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There are many differences between writing in English and Swedish. Unfortunately, if you use both languages regularly, your Swedish often gets influenced by the English, resulting in really bad Swedish. Also, there are certain mistakes that Swedes frequently make when writing in English. In this page, I try to list some check-points to ponder whenever writing something in English or Swedish (not only when writing assignment reports).
If you have any comments or suggestions regarding this page, please drop me a mail.
Yet to appear: Situations were the English say "yes" when the Swedish would say "no," etc.
Särskrivningar. I engelskan skriver man i regel isär uttryck bestående av flera ord. På svenska skrivs motsvarande uttryck normalt ihop. Det är dock lätt att upptäcka sina särskrivningar genom att läsa vad man skrivit högt för sig själv, eftersom mellanrummen i svenskan implicerar pauser i uttalet.
Jämför exempelvis "Vi säljer kassa apparater." med "Vi säljer kassaapparater" eller "rök fritt" med "rökfritt". Andra exempel på särskrivningar är "sär skrivning", "mellan rummen", "röd hårig", "efter apning", etc. Skulle du inte också föredra att gå ut med en rödhårig tjej eller kille hellre än en röd hårig tjej eller kille? ;-)
Stora bokstäver. I engelskan ("In English") används stor bokstav oftare än i svenskan - t ex skrivs veckodagarnas och månadernas namn med stor bokstav i engelskan men inte i svenskan och på engelska stavas inte bara "England" med stor bokstav, utan även alla former av "English". På svenska är det ju däremot bara länderna som stavas med stor bokstav, t ex "England", medan "engelska", "engelsmän" och liknande skrivs med liten bokstav. Ännu lurigare är det när man pratar om något konkret ("not all universities are built of yellow bricks like Umeå University") och då skriver ut det med stora bokstäver på engelska ("capitalization").
Exempel: "In September, many new students will enter the educational program in Computer Science and Engineering at Umeå University." blir på svenska: "I september kommer många nya studenter att börja på utbildningsprogrammet i teknisk datavetenskap vid Umeå universitet." Notera också att "utbildningsprogrammet" är ett ord (skrivs alltså inte isär).
Anglicismer. Det förekommer många engelska termer och ord i de svenska medierna nu för tiden, inte minst med anknytning till vårt utbildningsämne. Det finns inte alltid bra motsvarigheter på svenska, och då är det inte mycket att göra åt. Hemfall dock inte reflexmässigt till att använda engelska ord överlag - försök hitta bra svenska motsvarigheter när det går.
Ibland är anglicismerna svåra att upptäcka. Alla är inte alls lika tydliga som "gör min dag" eller "bit av kaka" ("kakbit"?). T ex har "ha en bra dag" blivit vanligare och vanligare på svenska. Tänk dock på vad du skriver - det heter t ex inte "det är upp till honom att avgöra" ("it is up to him") utan "det är hans sak att avgöra".
Genitivapostrofer. I svenskan använder vi inte genitivapostrofer. Det heter alltså inte "Kalle's kaviar" utan "Kalles kaviar". Inte ens ifall det är "Anders kaviar" behövs det någon apostrof i svenskan. Det är dock tillåtet att placera en ensam apostrof efter det avslutande "s":et om tydligheten kräver det. Tänk dig t ex att både Andrea och Andreas har var sin pojkvän som vi ska referera till i skriven text, då är det ju skillnad på "Andreas pojkvän" och "Andreas' pojkvän" (det är den senare vi kan förmoda är homosexuell, den tidigare kan vara ihop med antingen Andrea eller Andreas).
Avstavning. I engelskan kan man avstava en smula friare än i svenskan (jag ser ofta engelska avstavningar som vore otillåtna på svenska). Tyvärr är det svårt att kort sammanfatta reglerna för avstavning i svenskan. De visade sig vara mer omfattande än jag trodde. För en fullständig redogörelse hänvisar jag till svenska språknämdens skrivregler.
Citationstecken. I svenskan använder man identiska citationstecken runt citat. Det ska allstå vara "härtill är jag nödd och tvungen" och inte ``härtill är jag nödd och tvungen'' (vilket är lite synd eftersom det senare är mycket mer tilltalande för ögat [detta blir tyvärr inte uppenbart i alla webbläddrare...]). Runt citat i citat används likadana apostrofer: "Vad betyder 'do not press'? Tryck här eller?".
Citationstecken och interpunktioner. I engelska citat skriver man oftast efterföljande interpunktion (.,?!) innanför sista citationstecknet. Det gör man i svenskan också om hela meningen är citerad. Om citatet istället avslutar en svensk mening hamnar istället interpunktionen utanför citatet.
Exempel:
"To be or not to be."
"Att vara eller inte vara."
The most famous line in Hamlet is "To be or not to
be."
Den mest kända repliken ur Hamlet är "Att vara eller inte
vara".
(Shakespeare avslutade inte "To be or not to be" med en punkt
utan med ett komma, varefter stroferna fortsatte:
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
...
