[Swedish, basically]   

Thursday, August 30, 2007

"Dåligast" and some verbs

At the moment I'm reading a book called "Världens dåligaste språk" (World's baddest language) written by a Swedish author named Fredrik Lindström. He's also a comedian and a director. The title of the book is a play with words, because the word "dåligaste" doesn't exist in the Swedish language. Although it is often used by kids, because they think of this rule:

Stark, starkare, starkast
Strong, stronger, strongest

A sentence could look like this:
Olof var den starkaste pojken i klassen
Olof was the strongest boy in the class
(it is written starkaste with an 'e' added, because it's a description of the boy)

But, take a look at this:
dålig, sämre, sämst [dawh-lihg, saemre, saemst]
bad, badder, baddest

All of a sudden, we've got two other words instead of expected "dåligare, dåligast". I don't know why this was decided, but it's just the way it is.
Fredrik Lindström doesn't know either, but he'd like to see a change.

Here are some verbs that the Swedish language helps making shorter:
Make the bed - bädda [baeddA]
Do the dishes - diska
Put out the cigarette - fimpa
Taking off clothes - näcka [naecka]
Sending a text message - sms:a
Sending a fax message - faxa
Having lunch - luncha

Basically, you could add an 'a' after almost every action in Swedish. It's useful! :)

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