Hmmmm. Can't resist showing you the difference between English grammar and Swedish grammar, by taking a Swedish sentence and translating it word for word into English. Or, actaully, to give you an idea of what I'm talking about, I think I'll write down the English sentence first and the "Swenglish" sentence afterwards:

English: When the police officers/PCs had stopped him, they didn't ask him to show them his ID.

Swenglish: When the polices/the policemens had stopped him, so asked they him not to show them his leg.

Okay, in Swedish police officers are "poliser", but Swedish kids have been taught that they should say "policeman" or policewoman". The plural form of "man" in English is of course "men", and it is almost the same in Swedish - one "man", two "män". But Swedish kids have learnt that you must always use the "s" to make the plural form in English, which is why they will say "polices" or "policemens".

We don't have the do-construction in Swedish. Swedish kids, at least the not-so-bright ones, hate it and can't use it.

The English construction "When I..., then..." is "När jag..., så..." Most Swedish kids do understand that our "så" can't always be translated into "so", but some not so bright kids don't get it.

In some clauses the Swedish language places the verb before the noun. Most Swedish kids really understand that you can't do that in English, but some kids just can't learn it. A Swedish kid with learning difficulties might say "Saw you it?" instead of "Did you see it?".

And finally, the leg... :rolleyes: Well, we use few abbreviations in Swedish, but one we do use is "leg". This is short for "legitimation", which means ID. Since we use few abbreviations in Swedish, we are, I guess, sort of proud of the ones we have, because most Swedes realize that the English language has so many abbreviations. Our abbreviations make us feel "up to date" and "international". So, yes, Swedes happily conclude that since "leg" is an abbreviation in Swedish, it must also be the international abbreviation of "identification". You wouldn't believe the sheer number of Swedes who will happily go abroad and ask people in other countries if they want to see their "leg".

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Do you want to see my leg?

Oh well. But it really could be worse. English and Swedish are really quite closely related. When the Danes ruled much of England a thousand years ago, the Danish and English languages were sufficiently similar that the Danes could speak their own language and be understood by the people in England, or at least that is what I have read. And Danish and Swedish were of course extremely similar in those days. Danish and Swedish are still very similar when it comes to grammar and vocabulary, but the pronunciation is very different.

As for English and Swedish, our grammar systems still resemble each other a lot. Our vocabularies are not that similar any more, however.

Ann

P.S. So many Swedes can't say that they've been "in hospital". They will say that they have been "on the hospital" instead.

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Fiddler on the hospital?