Tågskryt

Tågskryt is a word that has gained currency fast in the last decade or so. It refers to the increasingly common practice of casually dropping a gentle little humble brag about choosing to take the train. Fuelled by a growing awareness of climate change, tågskryt refers to that little boost of social capital you get from taking the train – and from making sure everyone knows about it. If you ask us, it’s a very Swedish phenomenon. Not just because it relies on a common cultural appreciation of the virtues of train travel, but also because it is something that you mention just enough to be noticed — and never more than that. It’s gentle, caring and subtle – i.e. Swedish in every way!

Flygskam

If taking the train is worthy of boasting, then flying has the opposite effect – and that’s flygskam. Literally flight shame. This word describes the sense of guilt or social pressure associated with flying because of its environmental impact. The term emerged in response to a growing public awareness of aviation’s carbon footprint and has influenced real travel behaviour, encouraging people to question whether air travel is necessary and how they can reduce the number of flights they take. In fact, the growing aversion to flying in Sweden has even led to the launch of new overnight train routes, including a connection between Stockholm and Berlin.

Smultronställe

Literally ‘wild strawberry place,’ smultronställe refers to a personal favourite spot – often a place discovered by chance when travelling. It might be a quiet beach, a lakeside café or a hidden viewpoint. The word captures the idea of travel as something intimate and personal, where meaning comes from discovery rather than scale or distance. While the first two words in this list are relatively new, smultronställe has been around for a while and can be considered one of those classic words that provides an insight into the Swedish mentality. It is even the name of a film by legendary Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman from 1957 – a road movie that takes us on a journey of personal discovery between Stockholm and Lund.

Upptäcktsfärd

Meaning ‘a journey of discovery,’ upptäcktsfärd describes travel driven by curiosity rather than necessity or efficiency. It can refer to an ambitious expedition, but just as often it’s used for something modest: exploring a new neighbourhood, visiting an unfamiliar island, or taking an unplanned route simply to see what lies ahead. It’s a term that sounds grandiose, yet it’s often used in everyday speech with a twinkle in the eye. It places emphasis on learning, observation, and openness to the unexpected, suggesting that the value of travel lies in what you notice and discover along the way, not in how far you go or how impressive the destination might seem.

Ute och cyklar

While trains are a big part of life in Sweden, so too are bicycles – and so it’s no surprise that cycling and bicycle culture have given rise to a fair few idioms in the Swedish language. One of the most common and most beloved is ute och cyklar which literally means to be out cycling. This one isn’t really about travel at all – instead, it evokes the image of someone pedalling off in the wrong direction, well away from where they should be. As an expression, it’s typically light-hearted and friendly rather than harsh or judgemental, and it is most often used in conversation to gently point out an error in reasoning or assumption. 

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Snakkehoved

Snakkehoved is one of those delightfully simple Danish words that means precisely what it says – somebody who talks a lot. It combines the words snakke (to talk) and hoved (head) and gives us a versatile noun that we can use for anyone who enjoys a good chat and usually has plenty to say. It’s similar to chatterbox in English – not necessarily negative in its connotations, although that of course will depend on context and intonation.

For something a bit sharper and more ironic, Danish also has sludrechatol – literally chatter cabinet, a word that’s also used to refer to somebody who talks a lot, but this time also loaded with the suggestion that what they have to say is mostly nonsense.

Træls

This Danish word quite simply describes something that’s annoying, exasperating, frustrating or even just boring. It originates from the word træl (slave) and has likely been extrapolated from the longer phrase “en træls arbejde” (a slave’s work). Specifically, the word træl was used to describe people who were captured on Viking raids in other countries and then brought back to Scandinavia and forced into labour. Nowadays, træl in this sense is considered archaic and it is rarely used in everyday speech or writing – although it does pop up in Viking settings and in Danish translations of the bible.

The word is also specific to the region of Jutland, meaning it can indicate where in Denmark a speaker is from. This can make it extra tricky to translate as it both carries information about the speaker and may also correspond to a wide range of possible words in the target language, all depending on the context in which it’s used!

Rødgrød med fløde!

