In my last post I mentioned that “jul” in Swedish is written with a small letter. In all fairness, in some cases it IS written with a capital. You can see it especially in advertisements and greetings.
And in his comment, Luke from Sydney very aptly pointed out that it’s not only “jul” – names of the days of the week also begin with a small letter in Swedish:
- måndag – Monday
- tisdag – Tuesday
- onsdag – Wednesday
- torsdag – Thursday
- fredag – Friday
- lördag – Saturday
- söndag – Sunday
For example: Vi reser till fjällen på måndag.
It’s the same with months:
- januari – January
- februari – February
- mars – March
- april – April
- maj – Maj
- juni – June
- juli – July
- augusti – August
- september – September
- oktober – October
- november – November
- december – December
For example: I Västerbotten börjar vintern redan i slutet av oktober.
But that’s not all. Unlike in English, in Swedish all nationality words also begin with a small letter. So, all the names of languages, and adjectives used to describe national origin, as well as nationalities, are all written with a small letter.
- engelska – English
- tyska – German
- spanska – Spanish
- svenska – Swedish
For example: Jag kan prata svenska, engelska och spanska.
En japansk person är en person från Japan. En kvinna kan också kallas en japanska.
So, just a little something to keep in mind when you write in Swedish.
