Swedish Politics 101
Sweden is a democracy, but also a monarchy. The king has no official power, but does have certain duties. For example he chairs the Special Council held during a change of Government.

Every 4 years elections are held where the people of Sweden vote and elect their representatives for the parliament, or "Riksdag" in Swedish. The parliament has 349 seats. Whoever has the most seats gets to form a Government. Sort of... The Speaker nominates a Prime Minister or "Statsminister". Unless an absolute majority (175 representatives) vote against this person the nomination stands.

The Parties

On the Left: De Röd-Gröna (The Red-Greens)

Socialdemokraterna (s)
The Social Democratic Party is the largest party in Sweden (by 0,6% as of the latest elections). They have been in power for the better part of the last century. They are further to the left than the social democratic parties in other European countries.

Miljörpartiet (mp)
Referred to as "de gröna" or the Green Party, the party is environmentally oriented, but share a common agenda with both the Social Democratic Party and the Left Party.

Vänsterpartiet (v)
The "Left" party, formerly known as "Left Party - Communists", are the most left-wing party in the Swedish parliament. The party has its roots in the communist wave that swept through Europe in the early 1900's and was formed following a split in the Social Democratic Party.

In the Blue Corner: Alliansen (The Alliance)
Since the election in 2006 the four major "blue" parties have joined in a coalition to jointly offer an alternative to the Social Democratic Party.

Moderaterna (m)
The Moderate Party is the pole opposite of the Social Democratic Party. At least, that is what history tells us. Objectively they are not at all far from the Social Democratic Party, at least when you compare notes. There are however strong ideological differences. This is the second largest party in the Swedish parliament.

Folkpartiet (fp)
The Liberal People's Party are very close to the Moderate Party. They share most core values but differ in certain ways on free choice and free economy.

Centerpartiet (c)
The Centre Party used to be a green party with a strong focus on farmers. In recent years the party has focused more on being a party for entrepreneurs and a non-left-wing alternative to the Swedish Green Party.

Krisdemokraterna (kd)
The Christian Democrats have a very low-profile religious party program. The party tends to focus on Christian values rather than the Christian faith. They are the smallest party in the coalition and came out tied with the Left Party at 5,60% - the lowest percentage of any party in the Swedish parliament.

Introducing the Newcomers - Sverigedemokraterna (sd)
For the first time since 1994 there is another party in the parliament. This party is known as the Sweden Democrats. Their values and political orientation are not exactly clear. They describe themselves as a nationalist movement and can be compared in some ways to Dansk Folkeparti in Denmark or the FPÖ in Austria.

The Playing Field
The Alliance secured a total of 173 seats in the Swedish Parliament.
The Red-Greens managed to grab 156 seats.

None of the seven parties are considering working with the Sweden Democrats to form a government. They hold 20 seats.

This means that in Sweden nothing really changes. The four parties that were in power for the last four years were basically re-elected. There could be a problem, though.

The Sweden Democrats have a swing vote with their 20 seats. Should they decide to vote with the Red-Greens (which doesn't seem likely) then they could cause problems for the Government. If that happens three times, then the consequences could constitute a confidence motion.

Reactions
The reactions in Sweden have been strong. Not because there is a minority-coalition government being put together, but rather because 300 000 Swedish people voted for the Sweden Democrats, or 5.70% of the Swedish voters. A majority of the Swedish people [read: everyone who voted for another party] are not sympathetic to the Sweden Democrats. Some are more outspoken in their critique of the party than others, but most of Sweden agrees that the parties core values are not in line with those of the majority of Swedes.

Det svenska sj- och sk- ljudet är ett rent helvete för icke-svenskar att lära sig när de övar på uttal av svenska ord. Uttal och betoning av svenska är i regel mycket svårt då det skiljer sig från många andra språk, men just den här ramsan är den som verkar svårast för dem som lär sig svenska att greppa.

Den här tung-vrickaren är gammal och finns även i andra varianter för att göra det ytterligare ett snäpp svårare att repetera. En annan variant är:

Sju skönsjungande sjuksköterskor skötte sjuttiosju sjösjuka sjömän på skeppet Shangai.

Den mest komplexa, men även mest överdrivna, varianten som jag någonsin hört är:

Sjuttiosju sjösjuka sjömän sköttes själsligt i sjögång själva av sju skönsjungande sjuksköterskor på det sjunkande skeppet Shanghai.

Säg den 10 gånger i rad utan att stappla.

Notera: Jag översätter aldrig ordet sjömän helt korrekt till engelska. Jag väljer ordet sailors, eller seglare på svenska. Av anledningar som jag helst inte går in på undviker jag termen seamen.

[English]

This is a Swedish tongue twister. It means:

Seventy-seven seasick sailors were looked after by seven lovely nurses on the ship Shanghai.

The Swedish sounds sj- and sk- are probably the absolute hardest for learners of Swedish to grasp when practicing pronunciation. Pronunciation and stress on vowels and syllables in Swedish is, as a rule, very difficult for non-native speakers, but this particular tongue twister really does take the cake.

It is very old and there are several variants. Some of those have been invented just to make things harder. As if the task was not difficult enough. Here is an example:

Sju skönsjungande sjuksköterskor skötte sjuttiosju sjösjuka sjömän på skeppet Shangai.

Translation:
Seven singing nurses took care of seventy-seven seasick sailors on the ship Shanghai.

The most complex variation I have ever heard is:

Sjuttiosju sjösjuka sjömän sköttes själsligt i sjögång själva av sju skönsjungande sjuksköterskor på det sjunkande skeppet Shanghai.

Translated:
Seventy-seven seasick sailors were treated spiritually in high seas solely by seven singing nurses on the sinking ship Shanghai.

