Sven Lovén Centre – also a venue for tandem language learning.

After days – in fact weeks – the Swedish-German class has finally formed at Kristineberg thanks to Dana’s and Madde’s effort. Chocolate, cookies and Gummibärchen were offered, tea (Yes, tea! In the most cases at least) was prepared and a whiteboard borrowed from the Sommarlab. The latter was meant to point out we take things seriously – what else would you expect from a group that starts with learning the similar sounding words “Streber” and “sträber”?

Well, the ten of us had more than one good laugh about our own attempts to explain grammatical basics and pronunciation to each other. Sibilants turned out to be quite a challenge: “ich” and “ach” might be easy to pronounce for Germans – but not for Swedes. In turn, they made us aspirate “skämt”. Quite a range of variations is accepted between Göteborg and Finland, but the rather rude Kiel version did not seem to be included… Sjutton också! (not to use another sk-word here).

Jan was especially interested in telling people in Swedish that he was tired and would like to be left alone and/or go to bed. Not even my suggestion to learn how to order Semlor and Kanelbullar (med vaniljkrem och blåbär, självklart) at a bakery could make him think of anything different. Must have been a hard day. Dana was keen on telling the station’s cook that she liked the food a lot. Nu kan vi alla alltså tackar för maten och förklara hur bra det var (came in very handy for today’s Sunday lunch). To spice things up, Madde added some finnish words. Thanks for that, partaniekka, det fortsätter vi med!