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- "Östersjön är inte så stor."
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Finnish made a calque of this word, so that the Baltic Sea is called "Itämeri". Who cares if it lies west of Finland? It's still called the Eastern Sea.
Interesting! I suppose hundreds of years of being part of Sweden made some impact...
Yup, that's just plain old direct translation. As is mentioned below, the Estonians have it the right way around.
Just waiting for some politician from a certain party to petition that the word should be officially changed to "Länsimeri"...
I was really confused learning this because "Östersjön" translated to Estonian is like the opposite. It can be roughly translated to "Västersjön" (also there is an actual lake in Sweden by that name apparently). It is due to the fact that Estonia is "on the other side" of The Baltic Sea.
Östersjön är riktigt kall. Jag ville simma i denna, det var en dålig, DÅLIG idé.
Try going for a swim in some Swedish lake in the late summer instead, it's wonderful!
1423
Perhaps it does not look that big on the map, but the Baltic Sea actually is by far the world's largest brackish water, with a very exclusive ecosystem. Due to the lack of shipworms, wooden ships from the 14th century have been found intact on its bottom.
The trick is to learn Danish and Norwegian once you feel comfortable enough with Swedish. That's the easy way to say you speak four languages.
- 1776
You have a word for sea or you use the same word for lake?
And yes, is incredible nice to swim in a lake or a fjord in summer. I was been in Norway the last year, and it's really nice the weather during that season.
- 1106
Quite true but in some cases Swedish uses 'sjö' for 'sea', eg. Östersjön (Baltic sea) and Nordsjön (North sea). We also use sjöman for sailor and sjöfart for maritime traffic.
Well, i guess there are people from the west coast who think that the water in the Baltic Sea isn't salty enough :).
So you use "sjön" for all "specific" seas? Would you use it for the Mediterranean sea, the South China sea, the Caribbean sea...?
We do that in german too:nordsee and ostsee(though in german it might come from the confusing fact that yes,"das meer" is the sea and "der see" is the lake,but "die see" is the sea again(the also is the "südsee" which is referencing the carribean))
- 406
In some parts of Sweden, like on Gotland and in the north of Sweden, träsk and sjö are the same. In the rest of Sweden träsk means swamp.
English is not my native language, so i always lose hearts because of the English names of places. Östersjön = Ostsee in German, so I know the answer but not in English. Shucks !
You should be able to write "The Baltic Sea is not very big" because that is also what it can mean
would "too" be an improper translation of "så" in this instance? I believe in english we can say both "not too" and "not so" and they mean the same thing.
I wouldn't say improper, but it's not as exact as "so", since it can also mean that you're making a value judgement. So in a given context it would be fine, but it probably shouldn't be accepted as a correct answer here.
- 1485
It's actually an accepted translation at the moment, though I'm not sure it should be. A closer Swedish counterpart would be inte alltför stor which as far as I can tell is pretty much exactly the same thing as 'not too big'.
I was guessing that "Östersjön" referred to just what we (in U.S.A.) identify as "The Gulf of Bothnia" (The part of the Baltic between Sweden and Finland"), but as it wasn't accepted (and looking at the discussion on this topic) I am now assuming that it refers to the entire Baltic. Is this correct?
Yup, Östersjön is the whole Baltic Sea, whereas the Gulf of Bothnia is Bottniska viken: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Bothnia.
Hhhhhhhhhhhhh Östersjön i thought Östersund the small city in the middle of Sweden
- 131
Oh my god, with this levels I'll get mad and will have to learn ABSOLUTELY other places' names as are in my country. Why they all can't be called with its own native call all over the planet?? GOOOOOD, WHHHHYYYYYYYYY????
So what would you say is the native name for this particular body of water...?
- 165
I can't see why The Baltic Sea is not very big would be marked as wrong. It's better English than 'not so big', which is more likely to be used in a comparative statement.
