinking about false friends in Swedish-English context. For those who don't know what a false friend is, it's words the look alike but have different meanings in the languages concerced. I googled Swedish false friends and found a list on Swedish wikipedia that might come in handy :
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_%C3%B6ver_falska_v%C3%A4nner_mellan_svenska_och_engelska
Enjoy! /Emil
34 Comments
No, I'm from Lund, which is in Skåne, but it is a much less danish sounding dialect. Skåne actually has quite a lot of accents in different places. If you want to know more here's an old funny podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc3-AyPLa6I
Sorry, I inadvertently deleted my previous comment. As far as I know, my Swedish immigrant ancestors mostly taught their children English. But several of their descendants learned Swedish as a second language later in life. My grandmother was the most recent one to do so. I've been interested in Sweden since childhood because of her.
Another hilarious false friend is "tack" ... at my workplace (in a pretzel shop), I have been teaching my coworkers some Swedish phrases, so I wrote a special order on a dry erase board: "1 original pretzel, lightly done. Tack!" ... one of my coworkers runs to the back and produces a pushpin. "Here's your tack!"
Is there a list somewhere online that's like the opposite of the Wikipedia link in the original post? Another words, is there a list somewhere that shows "true friends" between English and Swedish? I've just started learning Swedish, but I think such a list would help me realize how many Swedish words I already know without even knowing it. I didn't have any luck finding one after doing a quick google search. Thanks!