If you’ve ever asked a Dane about the Danish language, chances are they’ve asked you to try and say this phrase. It’s a bit of a tongue twister and notoriously difficult for non-Danes to master. The actual phrase itself is the name of a dessert. The literal translation in English would be red (berry) porridge with cream. A delightful mix of red berries – like strawberries, raspberries or currants – cooked down with sugar and thickened with potato starch or cornstarch. It’s usually served chilled with a generous splash of heavy cream on top, making it a refreshing treat, especially in the summer.

Easy to eat, but not so easy to say!

The reason this expression is so difficult is that it features numerous occurrences of two peculiarities of Danish pronunciation: (1) Ø is a rounded vowel sound that doesn’t exist in English and (2) In Danish, Ds that come after consonants are softened and pronounced differently. Many international speakers mistake this sound for an L and have trouble producing it correctly.

Pyt

This short and sweet little Danish word has been touted by some as one of the reasons why Danes are amongst the happiest people in the world. That is because, beyond their embrace of hygge and life’s small pleasures, they are also quick to let go of small annoyances.

In just three letters, pyt tells the listener not to worry. Relax. Forget about it. Pyt med det! Whatever it is, it’s not the end of the world. In general conversation, this simple word is used to quickly diffuse tension, provide reassurance or simply move on from an unpleasant or potentially tense situation. A quick little pyt or pyt med det is all it takes to draw a line in the sand.

According to one expat who writes about his experiences in Denmark, some schools have even tried to encourage use of this word as a means of conflict resolution: https://buff.ly/Y1C4I7O

Which one was your favourite?

Return to our Nordic Hub for more insights into Nordic culture, language and everyday life.

The post Fun Danish Expressions appeared first on Comunica.

In a previous blog post, we took an in-depth look at the practice of game localisation. For this edition, we thought we would hone in on the industry in the Nordic region. Both to consider some of the exciting companies shaping the sector from northern Europe, and to look at some of the specific challenges they face.

Gaming Goes Global – and Nordic, Too

For decades, video games were strongly associated with Japan and later the United States. Huge companies like Nintendo and PlayStation dominated a market which was largely centred around bulky console and home computers.

But the global proliferation of mobile devices and developments within computer and internet technology have changed that in recent decades. Today, there are well over 2000 games development studios worldwide and the industry as a whole is worth around $220 billion at present. This is forecasted to grow to more than $580 billion by 2030.

Within the Nordic Region, Sweden is the industry front-runner with around 300 game developers. Finland comes in a close second at around 200 studios, while Denmark and Norway each have somewhere between 15 to 20 prominent studios working within games development.

These companies have largely taken advantage of market developments in order to conquer corners of the sector that exist outside of the traditional industry core. Many produce games for mobile devices, for example, latching on to the growing demand for games that can be enjoyed in on-the-go settings like the bus or train, or which boast a connected element through integration with social media.

Many are also involved in cutting-edge and emerging technologies, such as VR and augmented reality gaming, as well as multiplayer games that fully exploit the capabilities of faster internet speeds and the global reach of the gaming industry.

Top of the Leader Board

But just who are the big players within the world of Scandinavian and Nordic gaming?

Let’s take a look at some of the companies racking up points and climbing the global leader board both in Sweden and beyond.

King

Initially launched in Stockholm as Midasplayer.com in 2003, this company had a shaky start before it underwent a rebranding and transitioned into social gaming around 2009. Identifying an emerging trend for games on social media platforms – where players can share scores and use games as a conduit for interaction and connectedness – the company launched its popular game Bubble Witch Saga in 2009.

Building on its initial success and the innovative saga model it had created, the company later launched the mobile gaming sensation Candy Crush Saga on Facebook in 2012. This game quickly took the world by storm, racking up four million players in just a few weeks. The game remains popular even today and enjoys iconic status as one of the most successful mobile games of the modern era. As of 2021, it had more than 250 million users.

Rovio

Rovio is a Finnish video game developer which first began to take shape when three students from the Helsinki University of Technology entered a game development competition sponsored by Nokia and Hewlett-Packard. The students went on to sell their winning game, King of the Cabbage World, which was rebranded as Mole War and is recognised today as one of the first commercial real-time multiplayer video games.

