Hej Kära Peter!

19
Oct
2008

Peter’s comment on the post below made me think. I don’t write that many letters in Swedish. In fact, I don’t write that many letters in whatever language – I’m probably the world’s worst correspondent, as my friends no doubt can tell you.

So, in order to properly answer Peter’s question I had to dig deep into my memory banks.
Of course, the most common way of starting a letter is simply by writing “hej!” but that does get old after a while. Though it hasn’t stopped my friend Karin from writing “Hej Anna!” for the past two years.

I get letters from my local clinic (vårdcentral) that start with “Hej!” and my bank also sends me stuff beginning with “Hej!” How very boring…

A different, more personal way of starting a letter would be by using “Kära + name” which is the equivalent of “Dear whoever” when writing to close friends or relatives. So, if I want to write to my sister – Maria, I’d open with “Kära Maria” – does it make sense? Some people would go an extra step and write “Hej kära Maria.”

But wait, there is also another way of beginning a letter. You can use the combination of “Bäste + name.” Technically, it also means “Dear whoever” but with a slightly different feel. For example, my local BMW dealership always sends me stuff with “Bäste Anna” trying to entice me use their services. So does my insurance company.

And how do we end a letter? Of course everybody knows the standard “Med vänliga hälsningar” (sometimes abbreviated by lazy people to “mvh”) which means either “Best/kind Regards” or “Sincerely Yours.” Personally, I can’t stand getting letters signed with just “mvh” – it always makes me think of Miami Valley Hospital for some reason.

If you’re writing to somebody who’s a family member or a friend, you can finish off by saying “kramar” – hugs, or “puss och kram” – literally “kiss and hug” but normally translated as “love and kisses,” or at least that’s how I’ve seen it in a couple of books in English translated from Swedish.

Of course, if you are writing Christmas wishes, you can say that “I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,” right? So, how do you write that in Swedish?
Jag vill önska Er alla en God Jul och ett Gott Nytt År!
Remember here your “en” and “ett” words – “Jul” (Christmas) is an “en” word, and “år” (year) is an “ett” word. That’s why the adjective “ny” (new) became “nytt” because it accompanies an “ett” noun.

“Er” – plural “you” (“you” as an objective pronoun) is customarily capitalized to show respect. The same also happens with “Ni.” And if you want to be super polite, you would use “Ni/Er” even when talking just to a singular person. But really, I don’t think you’ll see it much these days outside of dull, official correspondence, and maybe in letters from your grandmother.

So, kära Peter, happy writing! Let me know how it went!

Image from Inspiratosa Blog


By Anna | Posted in Culture, Vocabulary | Comments (8)

Varor Du Brukar Köpa?

16
Oct
2008

I’ve been down with flu for quite some time now, and needless to say, I got bored. So bored in fact, that I actually started to read the stuff that the Ica supermarket chain sends us in the mail. Yeah, I was THAT bored. But I’m glad I read it, because now I’m thinking whether or not I should actually email Ica and tell them they’re about 15 years too late to claim to be “first in the world.”

But let’s start from the beginning. Ica runs a few different kinds of supermarkets, all with the word “Ica” in their names. You have a regular Ica, Ica Maxi and Ica Kvantum.

Ica Maxi is the largest store they have. And just so that every nimwit knows it’s large, they call it “maxi,” which for me always brings sanitary pads to mind. Don’t you think Ica Maxi would be a great name for a maxi pads brand? You’d have your Always, your Libresse, and your Ica. Sadly, it isn’t so. It’s just a supermarket. And just how big is it? Think of a midget Walmart and you have your average Ica Maxi store.

They sell everything, from toilet brushes to school supplies to frozen foods. And their prices are OK. At least in our town. But you can get even better deals if you use their loyalty store card. If you spend 2500 SEK in one month, you receive a coupon for 25 SEK. Isn’t that great? No, I know, not really. But hey, I’ll take what I can get. And because to get this coupon you need to swipe your card every time you buy something, the company knows exactly what you’re buying and where.

