This week I had a happy revelation when trying to translate a document we received in the mail.  One line said “Gift” and next to that was my name.  At first I thought, “Did the hubs order me a present?”  Nah.  He didn’t.  This was a credit document of some type.  That realization led me to my Google Translate app.  In the app you can take a picture of the document and it will translate quite a bit of it.  The word that popped up over “gift” was “married”.  Aha!  So, the Swedes think of marriage as a gift.  What a lovely sentiment…or so I thought.

By happy coincidence, that same night we were discussing family relations in my Svenska class. I asked the instructor if the word “gift” really did stand for marriage. She got a funny look on her face and quickly began sketching on the board. First, a heart. That was a good sign, and confirmed my earlier translation. Then…a bottle with a skull and crossbones on it. Poison!! Huh?? That’s right folks, the word for marriage is also the word for poison. Check out this screenshot from the official Google Translate website:

I think I mentioned once before that I suspect Sweden purposely uses English words in unorthodox ways. Maybe I’m wrong, but now I know to be careful when speaking about gifts, as my sentence last night indicated I was getting some poison and not that I was married. Oh well…

Until next time…