Like King, however, Rovio is most well-known not for their first game but for one that came further down the line – in this case, their 52nd creation. In 2009, they released the colourful puzzle game Angry Birds on the iPhone App store. By 2012, it had reached a whopping one billion downloads and later went on to spawn no fewer than two movies, reams of merchandise, a mini-golf park in the US and even an Angry Birds Land in Särkänniemi, Finland.

Today Rovio focuses mostly on making games related to Angry Birds. They have five studios and employee around 480 people.

Resolution Games

What unites both King and Rovio is that they were quick to spot emerging markets within the industry and create fun and unique content for that corner of the market. Resolution Games is now set to continue that trend by focusing entirely on the latest facet of the games sector – VR and augmented reality.

Founded in 2015 and based in Stockholm, Resolution Games has won multiple awards over the years. It has been named one of the top-five hottest companies in Sweden and it has been celebrated for their innovation within VR and AR. In the words of the company itself, their mission is to bring players inside the game through a “world-class catalogue of titles that brings players into the richest VR and AR worlds possible.”

Bringing Nordic Games to the World

The Nordic region has proven to be a fertile environment for video games development thanks largely to its great digital infrastructure and creative heritage. But it takes deft translators to bring these creations to the world and allow them to flourish. And they will always face plenty of challenges along the way. To name just a new examples:

Conserving Creativity

One of the reasons why Angry Birds and Candy Crush are so beloved is they have their own unique and quirky identities and universes. But playful and idiomatic language is notoriously difficult to translate, especially when space restrictions may apply. One of the key skills a video game translator needs to possess is therefore a creative flair and an ability to think outside the box.

Untangling Code

Familiarity with code and how video game files are structured is also important. Agencies need to be able to cleanly separate in-game text from code so that nothing gets disrupted in the process. Otherwise, you run the risk of having bugs introduced or your UI layouts disturbed at the translation stage. So make sure to work with an agency that understands these pitfalls and has solutions in place.

Multiplayer Support

As well as challenges, the sector is also brimming with opportunities. One of the most interesting areas to watch is multiplayer support. Many games today host entire communities and social spaces, allowing players to connect with fellow gamers from across the globe. New translation tools and methods can help support this process and we are very excited to see what possibilities may open up here for translators and translation technology.

Are you a video game developed in the Nordic region or elsewhere? Why not get in touch to hear more about how we can help bring your creations to the world, or to chat about a possible collaboration? Contact us today!

The post Translation and the Nordic Video Game Sector appeared first on Comunica.

But did you know that in the Nordics, advent is also associated with storytelling? It all began in 1957, when Sweden’s national broadcaster first aired a serialised advent programme for children, every morning at 7:55 from 1 to 24 December. The tradition quickly spread to the other countries in the region, and before long it had made the leap onto television.

Today, advent calendar programmes are broadcast on the radio, aired on television and even made available as podcasts and in other formats. They are a cherished and beloved part of the Christmas season for many, and a much healthier alternative to starting each day with a piece of chocolate – although that is naturally also a popular tradition in the Nordics as well!

Read on to learn more about the history of this tradition and the form it takes today!

Advent in Sweden

The show that kicked it all off was Barnens adventskalender (Children’s Advent Calendar). Each five-minute episode featured children singing Christmas songs, chatting about their preparations, and describing the picture behind that day’s calendar door. It was a programme that stood out for its participatory format, with listeners at home able to follow along with the paper calendars they got included in the weekly radio guide.

A few years later, Sweden’s national public television broadcaster Sveriges Television (SVT) adopted the advent calendar format for television. Beginning in 1960 with a series called Titteliture, a 24-episode production aired daily from December 1 to 24 became what is now known as SVT’s Julkalender (The Christmas Calendar). Each year since then, a new story – often festive, adventurous, or whimsical – is broadcast as a way of counting down to Christmas Eve, in what has become a much-anticipated television tradition for children and families across the country. The Julkalendern on television typically consists of 24 short episodes aired daily, and the series has become a staple of Swedish Advent culture.