Try saying that 10 times without faltering.

Here is a video of a German guy trying to say yet another variant:

What he is trying to say is: Sju sjösjuka sjömän sjöng sjukt sköna sånger om sjöstjärnor.

Even Swedish people find this hard to do:

Note: I usually translate the Swedish word sjömän with sailors. The word sailor is more accurately translated to seglare in Swedish. For reasons I don't really feel like getting into though, I try to refrain from using the term seamen.

The question is: when do I use "Var" and when do I use "vart"?

Answer: Depends on what you are trying to say.

This is probably easier if it is broken down into many languages.

Where is the car? Var är bilen? Wo ist das Auto?

If you use "var" in this way, you would like to know in what place the car is now.

Where are you going? Vart är du på väg? Wohin gehst du?

Should you use "vart" like this, you are inquiring as to what place an object or person is moving to.

One way of making the destinction easier is to ask a simple question: Is something there or is it going somewhere? If an object or a person is not moving you would ask where it is and in Swedish use "var". If you are asking where something is going you, in Swedish, would use "vart".

[Svenska]

Tillbaka till frågan: Heter det var eller vart?

Svar: Det beror helt och hållet på vad man vill säga och vad det är man menar.

Det kanske blir lättare om jag bryter upp det här i flera språk.

Var är bilen? Where is the car? Wo ist das Auto?

Använder man "var" på detta sätt uttrycker man befintlighet på alla tre språk. Man frågar var bilen är det vill säga man vill veta vid vilken plats som bilen befinner sig för stunden.

Vart är du på väg? Where are you going? Wohin gehst du?

Använder man "vart" på detta sätt så uttrycker man rörelse på alla tre språk. I svenskan såväl som i tyskan så uttrycks detta genom att man använder "vart" istället för "var" respektive "wohin" istället för "wo". I engelskan så använder man sig alltid av "where" eftersom man läser ut rörelse och befintlighet ur meningen.

För att underlätta kan man fråga sig: Är jag "där" eller är jag på väg "dit"? Om du är där så vet du "var" du är. Om du är på väg dit, ja, då vet du "vart" du är på väg. Du kan aldrig få reda på vart du är eller var du är på väg.

För att skänka ytterligare lite förvirring så blandar vi in något helt annat. Ordet "var" har även betydelsen "varje". Var dag går jag till mitt arbete. I denna form är det ordets genus som styr. Svenskan har neutrum (ett-ord, tex. ett barn | barnet) och utrum (en-ord, tex. en väg | vägen). Vart tredje barn i skolan tycker inte om skolmaten, men var fjärde lärare håller inte med.

Rörelse eller befintlighet – så svårt ska det väl inte vara?

[English]

During the course of contacting blogs to let the authors know someone had submitted a recipe we asked for their favorite alcoholic and non-alcoholic drink. The results really got me thinking; of all the recipes submitted by readers (thanks again by the way), none were non-alcoholic. Only one blogger sent me a non-alcoholic recipe. You should check out Jeffrey Morgenthaler's website and his post on How to Make Sangrita. Some blogs, like The London Cocktail Guide simply don't have any non-alcoholic drinks at all. This is in no way any form of critique on my part, simply an observation and some food for thought.

It only seems to me, that a lot of people who are into mixing drinks tend to be focused on the alcoholic variety. Sort of like how most chefs' and cooking blogs are focused on food containing meat. I once had a conversation with a vegetarian who said that,
"If you eat meat, then that's all you eat. If you are a vegetarian, then you have much more freedom to vary your diet". I was not convinced. I tired to argue that you could very well add meat, fish or poultry to almost any vegetarian dish and would therefore have a larger variety. Eating meat does not make you a carnivore and exclude greens from your diet. I further argued that it was more difficult to be varied and discover new interesting flavors if you excluded certain ingredients.

The same logic applies to drinks. If you take out all the alcohol out of the bar, and ask for a refreshing cocktail you're making someones job a lot more difficult. The other day I was standing near a bar when a customer ordered a Caipirinha - hold the alcohol. Basically that means someone ordered lime with sugar on ice. Of course the customer wanted something else in there to substitute the alcohol, but what?

How would you make it?

Har du någonsin fått höra att du är en språkfascist? Nej, vänta. Har du någonsin fått höra att du var en språkfascist? Jag önskar jag kund... nej vänta. Jag önskar att jag kunde välja att bortse från andra människors språkfel. Men det är... (fanockså!). Det är dock mycket svårt.

Vad som gör det riktigt svårt är att det är just svenskan som jag har problem med. Grammatiken i svenskan såsom språket som helhet har ändrats om så många gånger att det är ofattbart förvirrande. Ta de och dem till exempel. Numera är det helt accepterat att skriva 'dom'. Istället för att skriva dig, mig och sig så har vi börjat att acceptera att man skriver dej, mej och sej (som för övrigt är en fisk!).

Hur ska man kunna rätta folk när det som är fel är accepterat som rätt? Ja, lätt är det inte, men jag tror inte att jag kommer behöva ta mitt liv för det. På grund av det. Som en följd av?

[English]

What makes it really, really hard is that I speak Swedish. The grammar as well as the language in general has been ripped up, restructured and replaced so often it's turned into a maze of utter confusion. This has historic, political and cultural reasons - such as the abolishment of "Ni" and addressing people in the third person. The correct way of writing they and them has been replaced with dom, which means something completely different. Instead of writing you, me and oneself correctly we have started to accept mej, dej and worst of all sej (which is a fish).

Now how do you go about correcting other people when what they are saying is an accepted variation of that which is actually correct? I'll say this much. It is really hard. Though, I don't think I'll need to kill myself over it. Because of it. Owing to it?

[Svenska]