Lost in Translation...

Hej,

I have been thinking I should write a little story about my experiences with Swedish vs English.  I have alluded to some challenges I have been having - i.e., where does the garbage go and how does the washing machine work, but overall I've been figuring out things sort of (?slags).  

The grocery store is where I run into the most problems - I bought some soppa nypon - well you would think I would have clued in that SOPPA = SOUP given that a lot of the translations are very literal - but I didn't - so it turns out I bought some rosehip soup?! - alas I thought I was buying cranberry juice :)  Not that I would have thought people actually drink soups of such varieties but apparently blueberry soup is a staple to have when you go skiing here - personally I was thinking that Canadian Poutine was the chosen essential!  Etsuko brought some over for supper last night (I managed to make lasagna with very limited dishes!) "tranbä dryck" and so now I know the proper wording and will pay more attention and try and get my beverages from the drinking section rather than the soup section!

It seems in particular for me buying a cut of meat is challenging here - and b/c there is hamburgare - which sounds like hamburger to me and is what you would order at McDonalds here you would think I'm safe in buying that.  But at the grocery store hamburgare is in fact HORSE meat in the meat slice dept and I really do NOT want to inadvertently buy that.  So I've been overly paranoid in making my selections and writing down the swedish word before I go - problem is that they don't always match up.   I wanted some köttfärs (ground beef - not hamburgare ;)) for lasagne but all I saw was Nötfärs - so I finally asked someone and they said it was the same... how was I supposed to know ;)   

Another challenge is figuring out at the store when things are on sale how it works.  They had chocolate bars on sale last week and who was I to say NO to those (I'm using my regular visits at IKSU as justification to indulge in all sorts of decadence!) - so I bought some - but they turned out full price b/c I hadn't bought 3 of the same exact one, just the same brand - so you have to read the fine print carefully - but alas I can't read Swedish - but I am trying ;)  And in the end I still had my chocolate so I was happy!

One of these days I will have to go to IKA-Maxi (the big grocery store here - like a superstore or fred meyer) with Petter and Etsuko and see if my inferred translation of somethings are real or not :)

I have been learning counting backwards from the instructors at IKSU - although most of the time it is a blur and I'm not sure whether there are 10 or 1 reps left! 

The best thing to help with translation that I have learned thus far is translate.google.com - it is my new friend :)  Michael showed me the google translate toolbar - which I promptly downloaded onto my computer - you can click on a button to always translate web pages - so now I have a whole new country's worth of websites I can *mostly* understand :)  Hurra! 

Hej då - I've been saying Hej do - but that is just the way it sounds - I've also been struggling to understand the fancy o and a's with dots on top of them - but until I understand them better I will sign off - but know that Hej då sounds like "Hey Dough" and Umeå sounds like UmeOH.

Dessert with Etsuko and Petter after I purchased dinner ingredients despite language challenges (although I never did find parmesan cheese (?parmesan-ost) and had to make do without it!