The 2025 edition of the show is called Tidstjuven (the Time Thief) and follows 11-year-old Clint, who hates Christmas after his father vanished during the holiday season five years prior. In the series, Clint discovers a pair of magical time-viewing binoculars left behind by a mysterious man. These allow him to see his dad stuck in the past and embark on adventures to rescue him, accompanied by one of Sweden’s most famous kings, the corpulent and clumsy Gustav Vasa. The show combines storylines for both adults and children, bringing everyone in the family together for 15 minutes of Christmas magic a day.

Advent in Denmark

Inspired by the format’s success in Sweden, Denmark embraced the idea of a broadcast advent calendar, known in Danish as a julekalender, turning the countdown to Christmas into a nationwide viewing tradition. The very first Danish julekalender was broadcast on Danish television in 1962, under the title Historier fra hele verden (Stories from Around the World). Each episode was in two parts – first, there was a short film in which actors mimed out a scene narrated by a female voice. This was then followed by a short documentary on how children live in other parts of the world. In other words, it was a festive and charming mix of humour, culture and entertainment – and the foundation for a whole new Christmas tradition in Denmark.

It wasn’t until five years later, however, that the genre really captured the attention and imagination of the Danish public with the broadcast of a series entitled Kender du Decembervej? (Do You Know December Street?). This show featured puppets and a cheerful mouse character named Magnus Tagmus, whose catchy song helped cement the series as a well-known and much-loved holiday favourite. It was informal and down-to-earth in style, and has been rebroadcast on several occasions as one of the most beloved advent calendars to have ever aired on Danish television.

The Danish approach to the advent calendar tradition has also been notably diverse. In 1990, the broadcaster TV 2 entered the julekalender space, creating an alternative version of the Christmas calendar series that typically targeted both children and adults. One of the most iconic of these is The Julekalender (1991), a comedy about three elves who travel from America to Denmark to save Christmas from evil, money-loving creatures called Nå-såre. The show combines English and Danish dialogue and draws a great deal of its humour from the mangled Danglish spoken by its protagonists – which unsurprisingly makes it a firm favourite for many of us here at Comunica!

Over the years, two other famous advent calendars in Denmark have been Vinterbyøster and Jullerup Færgeby, both of which built on the previously established tradition of combining live-action characters with colourful and charismatic puppets – giving the shows a playful and whimsical feel. The puppets often served as comic sidekicks, mischievous troublemakers, or helpful friends, enriching the narrative and helping to bring the small-town or magical settings of each calendar to life. Their popularity stemmed from the memorable characters, humorous interactions and heart-warming stories, and today they conjure up feelings of nostalgia and festive comfort in many Danes who remember them from their childhoods.

Advent in Norway

In Norway, the tradition of advent stories on television did not begin until 1979 when NRK broadcast Jul i Skomakergata (Christmas on Shoemaker Street) – a gentle, heart-warming series starring popular Norwegian actor Henki Kolstad as cobbler Jens Petrus Andersen. Over the course of its 24 episodes, Jens is visited by a series of friends, neighbours and visitors with shoes that need mending before Christmas. Their interactions with Jens give a slice-of-life feel to the narrative and offer a window into the community’s everyday rhythms. The show has been rerun many times over the years, and in 2006 it was parodied by Norwegian comedian Zahid Ali who transposed the action to a multicultural street in Oslo and used the format as a vehicle to address modern social problems such as racism and cultural clashes. This reworking of the show is a testament to its enduring position in the Norwegian popular imagination.

In recent years, one modern twist on the format to emerge in Norway (and Denmark) has been 24-stjerners julekalender, a prime-time programme on NRK that adapts the traditional 24-episode advent structure into a light-hearted celebrity competition. Instead of following a scripted narrative, the series features 24 well-known Norwegian personalities who take part in one Christmas-themed challenge per day from 1 to 24 December, with one participant eliminated in each episode. Hosted by Markus Neby, the show combines familiar advent calendar rhythms with reality-TV conventions, humour and festive spectacle and it has attracted large audiences since its debut. The show is a nice example of how the format continues to adapt and move with the times, taking influence from global television trends while simultaneously remaining anchored in a distinctly Nordic media tradition.