Once a month you get your Ica Buffé magazine, along with a selection of discount coupons and your “big” coupon for 25 SEK (could be 50 SEK if you manage to spend 5 thousand a month).

And this month, this is what Ica had to say:

“Lägre pris på varor Du brukar köpa!
Vi på ICA år först i världen att testa personliga erbjudanden till alla våra stamkunder. Vi kallar det “Mina varor.”

Which means:
“Lower prices on items you regularly buy!
We at Ica are first in the world to test personal offers to all our regular customers. We call it “my products.”

Which is indeed very sweet, but totally incorrect. “First in the world”? In their dreams, maybe, yeah. Shoprite in the US (and I think A&P too) offered a similar scheme back in the mid-90s.

And why is it that they say “varor du brukar köpa”? I haven’t bought any of this stuff in the last year! My suspicion is, they look for a thing you bought maybe once, because they know you’re not likely to buy it again, and so they give you a discount on it.

I much preferred the previous coupon version, where they randomly picked sale items and they were on sale for everybody. At least that way I was open to trying new things, because a girl just can’t resist it if it’s on sale, right?


By Anna | Posted in Culture | Comments (5)

Åka or Gå?

12
Oct
2008

Today’s topic is one that confuses many Swedish learners – those pesky verbs that are deceptively similar, have pretty much the same meaning in English, yet in Swedish are used in a completely different context. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

Actually, Swedish has quite a few such verb combinations. But today we’ll start with the one that causes the most grief when you’re learning Swedish – gå and åka.

Both of those verbs can be translated as “to go” in English and that’s the beginning of confusion. My dictionary says that:

  • Gå means: to walk, to march, to go, to travel, to depart, to pass, to sail, to run, and that’s just the first few definitions.

But then again, my dictionary says that:

  • Åka means: to go, to travel, to drive.

Not very helpful, wouldn’t you say? Fortunately, the Swedish-Swedish dictionary offers some more constructive suggestions:

  • gå (går, gick, gått) - flytta sig med hjälp av fötterna på vanligt sätt, röra sig åt något håll, lämna en plats.
  • åka (åker, åkte, åkt) - röra sig med hjälp av något, resa.

While on the surface this is a bit more helpful, I think the only way to see how it works in practice is to give you some practical examples. Which may or may not confuse you further.

So, basically åka means to move from place to place with a help of something, like for example, a car, or a bus, or a pair of skis. Take a look:

  • åka bil – to go by car
  • åka cykel – to go by bike
  • åka buss – to go by bus
  • åka skidor – to ski

When you travel someplace, you åker there, for example:

  • åka till fjällen – to go to the mountains
  • åka utomlands – to go abroad

So far so good, seems simple enough. Enter gå and things get a lot more complicated.

  • Går det här tåget till Malmö? - Does this train go to Malmö?
  • Vart går den här vägen? – Where does this road go (lead) to?
  • Hoppas att resan går bra. – Hope the trip goes well.
  • gå i skolan / gå i kyrkan = to go to school / to go to church
  • gå på bio = to go to the movies
  • ha svårt (för) att gå = to have difficulty walking (to walk)
  • Ljus går mycket snabbare än ljud. – Light travels much faster than sound.

So, basically, when it comes to people, if you schlep the old-fashioned way on foot, you går. If you jump on a train, bus or bike, you åker.

I hope this was a tiny wee bit helpful. :)


By Anna | Posted in Grammar, Vocabulary | Comments (6)

The 2008 Nobel Prizes

8
Oct
2008

As you’ve probably noticed, it’s the 2008 Nobel Prize (Nobelpriset) time right now. Today the prize in chemistry was announced. Yesterday it was physics, and the day before – medicine. Too bad these days each prize has to be split among three people – 10 million kronor per prize is not that much to begin with, and even less if you have to share it with other folks.

I was surprised to hear that many foreigners (and one of those foreigners was a history teacher in a certain English-speaking country, shame on you, lady!) didn’t know that the guy who started it all, Alfred Nobel, was a real person. Yep, the prize is named after a real guy. He’s long dead, of course, but before he died he wrote in his will that he wanted his wealth to be used to establish a prize honoring men and women for outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and for work for peace (fysik, kemi, medicin, litteratur och fredsarbete).

