After an inadvertent pub crawl from Kvarnen back to my hotel (don’t ask), I decided that a bit of Swedish telly (and a very large glass of water) was in order before turning in. It was then that I discovered possibly the best television programme ever invented. It seems to consist of teams of people who sing at one another (presumably competing in some way, though I could never decipher how) in turns, cheesy British and American pop, and what appears to be Swedish folk songs. What’s even better, is that the studio audience joins in, with quite a bit of enthusiasm and clapping along. What’s even better than that, is that the lyrics play along the bottom of the screen so that the audience at home can also join in, presumably with quite a bit of enthusiasm and clapping along, though I can’t speak for anyone but myself. I’m not sure when I have passed a Friday evening post-pub more pleasantly.
Saturday morning was then passed rather quietly and with no sudden movements, in a coffee shop with a large cup of tea and a book, though I spent most of the time with my book in my lap, watching the world go by and listening to conversations I didn’t understand. It hit me that, while I’ve travelled alone in North America, Australia and France, and visited plenty of other countries with friends or family, this was the first time I’d been alone in a country where I didn’t speak the language. It’s an odd feeling, variously exhilarating and disconcerting. Of course there are about seven people in all of Scandinavia that don’t speak better English than I do, but there is a difference between someone specifically speaking English for me and being able to pick up what is generally going on around me.
The night before, people remembering to speak English for me had been inversely proportional to the amount of beer consumed, but the more I drank the more I was convinced I could speak Swedish anyway, so it all worked out. I was quite happily flinging around ‘hej’s and ‘tack’s by this point, and even the odd ‘varsågod’ (you’re welcome/there you go), but sadly ‘hej’ and ‘tack’ and even the odd ‘varsågod’ does not fluent in Swedish make, as I discovered when I tried to express… well anything else really.
Pronunciation is the biggest stumbling block. Swedish grammar isn’t desperately complicated (and as someone who starts to sweat when possessive apostrophes are misused, a language which lacks possessive apostrophes altogether is frankly heaven), and their vocabulary, in comparison with English, isn’t huge. I’d noticed that when watching Swedish films: the subtitles might read “good”, “great”, “enough”, “fine”, but the characters would say ‘bra’ for each. So getting the basics in hand in my head wasn’t a giant challenge, but actually making myself understood to a Swedish person is another matter altogether.
When I’d left my new friends the night before I’d said “Trevligt att träffas” (nice to meet you) and they’d all looked at me blankly. I think we all remember what happened when I’d attempted a “vilken vacker utsikt” so there’s no need to repeat it. In three and a bit days I did not once manage to communicate effectively “talar du engelska” (do you speak English), and every time had to repeat myself in English. When you make more sense to Swedish people in English than you do in Swedish, you’re definitely doing something wrong.
Saturday morning was then passed rather quietly and with no sudden movements, in a coffee shop with a large cup of tea and a book, though I spent most of the time with my book in my lap, watching the world go by and listening to conversations I didn’t understand. It hit me that, while I’ve travelled alone in North America, Australia and France, and visited plenty of other countries with friends or family, this was the first time I’d been alone in a country where I didn’t speak the language. It’s an odd feeling, variously exhilarating and disconcerting. Of course there are about seven people in all of Scandinavia that don’t speak better English than I do, but there is a difference between someone specifically speaking English for me and being able to pick up what is generally going on around me.
The night before, people remembering to speak English for me had been inversely proportional to the amount of beer consumed, but the more I drank the more I was convinced I could speak Swedish anyway, so it all worked out. I was quite happily flinging around ‘hej’s and ‘tack’s by this point, and even the odd ‘varsågod’ (you’re welcome/there you go), but sadly ‘hej’ and ‘tack’ and even the odd ‘varsågod’ does not fluent in Swedish make, as I discovered when I tried to express… well anything else really.
Pronunciation is the biggest stumbling block. Swedish grammar isn’t desperately complicated (and as someone who starts to sweat when possessive apostrophes are misused, a language which lacks possessive apostrophes altogether is frankly heaven), and their vocabulary, in comparison with English, isn’t huge. I’d noticed that when watching Swedish films: the subtitles might read “good”, “great”, “enough”, “fine”, but the characters would say ‘bra’ for each. So getting the basics in hand in my head wasn’t a giant challenge, but actually making myself understood to a Swedish person is another matter altogether.
When I’d left my new friends the night before I’d said “Trevligt att träffas” (nice to meet you) and they’d all looked at me blankly. I think we all remember what happened when I’d attempted a “vilken vacker utsikt” so there’s no need to repeat it. In three and a bit days I did not once manage to communicate effectively “talar du engelska” (do you speak English), and every time had to repeat myself in English. When you make more sense to Swedish people in English than you do in Swedish, you’re definitely doing something wrong.
That evening, I took a notion to see some theatre (I wasn’t up for another night of drinking and everything at the cinema was subtitled American movies which seemed a bit pointless), so decided on a whim to head for Södra Teatern and buy a ticket for whatever was on that evening. Determined to make myself understood, just once, in Swedish, I rehearsed “en biljett för ikväll, tack” all the way and was thrilled beyond words when the Box Office lady didn’t look at me blankly but nodded… and then said a lot of words I didn’t understand.
I could, of course, have swallowed my pride and asked her to repeat what she’d said in English but I was loathe to bring my moment in the speaking Swedish sun to an and, so I just nodded enthusiastically in a “yes yes I understood all that perfectly thanks” sort of way and proffered some money. She shrugged and handed me my ticket, and so chuffed was I at my minor triumph that it took me a minute to notice that everyone in the auditorium was roughly around the same age. And they all seemed to know one another. Which is somewhat unusual for a theatre audience.
Shrugging and putting it down to some engaging Swedish quirk, I settled down in my seat to watch a production of…
Well it was a school play.
That will have been those words I didn’t understand then. Saturday night in Stockholm and I watched teenagers singing and dancing with a load of Swedish mums and dads. It was fabulous. Unquestionably the most entertaining night at the theatre I've spent in a while, and thanks to the brilliant overacting of schoolkids, I probably followed it better than I would have had it been the subtle wordplay of some Pinter-esque kitchen sink drama. There were even opportunites to clap along, and I think we've established that there can never be too many opportunities to clap along in my opinion.
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