17 Comments
1517
Story time! I was sitting on a night bus once, traveling from Göteborg to Borås. As it was pretty crowded a Swedish couple, having been out partying, shared a single seat next to me and struck up a conversation in English. After a while I proudly claimed: "Oh by the way, I know a few words and phrases in Swedish". "Really? Say something!", said the boy. I wanted to remark on the slight drunkenness of my conversational partner and went "Du är ful!" (meaning to say "Du är füll!" ("You are drunk!")). "Wow. That's a rude thing to say, you know that?", said the girl jumping to the defense of her boyfriend. Still not noticing my mistake I argued: "But it's true! I mean, just look at him!!" .... Anyway, we managed to clear up the misunderstanding and had a big laugh at it. Swedes are cool. :)
- 921
So it's not true that Swedes don't talk to random people like here in America?
They were drunk. :P It's the same here in Ireland. Its unlikely someone will strike up a conversation randomly. But go out drinking and you'll make lots of new friends.
I still do not understand when a Swede says Full and when Ful. am i the only one who has trouble with this?!
The difference is vowel length. Full has a short vowel, while ful has a long one.
Is the ful/full mix-up something that happens ever, or do they sound drastically different to a native?
