In every language there are words that you either just love or simply hate for whatever reason. Personally, I’m not a fan of words that are difficult to spell, and unfortunately the English language is full of them. Like “assassinate”. The only reason I remember how to spell it is because it has two of “you know what” in it.

I much prefer words that are useful and good at describing whatever it is that they mean. And the Swedish language is full of them! Like “jobbig” for example.

See? One look at it and I don’t think I need to explain what it means. It means exactly what it looks like what it sounds like.

My Swedish-English dictionary does not bother to provide a translation for “jobbig”. Instead, it gives an example:

  • jobbig – det är jobbigt – it’s hard work

But c’mon now! “Jobbig” is so much more than that. It describes a situation, or a task perfectly. In case you haven’t noticed, “jobbig” is an adjective, so its job is to describe. And describe it does. When you hear that something is “jobbig” you know it’s a tiring, boring, mundane, difficult task. A task you’d sell your left foot to avoid. It just makes you sigh with desperation. And in fact, “jobbig” does sound like a sigh.

So what can be “jobbig”? It depends on a person and that person’s individual dislikes. For me it’s cleaning the bathroom floor drain. Jobbig! Pretty much anything that has to do with cleaning is “jobbig” for me. Preparing tax returns is definitely “jobbig”.

It’s easy to see that the word comes from “job”, which in Swedish is spelled with two “b”, hence – “jobb”. And even though it’s spelled with a “j”, you may hear (in fact I’m sure you will certainly hear) Swedish people pronounce it as “yob”. It’s because in Swedish “j” sounds like “y”. It’s the same with “Jenny” aka “Yenny” and “Jon” aka “Yon”. And of course, with “jobbig”, or rather “yobbig“, as it sounds in Swedish.

As you’ve seen above in the example from my dictionary, “jobbig” acquired a “t” ending and became “jobbigt”. And why is that? It behaved like most Swedish adjectives do. They get a “t” ending when paired with “ett” nouns. And “det” is an “ett” noun of sorts. When an adjective describes a noun in plural, it gets an “a” ending.

So this is how it would look in a Swedish-Swedish dictionary:

  • jobbig, jobbigt, jobbiga – som gör att man blir trött eller irriterad; arbetsam; besvärlig – what makes a person tired or irritated; laborious, tiresome

And all those explanations are fine, but none get even close to the impact of “jobbig”.

So next time when you’re faced with a particularly mundane task that makes you tired even thinking about it, you know what to say. Det är jobbigt!