Discover More in Our Nordic Hub

Are you interested in learning more about Christmas in the Nordics? Check out our article about Nordic Christmas foods or our post about Nordic Christmas traditions.

And if you can think of a particular tradition or quirk we haven’t already written about, send us an email and we’ll add to our list!

Glædelig Jul / God Jul / Merry Christmas!

The post Nordic Advent Shows appeared first on Comunica.

Some quick facts and figures:

• Danes spend 46% more per trip than the European average, while Finns spend 25% more and Swedes 8%.
• Before the pandemic, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway ranked in the world’s top five for outbound travel frequency, with Finland at #1.
• Nordic travel and tourism spending is projected to reach US$20.8 billion in 2025, with growth to nearly US$28 billion by 2030.
• After the pandemic, Nordic outbound travel spending rebounded faster than in Germany, France, or the UK, showing resilience and strong demand for international experiences.

Investments made on marketing and localising for this group will therefore be returned handsomely in the form of more bookings, bigger spends and an enhanced reputation. We have already helped numerous clients to target Nordic travellers, and below you can read some tips and insight on how it’s done best!

Searches Start Local

The first thing you need to understand when targeting Nordic travellers is an apparent paradox at the heart of what they want and how they go about finding it. The thing is, Nordic travellers often seek authentic experiences – they want to feel immersed in another culture and context, and they don’t necessarily like it when everything is handed to them on a silver platter. They want to eat paella in Valencia and Bouillabaisse in Marseille, surrounded by locals, without feeling like they’ve been sucked into a tourist trap.

At the same time, however, studies consistently show that their searches begin in their own language. Despite high levels of English proficiency, the quest for authenticity begins not in a lingua franca or in a foreign tongue, but in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian or Finnish. This means that websites that cater to these languages will be in prime position to soak up those initial queries, even if they then direct visitors onwards to subpages in English. The important thing is to catch web users at the beginning of their search, and to do that – you need to speak their language.

Information Is Gold

Another defining characteristic of Nordic travellers is that they like to be well informed. Rather than simply pick a place and wing it, they tend to research their destinations more thoroughly, carefully plan out activities and take steps to make sure they will get as much out of their holiday as they possibly can. This means the more information they can find on your website, the more likely they are to fall down a rabbit hole and remain on your page for longer, building a stronger relationship with your brand and perhaps ultimately making a booking.

 Of course, the quality of this information is also important. Nordic consumers are discerning, and quick to become mistrustful of anything that might betray a lack of seriousness. Typos and confusing language will quickly be interpreted as red flags, making Nordic users reluctant to trust your brand, product or service. It is therefore important to make sure the text on your website is polished, fluent, up-to-date and free from grammatical errors, typos and other warning signs that might risk eroding confidence.

A good idea might be to include some original copy on your website with texts that directly target Nordic readers. These could cover practical details such as currency exchange rates and information about the local transit system, or they might explore local attractions, tips on when to visit certain sights, and recommendations for great places to eat, drink or sleep. Texts that are designed from the outset to address Nordic concerns and tap into current travel trends in this region will have excellent chances of convincing and converting.

Reviews Build Confidence

We know from our own experience that Nordic travellers place a lot of trust in reviews, and so by making them more accessible on your website, you can do a lot to eliminate doubts and nudge visitors along in their customer journey.

There are various ways you can do this. One is to use an AI feature to automatically translate reviews. This is quick and convenient, and it means that new reviews can be made automatically accessible to users in any language. However, odd turns of phrase and mistakes in the translation can quickly erode the value of these reviews, causing them to be ignored.

Another option is to have a selection of reviews localised professionally on an on-going basis and included in a widget on your website or featured as standalone testimonials. This can be done as part of a post-editing workflow, meaning that AI does the heavy lifting to keep the process quick and affordable, while a human linguist reviews each text to make sure it can serve its purpose. This strikes a good compromise between speed and efficiency, while also taking measures to raise quality and thereby protect the value of these reviews.

