Why Swedish to English is harder than it looks
Compounds are written as single words. Sjukförsäkring is health insurance and arbetslöshetsersättning is unemployment benefit. Split them wrongly and the English is nonsense, which is why the whole word has to be read before it is translated.
Swedish is more direct than English expects. A Swedish request is short and unhedged, and rendered literally it can sound curt in English. The politeness has to be added on the English side, because it was never missing from the Swedish.
Particles change what a verb means. Ta upp, ta av, ta på, ta med — the verb is the same and the meaning is not. These are the Swedish equivalent of English phrasal verbs and they are just as untranslatable one piece at a time.
Some words carry culture with them. Fika is not simply a coffee break, and lagom is not simply “enough.” English translation either explains them or borrows them, and neither choice is wrong, but a one-word substitute usually is.
Written by Hardik Vegad, Co-founder, Translatify. Last updated .
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