My personal offbeat and very specific hobby: collecting photos of electrical warning signs in other languages.
"Hoppet är det sista som dör" / Hope is the last thing to die
When we had gotten back to Stockholm three weeks ago I saw the first graffiti on our walk. “Clearly this says ‘Sluts kiss here’”, I proclaimed to my partner. I was swiftly informed that it actually means “Stop peeing here”. Later I was prepared when we came across the second one in his town.
I finally did go to the library and get some actual language learning books to supplement repeatedly telling my partner “Jag vill äter din potatis, jordbrukpojke!”. I can now read and understand the entirety of “På lätt svenska 1″, the contents of which include one short story about two friends who like to meet at the coffee shop, and visit each other with snacks when ill, and another about an immigrant kid who’s scared to go to his first day of school. I’m partial to Rivstart A1 + A2, which is in Swedish and obviously intended for a class with a teacher, but it’s a lot more fun to just do the activities with my partner than wade through “Colloquial Swedish: The Complete Course for Beginners,” which is far denser and heavier on the pronunciation and grammar than my potatis-obsessed mind is willing to put up with. Pronunciation is my great downfall. I was a diehard German major in university, and thus my brain will not unclench itself from applying German pronunciation to anything and everything on the Germanic language family tree (but my partner claims I have progressed from speaking with a German accent to a German-Finnish accent). Syllable stress is an eternal mystery. But I shall persevere, in the name of someday being able to communicate with my partner’s grandmother, who speaks about three words of English but doesn’t let that stop her from carrying on in Swedish at me anyways.
I cannot get over the fact that an elevator is called a "hiss" in Swedish.