Foot in Mouth

Normally when it comes to language slip-ups, it's me laughing at me. I've gotten used to Swedes speaking correctly when talking in English, especially in an official capacity. The odd Swenglish grammar rule creeps in, but generally they are pretty much on the money. Therefore I was a bit surprised to hear a couple of gems on public address systems recently. Sitting on the train from Kiruna a few weeks back, I heard a public address announcement every time that we were approaching a station. The announcement would say which station was next and then which station we would be travelling towards. The announcements were first made in Swedish and then repeated again in English, to be helpful. The first time I wasn't really paying a lot of attention. I had heard and understood the Swedish announcement so had kind of tuned out when the English version came. I thought that I had simply mis-heard. Coming into the next station it was the same announcement, and the same use of words. No mistaking this time. "After Gällivare, we will be moving against Boden". Moving against ? What, are we in the process of invading Boden ? That was news to me. I should pay more attention to the nightly tv news, although I was pretty certain that there wasn't a state of war between the town of Boden and the rest of the country. So there had to be another explanation. There was, but it was such a rookie language mistake that it was completely unexpected from a Swede. It's the sort of mistake I would have made, going in the other direction.

Previously I've spoken about words with multiple meanings. You can't simply translate a sentence without knowing the subject matter and context, as that can affect the choice of translate words.In SFI, due to it's basic nature and short time period, you generally only learn on meaning for each word. As time goes by you gradually pick up other meanings for that word, but that takes time. I would have expected a Swede who had grown up with a formal English language training, and who would have been surrounded by English tv etc, do have picked up most of those simple double meanings. The fact that he repeated the same mistake serveral times, at every station in fact, suggests otherwise. Back to the declaration of war public address. The word that the Swedish announcer had translated into English was "mot". Now, strictly speaking, he wasn't wrong. Mot is a strange word which almost has opposite meanings, so it's rather important to get the context of the sentence correct. It does indeed mean "against", in the right situation. However, it also means "towards", and I'm pretty such that this was the intended message. It just surprised me that a native Swede wouldn't have listened to himself and thought that it sounded a bit strange. Made for a more amusing journey.

On Tuesday I flew down to Stockholm for a short business meeting. As with the train, public announcements are given first in Swedish and then in English. On the plane, the English version is typically a highlights package of the preceeding Swedish announcement. Again, if I've already gotten the message from the Swedish announcement, I tend to tune out for the English. The Swedish plane announcements are really good language training because you generally know what they are going to be talking about, epecially the safety demonstration. I must be the only person on the plane hanging on to every word during the safety demonstration. I already know the procedure, I just like the feeling of understanding the language. Anyway, we landed in Stockholm and there came an announcement while I was starting to get myself organised for getting off the plane. So I didn't really listen to the Swedish announcement, or for the English version when it started. I was getting off the plane so didn't really care what they had to say. Until I heard the flight attendant happily announce in English that "We are mostly happy to have you fly with us". Wait a minute. Mostly ???? What do you mean Mostly ? Don't leave me hanging like that. You can't go around saying that you are Mostly happy about being with someone and then not clarify the situation. Which was it ? Were you all only partly happy that I was on the plane ? Had I done something to offend the entire airline ? Or were all of you happy except for a couple of you ? Which one of you wasn't happy that I was on the plane ? I'd like to know for next time if it was the pilot. A pretty simply and innocent mistake. No less than the mistakes I make everytime I open my mouth. But, I'm not in front of a microphone. Again, it gave me a smile. Mostly.