)
Stora tal. I engelskan används decimalpunkt och komma för att gruppera siffrorna i stora tal. Exempel: "Uncle Scrooge made $2,421,573.34 on the deal". I svenskan använder vi däremot decimalkomma och undviker att gruppera siffrorna med punkter utom om det behövs i handskriven text. Översätter vi exemplet ovan får vi sålunda: "Joakim von Anka tjänade 2 421 573,34 dollar på affären".
Förledande lika ord. Använder du engelska ofta riskerar du att bli osäker på vilken variant som hör till vilket språk eller till och med glömma bort att det finns flera varianter.
| Svenska | Engelska | |
|---|---|---|
| adress | address | Dubbla "d" i engelskan, enkelt "d" i svenskan. |
| parallell | parallel | Fyra "l" på svenska, tre på engelska. |
| -ning | -ing | Engelska "-ing"-ord blir "-ning"-ord på svenska (bantning, joggning, etc). |
Andra farliga ord är "komfortabel/comfortable". Om du inte råkar prata om en skön soffa ska du nog hellre använda "trygg" eller "nöjd" istället för "komfortabel". Exempel: en engelsk fråga som "Are you comfortable with this?" kan inte översättas som "Är du komfortabel med detta?". Däremot kan "a comfortable sofa" översättas direkt med "en komfortabel soffa".
Spellcheck, spellcheck, spellcheck. Misspelled words in any text give a sloppy impression. Always check the spelling of words you are uncertain about. Use any dictionary and use spellchecking software (MS-Word or other word processors, ispell on UNIX systems). This is so easy, so why not do it?
Do not use colloquial English. You should only use colloquial things like the contractions "don't" and "can't" in spoken English, dialogs and such. In written English, you should instead use "do not" and "cannot."
Use the correct prepositions. This is probably the hardest thing to learn in a foreign language, since there sometimes is very little logic involved in which preposition is the right one, and each language uses different ones.
For instance: it should be "I am a student in the Computer Science and Engineering program," not "a student on the CSE program."
Check that each verb agrees with its subject. Especially that "he/she/it is/was/has/does/wants/etc" while "you/we/they are/were/have/do/want/etc." "I am" though. ;-) Also check out the next item in the list, which also is about agreeing verbs.
The third person "s." This can be tough to remember, but whenever third person singular (a "he," "she," or "it") does something in present tense (i.e. right now), the verb should end with an "s." For instance, "We laugh merrily, but he laughs hysterically." That this only applies in present tense can also be thought of like this: take any verb, for instance "blow-blew-blown," then there can only be third persons "s" when the form "blow" is used. "We blow hard, but he blows hard. Yesterday, we blew hard and he blew not so hard. We were blown to the north, but he was blown to the south." Note also that there should be no third person "s" in future tense, although "blow" is used: "He will blow hard someday."
By the way, how would you translate "third person s" in this context? Right, it should written as one word in Swedish ("tredjepersons-s"). ;-)
The plural "s." In English, you place an "s" after a noun to indicate that it is many of them. For instance, I use only one finger when pushing the on/off button, but I use all my fingers when writing on the keyboard.
The genitive accent and "s." You all know that most cats usually comes equipped with a tail, right? But do you always remember to write the accent and the "s" in a sentence like "the cat's tail"? That is, whenever something is someone's, always write an accent before the "s." However, there is one important exception - when the "someone" already ends with an "s," then you just put the accent there, like in "Anders' web-page."
The difference between "its" and "it's." The noun "it" does not follow the above rule. "It's" is always a contraction of "it is." Thus, it should be "I love the cat with its long tail, its soft fur and its yellow eyes." "-How is the latest James Bond movie?" "-It's great."
Other exceptions of the genitive accent and "s"-rule. Most personal pronouns have special genitive forms that do not use any genitive "s" at the end: "my", "your", "his", "her", "our", "their". (Well, "his" do end in an "s", but it does not follow an accent.)
"A" or "An." It is easy to forget that it should be an "an" if the pronunciation of the following word starts with a vowel sound and an "a" if it starts with a consonant sound. Taste the following examples: "An honorable man, an hour-long lecture, a European country, a useful idea," where the "h":s are silent and "European" and "useful" both starts with a kind of "g"-like sound. It is the same way with acronyms. For instance, it should be "an SGI machine," since it is pronounced "ees-gee-iii."
It is also easy to forget to change the "a" or "an" when inserting some adjective before a noun. For instance, if I write "a cat" and "an oven" and then decide to change them to "an ugly cat" and "a microwave oven," I might easily forget to change the original "a" and "an." However, this is easy to check in most cases - just search for blank space - "a" - blank space - vowel and replace it. This regular expression will find any incorrect instance: / a [aeiouy]/ (As long as the following word does not start with a capital letter or is pronounced with a consonant sound, that is.)
Correct hyphenation. Whenever in doubt, leave out the hyphen. In English, it is rarely wrong to omit a hyphen, even though it may be preferable to use one. However, it is always wrong to use one when its use is not appropriate. Consider these four cases:
Separating compound verbs. In English it is not appropriate to split parts of a compound verb with long phrases, which is common in Swedish. For instance, take the sentence "This is why Swedes that regularly uses English tend to write apart words that should be written as one in Swedish." (It appears in the first of the four listed cases in the previous item on this page.) I, as a typical Swede, first tried to form it like this "... tend to write words that should be written as one apart." In this example, it was pretty easy to see that it did not work, but it can be trickier cases.