Because Mr. Nobel happened to be a rich guy, a very rich guy in fact (why was he so rich? - he was smart, invented dynamite and ran and bunch of successful companies), and because he died without producing an heir (legitimate or otherwise), his nephews decided to challenge the will and grab some of his cash for themselves. Mr. Nobel didn’t exactly help either – in his will he did not specify just how this whole prize business was supposed to be set up, who was going to oversee it, and how the recipients were to be selected. So, as you can imagine, it took quite some time to sort it all out. The guy died in 1896 (he wrote his will in 1895) and the first prizes were awarded in 1901.

Then in 1968, the Swedish Central Bank (Sveriges Riksbank) established and began funding the Nobel Prize in Economics. Officially called in Swedish “Sveriges Riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne.”

So, how does this prize business work? You watched “The Beautiful Mind,” you know there is a trip to Stockholm involved and a fancy banquet, right? The king shows up and the whole shindig is shown on TV, right?

That’s correct. Even though the winners are being announced now, on December 10th, which the anniversary of Mr. Nobel’s death, they will all put their fancy party dresses on, look all somber and dignified and shake hands with the king and the queen at the Stockholm Concert Hall, and then munch on some high-class chow during the Nobel Banquet held at the Stockholm City Hall. Nice! Too bad you have to be either super smart or super famous to attend. Sadly, that disqualifies me on both accounts.

Oh yes, what about the Peace Prize, you ask? Well, the Peace Prize is handled and handed out in Oslo. “Wait, a sec,” I hear you say, “isn’t that in Norway?” Yes it is. But back in the olden days of Mr. Nobel, Norway was a part of Sweden.

So, there you have it. Of course, come December 10th, I will give you a detailed report on the Nobel Ceremony telecast.

PS. And here’s a blurb from the Svenska Akademien website about this year’s literature prize:

Nobelpriset i litteratur 2008
Svenska Akademien har beslutat tillkännage namnet på årets Nobelpristagare i litteratur torsdagen den 9 oktober kl. 13.00 i Börssalen.

So, they will tell us tomorrow, Thursday at 1PM who the winner is.

Alfred Nobel image: wikipedia


By Anna | Posted in Culture | Comments (3)

Jante Something or the Other

4
Oct
2008

Sooner or later when you write about Sweden you will have to address the topics of “lagom” and “Jantelagen” and I’ve been mulling over how long I can practice avoidance and not talk about them. Why? Because I don’t know what the big deal is all about. Really. Two goofy phrases that supposedly “define” the Swedish psyche, if there is such a thing as the Swedish psyche in the first place. Or was it perhaps the Scandinavian psyche? Meh, same, same.

Of the two, “Jantelagen” (Jante Laws) seems to be the more controversial one. And it’s not even a real “law”. It was devised by a long-dead writer in a fictional story written a bazillion years ago, that is sometime around 1933. And he wasn’t even Swedish, but Norwegian, or Danish-Norwegian, to be exact. His pa was Danish, and his ma Norwegian. He was born as Aksel Nielsen, but changed it later to Aksel Sandemose. The dude had some serious issues, and I mean - big time serious. He hated his hometown of Nykøbing in Denmark so much, he totally trashed it in his most famous book “En flyktning krysser sitt spor” (“A fugitive crosses his tracks”). Yeah, so that’s how Jantelagen was born.

The book was translated into English and published in the US in 1936. And it would have faded into well-deserved obscurity, if not for the persistence of foreigners living in Scandinavia, who somehow managed to elevate the fictional Jante Laws to a nearly symbolic level. Symbolic of what, I am not really sure. Maybe of their inability to assimilate in a new country.

There is nothing in the Jante Laws that makes them unique to Scandinavia. Jante (Mr. Sandemose had enough good sense to change the name of the town from Nykøbing to Jante) is the epitome of a small, podunk town, where everybody knows everybody else’s business. It has nothing to do with Sweden, Denmark, Norway, or Scandinavia in general.

