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- "Mödrarna älskar sina barn."
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Moder and fader are legal terms defined by The Swedish Tax Ministry's (Skatteverket's) praxis. Mamma and Pappa and Mor and Far are not. For example, in a lesbian couple, the mother who gives birth is legally designated as "moder" and the one who does not is registered as "förälder" (parent) if they are married. If they are not married she must adopt the child and is then registered as "vårdnadshavare" (guardian).
My partner and I are suing the Tax Ministry in a case over these terms which is why I know this. I'm a transgender man and am legally male, however since I gave birth to my daughter, the Tax Ministry registered me as "moder" instead of "fader." Interesting linguistic tidbit: in their initial defense, the Tax Ministry claimed that "moder" is a "könsneutrall begrepp" or a gender neutral term, but that "förälder" is gendered female because it is a term only allowed for non-birth mothers in lesbian couples. So far two courts have ruled that the Tax Ministry should change their registration of me to "fader" but the Tax Ministry has since appealed the case further to the Swedish Supreme Court (Högsta domstolare) where it sits now.
For comparison, the American consulate report of birth abroad (a version of a birth certificate) is actually gender neutral with the parental designations listed as "Mother/Parent" and "Father/Parent."
Wow. For a progressive country that is appalling! I hope all worked out ok in the end? Thanks for the information re moder/fader/mor/far etc also.
I know several landsting are supposed to be in the process of updating their systems to allow for e.g. transgender men being registered in midwifery journals and the like. Previous and/or current systems contain(ed) built-in limitations such as only allowing for female social security numbers. At least progress is being made, but it sure could go a lot faster.
That is all stuff that should have been done decades ago... well that might be a little bit hopeful, but seriously! Still... progress is better than no progress even if slow.
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Are the different ways to say mother and father perfectly interchangeable, or does each have a different use/give off a different impression?
Moder and fader are quite old-fashioned, mor and far somewhat so as well. Also sounds somewhat formal.
Mamma and pappa are common and most widely used. I would recommend any learner to use these.
Lastly, we have morsa and farsa which I think still qualify as slang even though they've been around for quite a while. They're very informal. Some think they're a tiny bit derogatory, but I personally don't think so at all (and I use them in my normal speech). Would not recommend you to use them for parents of people you don't know very well already.
It also depends on where you’re from I think. It’s more common in certain regions to use morsa and farsa.
I did a survey online a while back where I got 1000 replies on the usage of these words. Most the people where males in their 20s from various parts of Sweden and Finland.
The first question is what word people used to talk to their parents, and the second one when they talk about them. ”Vid förnamn” means ”by first name”.
It will not be complicated for me to remember the derogatory hue you talk about: in Spanish "morsa" means walrus and "farsa" means farce
Would it be altogether weird if I continue to use mor and far, though? I'm not on the habit of using informal terms for family in any languages (unless I am speaking directly to my own parents in private), so using the obviously familiar mamma and pappa makes me uncomfortable.
It’s not weird to use min mor/far at all; as you can see above, 1/10 of people (most of them in their 20s) do so, and the percentage would probably be higher for an older group. I do so myself and I know many who do so. I have a hunch it might be more common in southern Sweden.
That may have been a typo, but correcting just in case so no-one gets the wrong idea: That's "ett försenat tack".
I'd say that Mor and Far is more widely used with the upper class kids, especially in Stockholm. More formal as stated in a previous post.
For me, Mor and Far makes more sense to use when learning, because in my head when working out uncles, aunts, grandfathers, grandmothers etc, it's so much easier to work out: Mormor (mother's mother) or Morfar (mother's father), etc etc I literally read it in my head as the descriptions in brackets rather than the appropriate translation (gran and granddad respectively)
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Mamma and pappa are used exclusively in every one of the Swedish shows I've watched, to the point where I've been sure there were no other words to use. I rest my case.
Mom and Dad are probably most common in English, but the more religious, conservative families might call their parents Mother and Father. Young children use Mommy and Daddy.
- 1403
You can tell that it's plural children because sina is plural. If they'd had only one kid, it would be sitt barn.
Only style. We mostly use mamma in Swedish, but some people use mor as well. (Those who don't typically find it old-fashioned.) And the plural of mamma is mammor, while the plural of mor is mödrar.
mor is actually a shorter form of the word moder, from which it takes its plural form, but moder is only used in terminology today (e.g. law, medicine), and archaic in everyday modern Swedish.
Failed for getting i and e the wrong way round in 'thier'. Surely that should just be a typo
- 1403
I agree. Usually moving two letters around counts as a typo unless you create another word, and I don't think thier is a word. However, English typo handling is something that Duo does automatically and not really something we as course creators can influence.
Sure, but for Android (kindle) version, it suggests the correct (or alternate) spellings for each word you type (and I can add Swedish words to the dictionary), where as in iOS - spell check is not available AT all. I've been marked wrong on iphone from the screen not recognising my touch so many times as well. I honestly don't think there should be so many technical discrepancies between the two platforms.
- 1403
There's nothing we as course contributors can do about that kind of thing, and Duo developers don't read our sentence forums, so this is an issue for the general forums.
- 1403
sina is used for something owned by the subject, as long as the subject is he, she or they, as here. If it's their own children, you must say sina in Swedish. If you say deras, they love someone else's children.
- 1403
It is when translating from English into Swedish, but this is a Swedish sentence, so if you get it as a listen and type exercise, you need to type what the voice said.
I guess 'mammorna' also means the mothers. So will "mammorna älskar sina barn" be correct ? Or 'mödrarna' is best suited in this context ?
- 1403
Yes, it's also a correct sentence in itself. mödrarna is more formal but mammorna is more common.
So barn is considered to be plural here because the subject is plural? Mödrarna
- 1403
The number of the subject doesn't matter, it's the possessive pronoun sina that shows it:
sina barn = 'their children
sitt barn = 'their child'
Still stuggling with the family plurals (modrarna). Not sure why these words are so difficult ???
I know it is not correct. But am I they only one who keeps hearing "The murderer loves her children" ?
No, we get quite a few similar comments. Not sure what it says about our learners, really.
Could "mödrarna alskar sina barn" also mean that it was two mothers that loved their child, if they were lesbian? Or would that be said differently?
Yes and no - they could be lesbian but sina is a plural form so that'd mean they love at least two children. For a single child, it'd be mödrarna älskar sitt barn.
