https://feeds.thelocal.com/ Read the latest news and views from Europe in English en-us news@thelocal.com (TheLocal) webmaster@thelocal.com (TheLocal) TheLocal RSS Feed Across Sweden, children are starting or returning to school after the summer holidays. Here are the crucial pieces of Swedish vocabulary that will help international families navigate the school year. https://www.thelocal.com/20190816/the-swedish-words-parents-need-to-know-for-back-to-school-season Fri, 16 Aug 2019 15:58:33 +0200 the-swedish-words-parents-need-to-know-for-back-to-school-season Swedish-Finnish humour trio KAJ's 'Bara Bada Bastu' has emerged as an unexpected favourite to win the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest. The Local has done a line-by-line translation of the lyrics, so that you know what you're singing about when it's stuck in your head. https://www.thelocal.com/20250502/what-do-the-lyrics-of-swedens-eurovision-entry-bara-bada-bastu-actually-mean Fri, 02 May 2025 13:05:53 +0200 what-do-the-lyrics-of-swedens-eurovision-entry-bara-bada-bastu-actually-mean Like English speakers, Swedes absolutely love to use fake swear words – and you should too, as they sound gloriously quaint coming from the mouth of a foreigner. https://www.thelocal.com/20250327/seventeen-how-to-not-swear-in-swedish-while-feeling-like-you-are Thu, 27 Mar 2025 12:29:21 +0100 seventeen-how-to-not-swear-in-swedish-while-feeling-like-you-are Sweden's government has ordered the country's statistics agency to develop methods for assessing immigrants' skills in listening, speaking and reading, and then to carry out a multi-year investigation into reading skills between now and 2029. https://www.thelocal.com/20250219/government-moves-forward-with-plans-to-map-immigrants-swedish-skills Wed, 19 Feb 2025 15:45:32 +0100 government-moves-forward-with-plans-to-map-immigrants-swedish-skills Sweden's festive season is a time when even the most well-integrated foreigner can feel like an outsider, miles from home with a set of traditions, recipes, and songs familiar to everyone but you. https://www.thelocal.com/20171221/the-words-and-phrases-you-need-to-know-to-survive-a-swedish-christmas Thu, 21 Dec 2017 15:43:32 +0100 the-words-and-phrases-you-need-to-know-to-survive-a-swedish-christmas Does your personality really change when speaking another language? Are people more comfortable expressing emotions in certain languages and can understanding the emotional shift actually help with language learning? Language professors Mari Mar Boillos Pereira and Ana Blanco Canales explore the latest research. https://www.thelocal.com/20241206/opinion-your-personality-changes-when-you-speak-another-language-but-thats-not-always-a-bad-thing Fri, 06 Dec 2024 11:38:45 +0100 opinion-your-personality-changes-when-you-speak-another-language-but-thats-not-always-a-bad-thing Twelve years into bringing up his bilingual children in Sweden, Richard Orange wonders if they will ever feel or come across as wholly British. https://www.thelocal.com/20240314/will-they-pass-as-british-the-challenges-of-raising-bilingual-kids-in-sweden Thu, 14 Mar 2024 13:06:37 +0100 will-they-pass-as-british-the-challenges-of-raising-bilingual-kids-in-sweden Swedes respond most positively to people speaking Swedish with English, Finnish and German accents, according to a new study from Sweden's Institute for Language and Folklore that took an in-depth look at a dozen foreign accents. https://www.thelocal.com/20240502/how-positive-are-swedes-towards-foreign-accents Thu, 02 May 2024 17:29:17 +0200 how-positive-are-swedes-towards-foreign-accents What makes a person want to learn Swedish? The Local's reader Sunny Das tries to answer a question that's bigger than quantifiable goals. https://www.thelocal.com/20240321/readers-story-how-i-slowly-fell-in-love-with-the-swedish-language Thu, 21 Mar 2024 15:31:17 +0100 readers-story-how-i-slowly-fell-in-love-with-the-swedish-language They say that the further north you get, the more words you need to describe snow. We've picked out our favourite seven words to talk about the cold weather in Swedish. https://www.thelocal.com/20171214/seven-evocative-swedish-winter-words-for-snow Thu, 14 Dec 2017 07:59:59 +0100 seven-evocative-swedish-winter-words-for-snow Our attempt to translate some of our favourite untranslatable Swedish words. https://www.thelocal.com/20170720/untranslatable-swedish-words-language Thu, 20 Jul 2017 08:59:59 +0200 untranslatable-swedish-words-language The unusual way some northern Swedes say 'yes' often surprises those unfamiliar with the dialect: a cross between a gasp and a slurp, it's a curious linguistic phenomenon. The Local explores where it comes from and what exactly it means. https://www.thelocal.com/20191207/the-story-behind-the-strange-northern-swedish-way-to-say-yes Sat, 07 Dec 2019 20:57:55 +0100 the-story-behind-the-strange-northern-swedish-way-to-say-yes