Towns like that are the same the world over, be it in Iowa (Webster City springs to mind), or South Dakota (Spearfish perhaps?) or Montana (Deer Lodge?). OK, so that was the US, but you catch my drift. The small-town mentality is the same. Seriously, I’ve seen more extreme examples of Jantelagen in Poland than in Sweden.

In other countries the concept is known as the “tall poppy syndrome” – which happens when somebody’s assumption of a higher economic, social or political position is criticized as being presumptuous, attention-seeking, or without merit. So there you have it, a typical small-town attitude towards anyone who dreams big and wants to accomplish something. Hardly unique to Scandinavia.

I wanted to be nicely prepared for this rant, and so I pulled out my 1936 English edition of “A fugitive crosses his tracks” (I found one at a garage sale eons ago, the woman was selling like one shopping bag full of books for a buck, or something, and some of those were original pre-war editions. Can you believe it?) to re-read it and once again try to figure out what the fuss was all about.

I had a hair appointment yesterday. I took the book with me, because I get bored easily when I’m having my highlights done and the woman who does my hair is particularly chatty and particularly boring, so reading a book saves me from pretending I’m paying attention to her blabber. (So much for the myth of silent Swedes, huh?)

And somehow, between the washing, cutting, coloring, and washing again, and then styling, and paying, I managed to leave the book at the hair salon. I realized it when I came home and of course immediately drove back downtown. In the space of maybe 40 minutes, the book got little legs and walked out. (So much for another myth about Sweden, huh?) But of course, this being Sweden, nobody saw anything, and my stylist said she wasn’t even aware I had a book with me at all. Splendid.

So now I guess I better start watching the Swedish version of ebay (Blocket) and see if it turns up somewhere. I’ve already searched the internet to purchase another copy, but wouldn’t you know it, there is none available. I am NOT a happy camper.

And here are the famous Jante Laws for you. They were originally written in Danish (Norwegian?), but I’m giving you the English and Swedish versions, OK?

1. Don’t think you are anything. = Du skall inte tro att du är något.
2. Don’t think you are as good as us. = Du skall inte tro att du är lika god som vi.
3. Don’t think you are smarter than us. = Du skall inte tro att du är klokare än vi.
4. Don’t fancy yourself better than us. = Du skall inte inbilla dig att du är bättre än vi.
5. Don’t think you know more than us. = Du skall inte tro att du vet mer än vi.
6. Don’t think you are greater than us. = Du skall inte tro att du är förmer än vi.
7. Don’t think you are good for anything. = Du skall inte tro att du duger till något.
8. Don’t laugh at us. = Du skall inte skratta åt oss.
9. Don’t think that anyone cares about you. = Du skall inte tro att någon bryr sig om dig.
10. Don’t think you can teach us anything. = Du skall inte tro att du kan lära oss något.


By Anna | Posted in Culture | Comments (4)

Winter Is Coming

30
Sep
2008

Oh no!

Ceci made a comment about the weather and how wonderful the autumn colors are this time of the year. Yes, they indeed are. But I’m not a fan of autumn. Why? Winter comes next!

In fact tonight is the perfect time to begin writing about winter. It’s the first time this fall (winter?) that the temperature has dropped below zero Celsius. Or at least, it’s the first time that I’ve noticed how cold it gets at night. Soon, it will also be cold during the day. And then the snow will come.

Sometimes I feel, and I mean literally feel, that all this talk about global warming is just a talk.

Last year I attended a very interesting lecture given by a visiting professor at the university here. The guy, sorry, I don’t remember his name now, said some really interesting things about this part of Norrland. He said that we are at the very end of an ice age, and the changes we are seeing here in the north are due to the normal reaction of the land that had been covered with a thick layer of ice for several thousand years. He used the Ume river and the area around Umeå and Holmsund as an example.

Back in the olden days the river was much deeper and even sea going vessels could easily get to Umeå. This is no longer possible due to the river getting shallower and shallower each year.

