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- "Jag orkar inte höra honom sk…
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Whe I moved to Sweden, the verb orka had me bamboozled. I went to SFI for 7 months (Svenska för Invandrare) to learn Swedish. It worked well but because it was all carried out in Swedish (no other languages used), I felt I lacked understanding of some words - even when I asked friends or checked things in dictionaries, online etc.
I understood the physical side of orka - having energy/stamina but I also heard lots of people using it in the psychological sense. Jag orkar inte med livet. Jag orkar inte längre etc. I figured it also had the sense of coping. I also realised that when my daughter said "jag orkar inte städa mitt rum", it meant "I can't be bothered".
When I was at a church meeting (of all places haha), an old lady said "jag orkar inte med hans ansikte". She was referring to a particularly grumpy looking man, a real curmudgeon. So I added the defintion "can't stand" to my own internal list.
More recently, I have once again been baffled by the word. My daughter has friends who are in a punk band. They always seem to want me to be around when they have gigs. I think it's probably because I know a lot about 1970s/80s British punk. I feel that I stick out like a sore thumb - untrendy and certainly not cool. Anyway, they use the words "orkar" and "pallar" as single words as a response when someone asks them if they want to do something. I keep asking them what it means. There various defintions are: "Var inte löjligt" "Vem vill orka med det?" and some too rude to mention. "Oh come ON" does capture it. Thankfully, this is still in the realm of youth slang.