The usage of the exclamation mark, "!". The use of the exclamation mark in English is much more restricted than in Swedish. As in Swedish, it is used to express commands ("Come here!"), surprise ("I got accepted to the university!"), and to express emotion ("Damn!"). However, it should not be used to express emphasis nor importance. You should thus never begin a mail or letter with "Hello Anders!" or "Assignments must be handed in before Friday!". In the latter case, the exclamation, instead of importance, suggests that the one who put it there finds the dead line very strange: "Assignments should be in by Friday, is that not peculiar?"
Dates. The common way of writing dates in Swedish, year-month-day (2000-01-03, 20000103, or even 000103) is actually an international standard. However, it is almost only used in Sweden... When writing in English, one can presume that one also might have native English readers. To convey a date in a clear and precise fashion to readers of all nationalities, it is best to write them day-month-year, and to write the month using letters, not digits, like this: 3 Jan 2000. This is actually the recommended way to write dates in Swedish also, but is far more common in English.
The difference between "your" and "you're" and "their" and "they're". When writing in English, perhaps especially behind a computer keyboard, both Swedes and native English speakers have a tendency to mix up "your" and "you're" and "their" and "they're". Most often, it is the contraction of "they are" and "you are" that in the speed of things get even further shortened to "their" and "your", respectively. However, this completely changes their meaning - something no simple spell-checking software can discover. "They're" and "you're" are colloquial contractions of "they are" and "you are" while "their" and "your" expresses possessiveness for "them" and "you", respectively.
The difference between "to" and "too." Swedes have a tendency to use "to" where it should be "too." However, the two words have distinct meanings. "To" is more common than "too," and is used as a preposition ("Go to Umeå."), before the basic form of a word in the infinitive ("I want to go."), or as part of an adverb ("into," "set to," etc). "Too," on the other hand, is an adverb that is usually placed at the end of a sentence ("Everybody else had the Salmon, so I chose it too."), or before an adjective or adverb ("You are too kind.").
There are no easy rule for when it should be "to" or "too". One just have to try to get a feel for the different meanings of the words. A good starting point is to look them up in a dictionary, where you find a lot more examples of their use than here.
The difference between "then" and "than". Another pair of similar words that often get mixed-up in written text are "then" and "than". "Then" have many meanings, most often related to time and the order of things. For example as adverb: "at that time" ("We will meet then."), "soon after that" ("First I will take a shower, then I will meet you.), "next in order" ("First came Alice, then came Bob."), "in that case" ("OK, then, if you put it that way."), and as a noun: "since then, our English has improved".
"Than", on the other hand, is used to describe the relation between two things, as a conjunction: "Alice is cuter/younger/taller than Bob.", "You can invite anyone other than Clark."
The difference between "lie" and "lay." This is not only something foreign users of English have problems with - many native English speakers also get these verbs wrong. There are other meanings to them (for instance, "lie" can mean to tell something untrue: "lie(-lied-lied)") but when related to "to rest on a surface," "lie(-lay-lain)" is always intransitive (no object, "to have or put one's body in a flat or resting position") and "lay(-laid-laid)" is transitive (requires object, "to put sth/sb in a certain position"). You can say "I am going to lie down" but not "I am going to lay down." Since "lay" requires an object, you would have to say "I am going to lay myself down," but that seems a bit awkward.
The difference between "lose" and "loose." Another pair of words that are tricky to keep apart. "Loose" is an adjective, i.e. "something is loose," while "lose/lost/lost" is the corresponding verb: "I will lose all my money." As with "to" and "too," it can be rewarding to look "lose" and "loose" up in a dictionary, since they both are used in lots of different ways and in multiple idioms.
The difference between "v" and "w." In English, "v" and "w" are two distinct letters and are not interchangeable. They are even pronounced differently. For instance, many Swedes pronounce "vi" (the ubiquitous UNIX editor) with the same broad "w"-sound as in "welcome," when it really should be pronounced with the short, more flat "v"-sound as in the Swedish word "vatten." (I will add a Swedish example of the "w"-sound as soon as I can get hold of a Swedish dictionary with the phonetics of the pronunciation included.)
Words with different meaning. For us Swedes, it can be confusing that the same words are used differently in each language. For instance, if you want to translate the Swedish word "effektiv," you should use "efficient" and not "effective." "Efficient" means "producing a satisfactory result without wasting time or resources," while "effective" means "having the desired effect; producing the intended result." Some examples:
| Swedish word | Similar, but wrong English word | Correct English word |
|---|---|---|
| effektiv | effective | efficient |
| säker (på något) | secure (safe) | certain (of something) |
| kontrollera ("kolla upp") något | control (to steer or direct something) | check (something) |
| isolera (ett hus) | isolate (one from the others) | insulate (a house) |
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