He explained this phenomenon by using a mattress analogy. (Don’t worry, this is all very innocent.) When you sit or lie down, you’re pressing down on the mattress. Depending on how soft your bed is, the weight of your body compresses the mattress slightly. And then you get up. The indentation made by your weight will remain for a while and then the mattress will spring back to its original state. Well, the professor said that the same thing is happening with the area all over the Gulf of Bothnia. The ice sheet had retreated and now the ground is springing back. Of course, since northern Sweden is not exactly a mattress, we are talking about thousands of years of slow springing back here. But that’s why the Ume river is getting shallower and that’s why the whole Gulf of Bothnia will eventually disappear.

The professor tied it all very nicely with global warming, but I was so taken with the idea of being able to walk to Finland in a couple thousand years that I missed that point completely.

Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, winter. So, because we are at the tail end of an ice age, things are supposed to be warming up. I truly hope that this will be one of those “warm” winters. The last one wasn’t that bad. It was just long. And the one before wasn’t that bad either, except it was super-snowy. And the one before that was awful. But as far as I remember, it was awful everywhere. I went through three car batteries that year. Let’s hope that this year I can get away with only one!


By Anna | Posted in Geography | Comments (13)

Illegal Immigrants in Sweden?

28
Sep
2008

I’ve been reading the news like I always do and because this is Sweden, the news are not all that interesting. An elderly man died after swallowing his dentures. A hurricane warning issued for Norrland for this weekend. Yes, it’s blowing like crazy, branches are falling off of trees and stuff. For real. Three charged in a human trafficking case. Wait a sec! For real? I had to look up the story for you in English, and here it is.

Now, excuse me for a moment, while I’m scratching my head in disbelief. 49 people PAID money to be smuggled to Sweden. At least that’s what the story says, the actual number might be higher. Haven’t they done their homework before deciding on Sweden? Wasn’t the unusually low smuggling fee (10000 SEK) a tip-off that Sweden might not be the hottest destination for illegal immigrants?

Please don’t get me wrong, Sweden is a great country, but really, if you’re going to be smuggled somewhere and live as an illegal immigrant, do yourself a favor and conduct some basic research before making your decision. And besides, Sweden has some of the laxest laws regarding refugees and asylum seekers in all of Europe, and to pay someone to smuggle you here is simply dumb.

And once you’re smuggled here, how do you propose to go on living? What will you say when at every step you are asked for your personnummer (social security number)? Personnummer in Sweden are created using your birthday followed by four seemingly random digits. But they’re not really random at all, one of them identifies your gender (guys get an odd number, ladies – even) and up until recently, those numbers could also show where you were born or if you were an immigrant.

Those ten digits define your life in Sweden. Without them, it’s impossible to do anything, including using a public restroom. You will need your personnummer when seeing a doctor, or a dentist (even a private one!), when opening a bank account, when trying to get a loyalty supermarket card, when applying for an ID card, when getting your mobile phone registered, when signing a contract with an internet provider, in some shops you will be asked for your personnummer when returning high-price merchandise. And that doesn’t even include the intended use of personnummer, which is as a taxpayer’s ID number. Your personnummer will be the first bit of info required by your prospective employer and without that your chances of getting a job will be slim to none.
True, there’s always the black market, but you’d be surprised than even many people in that grey area of economy will ask you for your personnummer to make sure you are in the country legally. To “work black” in Sweden means working without paying your taxes, not necessarily that the worker is an illegal immigrant. In fact, most people working “black” in Sweden are Swedish citizens or legal residents.

See what I mean? I have no idea how illegal immigrants can even survive in Sweden. Their numbers are estimated at between 60 000 to 100 000 and their lives are truly miserable. Because Sweden places more restrictions on healthcare provision for illegal immigrants than almost any other country in the European Union, according to Médecins Sans Frontières, getting medical attention if you’re here illegally might be almost impossible. And though Immigration minister Tobias Billström hinted that he was open to offering subsidized public healthcare to people without proper ID papers, this measure was rejected by Sweden’s parliament last May. This month the province of Skåne took things into their own hands and is planning to offer emergency dental care for illegal immigrants, but how well that will go over, nobody really knows yet.

But, back to our quest for personnummer. Where do you get it? As an immigrant to Sweden, legal of course, you get it at the Tax Office (Skatteverket).

