"Jag har en flickvän."

Translation: I have a girlfriend.

[Yetanotherdrew]

I once received this sentence, followed immediately by "Är det en riktig person?"

[DismalAlloy]

Feels bad man

[HerMyKneeGinger]

Does flickvän mean "a female romantic/sexual partner" or "a female friend"? I heard that there is some confusion regarding the meaning of the word "girlfriend" in English (apparently in some US states it means a "female friend") so I want to make sure.

[devalanteriel]

Definitely the former sense.

[kiteo]

SAOB says “ibland även väninna”, which means it’s occasionally used as just friend, right?

Sometimes girlfriend is used platonically in Australia, though mostly by older super-straight women.

Incidentally I found a Swedish blog post bemoaning the lack of an appropriate term for a romantic non-married partner older than a girl or boy, same problem as English.

[devalanteriel]

Yes, it's not technically impossible to use it like that, but I honestly doubt even older, super-straight Swedish women would. The meaning of romantic partner is in practice the only possible interpretation.

I don't know why the blogger would write that, though - you can easily use flickvän or pojkvän regardless of age, and there's always partner, sambo, särbo, etc. :)

[gelbesuboot]

Is "Jag har flickvän" also correct? If so, what's the difference in meaning between "Jag har flickvän" and "Jag har en flickvän"?

[SjoerdBr]

Why would 'Jag har flickvän' be correct?
Isn't that like saying 'I have girlfriend'?

Don't really have a definite answer for this question. But my google skills suggest it would not be correct. But I could be off here.

[bajs84337]

You can say both, they mean the same thing

[ahferroin7]

Out of curiosity, is there some standard gender-neutral equivalent in Swedish to flickvän/pojkvän? Essentially something similar to how 'partner' or 'significant other' might be used in English?

[devalanteriel]

I'd probably go with partner as well. I know it'll be very hard to remember, sorry about that. :p

Also, for a romantic partner with whom you live, we use sambo - short for samboende: "together-living".

[Iris804913]

Hej,
Vet någon värför 'I've got a girlfriend' är fel?
Tack.

[devalanteriel]

Well, that's embarrassing - I can't believe we didn't accept that. I've fixed the issue now. :)

[Iris804913]

Ah, tack så mycket!

[DealinShade]

I quantified the amount of girlfriends I have but it was not accepted. I really only have one girlfriend. :)

[devalanteriel]

I'll add that, though I suspect you know full well what was meant.