Translating Names of Ikea Products from Swedish to English - Back To School Edition
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- Опубліковано 5 вер 2018
- As college freshmen are getting situated in their dorms, the chances are good that back to school preparations will feature at least one trip to Ikea. I know ours did. And since Ikea's arrival to the US years ago, we have returned time and time again to affordably and consciously decorate our homes.
Nowadays, one of our silliest past times is to go into an IKEA store and have Lisa translate the names of products from Swedish into English. It's so funny because the names almost never make sense to the product. On top of that, it seems like Ikea creates the most difficult words to pronounce, making it a great place for a Swedish speaker to people watch and listen to unassuming Americans try to phonetically pronounce Swedish words. We often burst out laughing in the middle of the store as because it's so funny. So for this month's Swedish/American video, we wanted to duplicate that.
Lauren has gone through Ikea's website and picked out items from the Back to School Recommendations for Lisa to translate on the fly.
This reminded me that my dad once tried to order something from Ikea on the phone and he had to state the name of the product, but the system didn't recognize the word, so my dad just kept yelling a random swedish word at the phone, trying to pronounce it in 5 million different ways... :D
that sounds hilarious
It was. :D
If you don't speak Swedish it's literally impossible to order things from Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd over phone.
I remeber i was put in a long telephone que and and i got realy fedup when it did not heard what i said so i spontanuosly said a mening of realy bad words i don't want to repeat here (but it had probably made Sylvester Stallone An exemplary sunday scool boy in that movie when hi curse to the machine to get toilet paper...) to the machine and it answeared something like "You want to talk to Ronny S...." So, Poor Ronny has to come when somebody curse heavily instead of even calling his name... obviously according to the automat... ha ha
That sounds so fun! haha:D
IKEA names are awesome! Here is a nice little list of how they names their products. Enjoy! :)
• Bathroom items = Name of Swedish watercourses/lakes
• Bedclothes = Flowers and plants
• Beds, wardrobes, hall furnitures = Places in Norway
• Bookshelves = Occupations and Scandinavian boy names
• Bowls, vases, candles and candle holders = Swedish places, adjectives, spices, herbs, fruits and berries
• Boxes, wall decorations, paintings and frames, clocks = Swedish slang terms and Swedish places
• Children's products = Mammals, birds, adjectives
• Desks, chairs, swivel chairs = Scandinavian boy names
• Fabrics, curtains = Scandinavian girl names
• Garden furnitures = Scandinavian islands
• Kitchen accessories = Fish, mushrooms and adjectives
• Lights = Units of measurement, seasons, months, days, shipping and nautical terms, Swedish place names
• Carpets = Danish place names
• Sofas, armchairs, chairs and dining tables = Swedish place names
marcus har hållit länge
Tjenare från Jokkmokk! 😁❤️ btw, ”Fjälla” can also mean fiancee/wife/wifey, or swedish älskling/fästmö/fru ☺️
JOKKMOKK! Tjena! HAHAH seriously??! Lisa didn't have any idea. It's kind of an interesting nickname for your significant other, right? 😂😂😂
Fjälla, as in fiancee or wife, is a really old term that comes from all the different smaller towns in Sweden. Not used that much in the bigger cities like Stockholm or Gothenburg. It’s like old slang(called mål in Swedish) used by previous generations, and a few words still live on
Well ya learn something new everyday. Would you say it's a northern Sweden thing? I live in a small town in skaraborg and we have some serious dialect going on here but I've definitely never heard fjälla used to mean fästmö.
Yeah, it could be related to the north. We say it up in Darlarna at least
Jag kanske är en ignorant Stockholmare, men jag trodde att fjälla användes mer som en nedlåtande term mot kvinnor, typ ”tjena fjällan”. 👀 Är jag helt ute och cyklar nu?
The naming is not random as you suspected. They actually have quite the comprehensive naming convention/system.
Not to go all to detail but, here goes.
Sofas, couches, garden furniture, bookshelves, coffee tables, doorknobs, media storage : are named after Swedish places such as for an example, Norråker which is a coffee table is named after the a locality in northern Jämtland county.
Chairs and dining tables : Named after Swedish and Finnish places, see above.
Carpets : Danish places
Desks and chairs : Men's names
Fabrics, materials and curtains : Whamen's names
There is plenty of other categories left but I cba to write them all down.
This is fun, ladies! Subscribed 👍
Rememinded me of a silly old joke: if you pronounce six names of Ikea items, you will summon Satan, but you'll have to assemble him first
1:25 It could also mean girlfriend, or fiance, in oldfashioned slang.
2:18 It's a series of products with the same name, there is a couple of whipping bowls with this name too, and this colander that looks similar.
2:25 I would translate flitighet to "diligence".
3:04 Jämka could be like adjust to make something even, conciliate.
3:25 "Stolpa" is to walk in a certain way, like very stiff and with a stride with big steps, like your legs are like big poles.
3:47 Skäggört is a plant called "Rocky Mountain penstemon" (I didn't know that, I looked it up on Wikipedia). But yes, literally, it is beard herb.
4:30 Urskog is forest that hasn't been exploited by humans, no forestry
5:07 It's something that takes a lot of effort, like a journey that isn't easy. Like in Lord of the rings... the journey to Mordor was a "strapats".