Once you have the number, you will find yourself in a slew of government computers. You will magically appear in the population register and find yourself assigned to a local health clinic. Unlike in the US for example, here all those government systems are interlinked and they talk to each other. And it all starts at Skatteverket. From that time on, there’s really no need to remember your name, all you need is the number. But without the number you are stuck.

Ok, so we’ve established that being an illegal immigrant in Sweden is a bad idea. A really bad idea.

And speaking of, there is even a movie on the subject. “Förortsungar” (English title “Kidz in da Hood”) tackles the issue in a light-hearted musical way, but nevertheless, it can give you an idea of the kind of hardships that illegal immigrants have to deal with in Sweden.


By Anna | Posted in Culture | Comments (4)

Job Scam Targeting English-Speakers

25
Sep
2008

I was going to tell you about “tvättstuga” today, but then realized that there are more pressing subjects in the world today. And no, I am not talking about the American banking crisis.
I am talking about this article in The Local:

“An experienced scam artist has been targeting English speaking jobseekers in Sweden, luring them with promises of non-existent jobs, police say.”

A few people outside of Sweden can even imagine how hard it can be for a foreigner without any Swedish skills to enter the job market here. So an ad like that, seeking applicants for an office job and not requiring fluent Swedish was indeed a dream come true to hundreds of people.
In reality, neither the company nor the job existed. It was all an elaborate scam. But what’s puzzling is the motivation of the scam artist. He didn’t bilk his victims out of thousands of kronor, and his personal material gains seem rather slim – just a bunch of laptops purchased on credit. So why did he do it? The article claims it was simply for the thrill of cheating unsuspecting people and destroying their lives. From what I’ve heard from the English-speaking community here in Sweden, one poor guy actually quit his job in the UK and moved here for this non-existing opportunity, only to find out he’s been scammed. Another one, like in the article, declined a different job offer and moved from another city to Gothenburg.

And the saddest part of it all? There is nothing that the police can do, because much of the damage caused is not legally criminal.

But why was it so easy for a smart, sensible person to fall for this scam? As the guy interviewed in the article said: “When you’ve been trying to get a job for a long time, you don’t question [things].”

And this statement sums up nicely something that many prospective immigrants to Sweden do not realize, or simply choose to ignore – that getting any job here will be hard, and getting a nice, cushy office job will be even harder, if you don’t speak Swedish.

So, the moral of this story? If something looks too good to be true, then it probably is, even in Sweden.

PS. And the truly scary part of this is that the website of this non-existent fraudulent company is still up! The firm hosting it, even though notified about the case, did nothing to pull it down. And the scammer is thought to have moved to Copenhagen and might be targeting expats there.


By Anna | Posted in Culture | Comments (4)

Swedish Verbs, part 2

23
Sep
2008

A few posts back we started to discuss Swedish verbs, remember? And I told you that those verbs can be divided into two big groups: “ar” and “er”. I also mentioned that there is a third group and then promptly refused to say anything else about it.

Oh yes, that third verb group. This is the group that brings tears of definitely not joy to the eyes of Swedish learners. Why? Several reasons.

While most (almost all other) verbs have infinitive forms that end in –a, those short little guys end in whatever they like. At least it looks like that to an untrained eye. And those guys are really short. Like one syllable short. That’s the good news. The other good news is that there aren’t all that many of them. The bad news is that they’re all irregular, and sadly, you have no other choice but to memorize them all, especially since quite a few of them are very common. Like this one, for example:

  • ge = to give

“ge” is the infinitive form, and in the present tense this verb tries to masquerade as an “er” verb, clever little sod:

  • Jag ger dig pengar. = I give you money (I’m giving you money)

See what I mean? “Ge” becomes “ger” in the present tense.
Other verbs that behave as “ge” are:

  • le/ler = (to) smile
  • be/ber = (to) beg, request
  • se/ser = (to) see

Here are some other short verbs that are neither “ar” nor “er”:

  • stå = to stand
    Hon står och väntar. = She’s standing and waiting.
  • dö = to die
    Gräset dör i torkan. = The grass dies during drought.
  • bo = to live (somewhere)
    Jag bor i Sverige. = I live in Sweden.
  • få = to get, to receive
    Hon får pengar idag. = She gets money today.
  • tro = to believe, to think
    Ja, jag tror det. = Yes, I think so (reckon).
  • gå = to go
    Hur går det för dig? = How’s it going for you?
  • må = to feel (of health)
    Jag mår inte riktig bra. = I’m not feeling quite well.

