Swedish Blog

A few years ago my friend discovered a black spot on her skin. She went to the clinic (vårdcentralen) and showed it to the doctor there. The doctor told her to wait and see if it would disappear on its own. A couple of weeks later, the spot was still there and she asked me to go to the clinic with her and yell at the doc a little. I went and I yelled. My friend got a referral (en remiss) to a specialist at the hospital (sjukhuset). The hospital sent her a letter saying that the earliest available appointment they had was about 8 months away.

We returned to vårdcentralen to yell at the doc some more. Finally, she said, “a new private dermatology practice just opened, why don’t you go there?” I wanted to know why she didn’t tell us that a few weeks ago during the first visit. “You didn’t ask,” she answered.
To make a long story short – my friend went to the private clinic, had a biopsy, turned out the spot was malignant, was admitted to the hospital and had it removed. She’s been cancer free ever since. I shudder at the thought of what might have happened if she had waited the initial 8 months for her appointment at the hospital skin clinic.

So, when last week I noticed something weird on my skin, I didn’t even bother with vårdcentralen, I called straight to the private practice and got my appointment immediately.

Wow! How the place has grown since the last time I was there. Now they’re giving the public hospital some serious competition.
Apart from a dermatologist (en dermatolog, hudläkare), they also have a regular surgeon (en allmänkirurg), an orthopedist (en ortoped), plastic/cosmetic surgeons (plastikkirurger), their own anesthesiologists (narkosläkare) and a whole slew of nurses (sköterskor). It’s a tiny private hospital they’ve got over there.

Now, in addition to a strictly private practice (like cosmetic surgery), they also accept regular and private insurance and referrals from doctors at vårdcentraler. This is what I call progress!

To provide a point of reference, my dearly beloved also had to see a doctor today. He got a referral for gastroscopy (gastroskopi), the poor thing… And the wait time at the hospital? 6 weeks… Let’s hope it’s nothing serious and he can survive. Technically, we have a 30 day guarantee to see a specialist, but in reality (and depending on what king of doctor you need), it may not happen.

The long waiting times to see specialist doctors are a very common problem in Sweden. In bigger cities, where there are more private clinics, the patients at least have options. In smaller towns, it may mean the difference between life and death. You think I’m exaggerating? Not so. Even the government decided it was time to finally do something about it. Here is what The Local wrote about it (in English) back in September, and here is a more recent article (in Swedish) from a local newspaper in Östersund.

And as for me, I’ll have my results next week. Let’s hope it’s nothing serious.

image: Landstinget i Östergötland

I am still away and still receiving calls for help from my dearly beloved. Last night it was the wash that required five urgent phone calls to get my urgent attention.
We don’t own a washing machine. Actually, our apartment is not even set up for one. Instead, there is something in our building called “tvättstuga.” Despite the name, it’s not a stuga at all, but a normal laundry room in the basement. In order to do the laundry, the tenants need to book their laundry times on a special board.

In our building, we only get two-hour slots, and you can only book one slot at a time. With four washing machines this shouldn’t be a problem, but if two of them are broken at any given time and with the majority of tenants not knowing how to use the booking system (what can I say, it’s a little foreign colony here), then yes, problems do arise. More often than they should.

My dearly beloved does know how the booking system works, because I write down all booked wash times on our big wall calendar in the kitchen. So when the phone rang right before 6PM yesterday, I knew what was up.

“Do I have to do the wash?” It’s the same old story every time I’m away. And trust me, I’m not away that often. And besides, I like my laundry done in a certain way, so needless to say, I’m the one who always does it. Dearly beloved has enough socks and underwear to last him for at least a month, and enough shirts to look clean and presentable for about 3 weeks.

His next phone call came from the laundry room.
“But the instructions on all the machines are only in Swedish!” He seems genuinely surprised every time he notices it. Granted, he only goes to tvättstuga about once a year and he does have a short memory, but still… This is Sweden, what did he expect? Instructions in Swahili?

I told him that on the wall, there is a set of posters with pictures, which are easy to understand and easy to follow.

He somehow managed to follow them, because the next phone call came about 45 minutes later. The washing cycle just finished. We have a stand-alone centrifuge there as well, but I prudently neglected to tell him about it. For his own safety, mainly.

“How do I dry the stuff?” The tumble dryer didn’t seem to work. I vaguely recalled it had been broken since last week, so that much was true. And using our temperamental drying cabinets can be a challenge.

Drying cabinets annoy me, I admit it. I’ve been spoiled by industrial-strength tumble dryers with the capacity to dry piles of laundry the size of medium elephants, or at least king size duvets. So when our sole piece-of-doodoo tumble dryer doesn’t work, I simply don’t do the wash. It’s not just the effort required to hang all those wet clothes on the bars – a major PITA in itself, but the sheer waste of energy that goes into making those contraptions work. I did the math, granted, it was “household” math and the results were highly unscientific, but… a full load that fits into one tumble dryer will take up three drying cabinets. That is painfully obvious especially when drying bulkier items.

It’s true that one drying cabinet is more energy efficient than a tumble dryer, but if you need to run three cabinets to do the job, then it looks awfully wasteful to me. And that in a country where we’re practically ordered to replace our light bulbs with more energy efficient versions sounds really bad. (And yes, I’m one of those nuts who are a bit on the radical side when it comes to conserving energy).

So when my dearly beloved called an hour later once again, this time to tell me that after the drying cycle in the cabinets, the clothes were still wet, I told him to take them all upstairs and hang them up in the bathroom. I bet they will be still hanging there when I get home next week…

Some useful words:

• tvätt (def. tvätten, pl. tvättar, pl def. tvättarna) - kläder som man ska tvätta eller just har tvättad – wash, laundry (it’s a noun)
• tvätta (this one is a regular verb) göra så att något blir rent (tvätta händerna, tvätta kläder, tvätta sig) – to make something clean (wash hands, wash clothes, wash oneself)
• tvättmaskin (def. -maskinen, pl. -maskiner, pl def. –maskinerna) – washing machine
• tvättmedel (def. -medlet, pl. -medel, pl def. -medlen) – washing/laundry detergent
• tvättstuga (def. -stugan, pl. -stugor, pl. def. -stugorna) - rum eller hus där det finns tvättmaskiner – a room or a house where there are washing machines.

Do you see the pattern? There are tons of words that begin with “tvätt” and they all have something to do with washing.

The word “torka” (to dry) is similar – there are other compound words that include “tork” in them, and they all have to do with drying. Here are two:

• torkskåp (def. -skåpet, pl. -skåp, pl. def. –skåpen) - skåp som blåser varm luft och där man kan torka tvätt – drying cabinet
• torktumlare (def.-tumlaren, pl. -tumlare, pl. def. –tumlarna) - maskin där man lägger blot tvätt i en rund del some snuttar runt och torkar tvätten med värme – in other words, a tumble dryer.

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