Kicking While Frisky & Sweaty in Swedish

Sometimes when I say words in Swedish, Tom spontaneously responds like a parrot. For example, I just was talking about the book I’m reading: Störst av Allt it’s called. And Tom goes: “Stewart-Is-Bald.” Then I go, “Störst av Allt” and Tom repeats, “Stewart-is-bald.”

I’m offering up this example to level-set the challenge I undertook when I thought it would be a great idea to teach Tom to say “Friskis & Svettis sparker” in Swedish.

I determined this phrase would be super for Tom when I was reading the aforementioned Störst av Allt. The narrator was describing a chubby teenager in the book named Dennis. Dennis immigrated from Uganda to Sweden and he wore lots of gold chains. The teenaged narrator, aghast at the cognitive dissonance of it all, wrote that “Dennis couldn’t even dance. All he did were these jazzercise kicks.” 

I translated “jazzercise kicks” from “Friskis & Svettis sparker” but honestly it's funnier in Swedish. Friskis & Svettis sounds hilarious to my non-native Swedish ears. It’s the name of an old Swedish jazzercise brand and it sounds like “Frisky and Sweaty.” You go to their classes to get your friskies and your sweaties on. And do kicks.

Friskis & Svettis, where you do sparker

Anyway, I related the Dennis anecdote to Sara and she cracked up as much I did when I read it the first time. Friskis & Svettis sparker. You can just picture the fat kid in the gold chains at the high school dance earnestly kicking away. It’s as heartwarming as it is funny.

So at dinner I suggested to Tom that we add a few important words to his Swedish repertoire. He was totally game, which is just one reason he's the best husband ever. Tom’s Swedish consists of 11 words at any given time. As soon as he learns a new word, he forgets one so this grand total never changes. 

It didn’t go well. 

Tom tried really hard or pretended to try really hard but the next day, when he said whatever he said to me that was supposed to be Friskis och Svettis sparker -- I did not understand him. At all. I stared at him desperately trying to put the pieces together and finally had to ask him what he was trying to say. You’d think that I would have connected the dots if anyone was going to connect the dots.

Friday night was Swedish Club night so I brought up to the Swedes my abject failure in the teaching-Tom-to-say-Friskis-&-Svettis-sparker department. Lilje from Göteborg said that it has to do with the melody -- which was something I had not thought of before. It’s not just a matter of getting the words mostly right, you have to say them on the right beat somehow. 

Let me explain. I think in general it goes fine when a non-swedish speaker just tries to say a word or two in Swedish. I think it’s even easier if they try to say a phrase that would be normal for a non-swedish speaker to learn how to say, like “how are you?” or “where is the toilet?”  But if you’re trying to say “Friskis & Svettis sparker” which despite its hilarious nature is not usual or expected in any way and completely out of context … yeah, you have to get the melody right.

I remember a Swedish teacher in Sweden telling me a long long time ago that most people, unless they learn Swedish when they are young enough, never quite get the melody right. While I’m sure it’s not perfect by a long stretch, I think my instinct for the melody is my only saving grace when I speak Swedish. I f* up almost everything else. That’s why I can’t write Swedish for shit, because in writing, my only advantage flies out the window and all my mistakes pick up an unseemly glare. 

But I have no idea how you teach or learn a melody. I have no idea why the words need to flow like they do. And I have no idea how to figure out which ones should be staccato or allegretto or spiral into some sort of mid-sentence crescendo. But there’s a right way to do it, otherwise it can be really hard to understand. 

So unless Tom can come up with a real Swede to help him, he will have to stick with his current 11 word selection, which includes “Vad är klockan?”, “Helan går” and other classics.

PS: Inexplicably, the English translation of Störst av Allt is “Quicksand.” I guess maybe it’s a better title in English than “Greatest of All,” but it still threw me for a loop when I was looking it up to write this. It’s kind of like “Men som Hatar Kvinnor,” which is a terrible title if you ask me. It means “Men who Hate Women.” The English ‘translation' — “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”-- is a million percent better.