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- "Jag betalar aldrig kontant."
26 Comments
It's common at least in payment contexts. At my work, when people are about to pay stuff I ask them "Betalar du kort eller kontant?" for example.
Rånarna stal en miljon kronor i kontanter = The robbers stole one million kronor in cash
ok i see, thanks simply as i have heard people were saying pengar pengar pengar pengar all the time
1834
Presumably it's like money and cash in English. Both words exist, money gets used more, but cash has its place.
I got mixed up with French for a second and thought it said "I never pay happily."
To be fair, that sounds exactly like the kind of sentence I'd expect to find in this course. :)
Funnily enough, French has the expression Payer comptant (which I'm certain is somehow related to this one), that means "to pay immediately" (not necessarily in cash, as long as the money transfer is immediate).
That's correct - comptant comes from compter, meaning to count, and the words are indeed related. They're ultimately both derived from Latin computare.
It's "på bussen". :)
And sadly, only in certain Swedish counties' public transport systems. Stockholm is not one of them ;(
even worse. There are public transport systems (i.e. in Karlstad), where you cannot pay cash in the bus...
It's very annoying, but mostly because there was a string of robberies about ten years ago so that Arbetsmiljöverket decided it was an unsafe working environment for the drivers. And, well, they weren't wrong. But still - it sucks at times.
I think (espescially young) Swedes are used to not paying cash and they are fine with it. But I am also thinking about old people and tourists... That was funny when I once bought some (theatre) tickets for me and some Swedish colleagues - then they wanted to transfer the money via Swish (like paypal but more complicated to get it) what I still not have...
Uhm, I wrote that it's annoying and sucks. What makes you think I think it's fine?
Sry, I did not mean you but swedes in general. I used you as translation to "man". Changed it...
I was really surprised that I could pay for the bus by card when I visited. We don't really have that in the US. Even in Washington, which is fairly progressive when it comes to public transportation, makes you use a special bus card, rather than letting you use a credit card directly.
I found it to be convenient, but I agree that it can be a pain when services flat out refuse cash.
It's actually a relatively new addition. Ten years ago, you could perhaps pay by card on airport coaches, but not most city buses.
In the town where I live (in the UK) some buses will only take card and some buses will only take cash, depending on the bus company on that route/franchise.
- 616
I was in Sweden this summer and I thought I can pay with card everywhere and don't need to have any kronas. But we went to Astrid Lindgrens Värld with children and there we had to pay in cash for the parking. Luckily we had some kronas just in case.
I'm surprised at how many Italian words found their place in Danish and Swedish!
Italian loan words found in Swedish are usually financial like "konto", "bank", and "valuta"
Yep, those are common. It's mostly because Italy was the point where traders from west and east met during the 13th century, and as a result, some Italian merchants turned into financial institutions, being best suited to e.g. facilitate exchanges of currency.
You mention bank, for instance. That's a great example, because it's derived from the Italian banco - but that in turn comes from the word for the benches at which they conducted their trades. So we have "bench" from Germanic and "bank" from Italian in English, with both having the same ultimate origin - and it's the same in Swedish with bänk for bench and bank for, well, bank. :)