Target the Nordics with Us

If you would like to deploy some of the tactics described above and target Nordic travellers, we can help you in a range of different ways. For example, we could begin with a market entry consultation in order to help you better identify your target group on the basis of your existing web traffic, current industry trends and your objectives for the coming year. Next, we can proceed to localise all or parts of your website, and/or create  original copy that addresses specific Nordic concerns or opportunities. We can also help you to create content for a Google Ads campaign, and provide advice on what channels to use and what angle to take.

For more information, check out our case study which shows how we helped a holiday home platform in the Nordics to grow, or head over to our contact page where you can book a free, no-obligation consultation to talk through the options.

We are your linguistic gateway to the Nordics – and we’re ready and waiting to help connect the dots between you and lots more lucrative Nordic travellers!

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Throw Yourself into the Wall

Släng dig i väggen is an expression you might come across in Sweden that literally means to throw yourself into a wall. Stripped from its context, perhaps our first guess at its meaning might be that it is somehow related to the English expression ‘to bang your head against a brick wall’, which we use to express frustration when repeatedly trying to complete a task without success?

Or, maybe it’s like the expression ‘to talk to a brick wall’, which we use when it seems like no matter what we say or how we say it, our message just doesn’t seem to get across?

Well, nope! The closest equivalent in English would actually be ‘go take a hike’ (or the more playful alternative, ‘why don’t you go and take a long walk off a short pier’). If a Swede tells you to throw yourself into a wall, essentially they’ve had enough. You’re annoying them and they can’t take it anymore, they just want rid of you asap. It’s less subtle, less coded and a tad more aggressive than what we would say in English – the Swedes are nothing if not direct, but that’s we love them.

To Slide in on a Shrimp Sandwich

Att glida in på en räkmacka is a tongue-in-cheek remark that refers to somebody who has had it easy in life. If somebody slides in on a shrimp sandwich, they’ve had things handed to them. They’ve been very fortunate through sheer luck or circumstance, without having had to work hard to get to where they are. So as you can see, it is often tinged with connotations of resentment, judgement and an implied respect for the value of hard work.

In English, we might translate this term as being born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth, or we could use the more modern neologism nepo-baby – all depending on the context, of course. And while – like many idioms – the term may sound bizarre initially, it has a very logical origin story. Quite simply, shrimp were once available only to the upper classes, and so consuming them in salads or sandwiches was long seen as a symbol of status. It was therefore perfectly logical that any mention of shrimp would immediately connote wealth, status and, by virtue of these qualities, an easy ride in life.

To Have Ice In Your Stomach

Att ha is i magen literally translates as having ice in your stomach. At first, it almost sounds like it might refer to the state of being very cold (a bit like the English expression to feel the cold in your bones) or perhaps even being unwell (I mean, having ice in your stomach couldn’t possibly be healthy!)

In fact, the expression actually means to remain collected and cool. It is often used to refer to somebody who does not lose their head under pressure, or to encourage somebody to stick to their guns and not cave when things get dicey or difficult. Somebody with ice in their stomach thinks clearly and does not spook easily. Although it might sound odd, the different elements of this phrase can be seen in many English expressions. As we have seen, cool and cold are often used in idioms relating to determination and logical thinking, while the stomach (or gut) is often linked to our emotions and resolve – as in the English expression gut feeling.

You’ve Planted Your Last Potato

Du har satt din sista potatis! Meaning what, exactly? You’ve finished your work on the farm for today and you can now go home and put your feet up for some fika and a nice rest?

Um, not exactly. This idiom is actually what you might hear from a Swede if you really push them to their limits. Despite the whimsical images of bucolic countryside life it might conjure up, this is actually quite a menacing idiom, akin to the English phrases ‘you’re done for’ or ‘you’ve blown your last chance’. If your boss says it, then it probably means you’re fired. If a gangster says it then, uhh , probably best to pack your bags and skip town.

You’ve planted your last potato because your productive days are about to be over … once and for all.

So there you go – four fun and unique Swedish idioms. Which one was your favourite?

Head back to our Knowledge Hub for more cultural and linguistic insights, as well as other insightful articles about translation best practices, the value of localisation, and how we deal with culturally-loaded terms and creative wordplay in translation.

The post Unique Swedish Idioms appeared first on Comunica.