Can you spot a pattern? While these are neither “ar” nor “er” verbs, turning them into their present tense forms is quite easy – just stick an “r” onto their short, little bodies. That’s the easy part. Unfortunately, that’s also the end of easy, because when it comes to their past and perfect forms, those irregular suckers you will need to memorize one by one. Let me know if you need any help!


By Anna | Posted in Grammar | Comments (2)

Stick It To The System(et)

21
Sep
2008

So, I’m half way through this Bill Bryson book “Neither Here Nor There” about his travels in Europe, and it is really interesting to read his observations about Sweden. With some of them I disagree (he thinks that driving even during sunny days with the headlights on is stupid) and with some I totally agree (like what’s up with all this public drunkenness in this country?). Yeah, what’s up with that?

Yes, there are plenty of drunks in public places all over the world, I know that. However, in most countries you also can get alcohol stronger than 3.5% in supermarkets and you don’t have to mortgage your house to buy a bottle of vodka, so you kind of sort of expect people to wander around totally sloshed at odd hours of the day. But not so in Sweden. Here, for anything stronger than 3.5% you have to go to a special government store called “Systembolaget”, alcohol is expensive, yet you can stumble over totally drunk people at 10 in the morning. And Systemet doesn’t even open until 10!

So, what is this Systembolaget anyway? Simply put, it’s a government-controlled monopoly on the importation and sale of alcoholic beverages. And while 2.8% or 3.5% percent beer and cider can be purchased at a local supermarket, anything stronger than that can only be found at Systemet. Say, if you’re making risotto and the recipe calls for half a cup of white wine (as mine does), you can’t just saunter over to a nearby supermarket and pick up a bottle. Oh, no. You need to go to Systemet. Which closes at 6PM. So if doing any gourmet cooking in Sweden, it’s best to be prepared. Consider yourself warned.

And how did it all start? Well, in 1850 alcohol began to be regulated by the state. Apparently, earlier in history Swedes had become famous for their drinking prowess, and things started to get a little out of hand. Back in the olden days, almost every household made their own booze, too. And the state realized that wow, not only people are walking around drunk, but we’re missing a superb revenue source. So let’s take over alcohol making and selling and tell people where and when to buy it and drink it. The scheme was so successful that by 1870 there was a chain of stores selling booze and all profits went to the government. And it’s been going on like that until now.

Sometime in the mid 1950s, it was also decided that alcoholic beverages should be taxed according to their alcohol content, which makes beer and wine (relatively) cheap.

Systemet looks like a normal supermarket inside, except that all it sells is alcohol. You get a basket, or a cart, and walk around picking up whatever you want. No brand can be favored over another, so everything is lined up on the shelves, or in crates on the floor, and bottles are not refrigerated (because according to the rule, you have to either refrigerate all of them, or none.) And oh yeah, you need to be over 20 to buy stuff there.

And remember what I said about drinks with less than 3.5% being sold in normal stores. Here’s something that may confuse English speakers. Such beer is known here as “lätt” which translates as “light”, but not in the American sense. It has all the calories of a normal beer, and the adjective “lätt” refers only to its alcohol content. And to buy “light” beer you need to be over 18.

Systemet even has an English language webpage, and this is one of the gems I found on there:

Systembolaget, the Swedish Alcohol Retail Monopoly, exists for one reason only: To minimize alcohol-related problems by selling alcohol in a responsible way, without profit motive.

Oh yeah? If that is so, then they’re not doing a very good job of it, judging by all the drunks in the streets.
You can read more about Systemet on their website.


By Anna | Posted in Culture | Comments (10)