6:24 Ruter is also slang from.. like the 40's or something. When someone got "ruter" in them, they're like determined, and have guts. "Den fjällan är det ruter i!" (That's a determined gal)
7:06 The think you couldn't remember is perhaps splash water on something. Like if you wash your hands, and you don't do it properly, with soap, "Han tvättade inte händerna, han blaskade bara av dem i vattnet" (He didn't wash his hands, he just splashed some water on them).
"Blaska" also means news paper(tabloid)
and "svampig" would most litterally be spongy
Isn't "Plaska" splash, not "Blaska"?
Mosch Both, but "plaska" is more like if you're in the water, like a kid in a tub or a pool playing, "Bebisen satt i vattnet och plaskade" ("The baby was sitting in the water splashing , the word "plaska" has something playful about it, while the word "blaska" doesnt'. "Förr i tiden duschade eller badade man inte dagligen, många blaskade bara av sig med lite vatten" (Back in the day, people didn't shower daily, many just splashed some water on themselves".
Fjälla is also ro remove the scales from a fish, that should have come before you talked about it on humans.
I took my Swedish friend to our local Ikea because she missed their coffee so much and didn't have a car. A quick trip to Ikea ended up being a whole afternoon of pure laughter (at least for us Spaniards) because of the translations. We thought most names were cities/neighbourhoods/random proper names 😂😂😂 thank you for reminding me of those good times
I think you did really good especially since you translated everything on the spot and it's not allways easy! Well done and super funny!
There is a "rocking moose"-toy for children called EKORRE. It looks like a moose but "ekorre" actually means squirrel 😂
From french "Écureuil"!
@@damm0014 Possibly, yeah! 😊 In swedish Ek means Oak and Orre is a kind of bird, so it is kind of an odd word, come to think about it 😂
@@damm0014 Actually it's just a strange coincidence that the Swedish and French words sound almost the same! "Écureuil" comes from the Old French "escurel" which also got borrowed into English as "squirrel" but "ekorre" is from the Old Norse "íkorni". Long ago English had the word "aquerne" that was a cognate to the Swedish word. (I LOVE wiktionary.org!)
Amazing fact! you made my day :)
I made the assumption since Swedish has so many adapted words from french.
@@damm0014 That's very true, but the borrowing from French started in the 1600s (~600 years after the English language came under heavy French influence) and in general they didn't affect "basic" words like animal names. They mainly dealt with new concepts and objects in modern and urban society and culture, like in the fields of home decoration, furniture, cooking, theatre, military etc.
Laurens guess on försluta made so much sense!!!
That was my guess also.
Composite words be weird like that
I just discovered this channel and it’s great. Lauren cracks me up! “This is an angry little side table, that most of us have in our homes” hahaha
Omg part two please!? 🙏🏼 I’m at ikea every second weekend, this is entertainment for life. I love you guys
Ingvar Kamprad the founder of IKEA was dyslexic so he came up with a system for naming things so he could keep track of them, so for example Beds would be named after one thing, desks after another and so on. I think nowdays when he's no longer around they removed all the rules.
Also "Fjälla" is also slang for "Girlfriend".
Yasssssss! Lauren speaking Swedish! Precious! Hehe As for the funny indeed names, I was crying, out of laughter! Dear Lis, you are so sunny, smiley, beautiful 😻😻😻
I love you both! You're adorable! Thank you for sharing glimpses into Swedish life and culture, and for making me laugh!
This was so amazingly hilarious. I couldn't think of a better translation for most words, you did really well! Also I had to go to IKEA's website and look some of these products up for myself, I've never thought about the names and how ridiculous they are haha
This is soo fun to watch as a swede! Love it!
I would say that flitighet is diligence
Yes, that is a pretty good translation, but I think Industriousness would be even more accurate. A diligent person might do all the work he is obligated to do, and does it well. If the job only takes three days a week to complete, the diligent person might be perfectly happy with relaxing at home the rest of the week, but an industrious person will find other work to do during his free time. Jag tror det beskriver en flitig person bättre.
You guys are so wonderful
right?! a sense of humor is quite refreshing in this oh so serious world we live in.
Hahaha roligt. My husband always ask me what stuff mean in Ikea but 70% of the items are random words that we definitely don't use 😂
That was adorably awkward and oddly interesting! Nice work both of you
I love these, when your brain recharges...MORE please! lol.
Blaska is also splash... Kind of... Honestly though, all the ikea names is just Sweden trolling the rest of the world and its glorious! 🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪
Or a newspaper, in slang. En blaska.
Plaska inte Blaska!
I’m from Sweden and i’m just going to go with yeeeaaaahhh.... on some of the translations =) nice video!
Thanks! hahah yeeeeeeaaaah, it was quite a challenge for Lisa :)
I just came across you guys! I love you guys! You’re hilarious!
Åh, det här va ju typ det härligaste jag sett! Roliga namn på produkter, kastrullerna sensuell, annons och snitsig eller kanske toalettborsten hejaren 😂
Det finns en toa borste som heter hejaren? Hahahahahaha.
Jag har varit deprimerad i ett par år men era videos fick mig att bli glad för första gången på väldigt länge:) Keep it Up !
It's so fun to see you translate from Swedish! 😂😂😂
This was super funny and I can totally understand Lisa struggling with the translation. I speak Swedish as well, and some of the names for those items are totally ridiculous - even in Swedish. Somebody at IKEA must have had a lot of fun coming up with all those crazy names. 😂🤣😂
"Jokkmokk" is a bit fun actually. It isn't swedish but rather sami (sami the language of the sami, the indegenous people of scandinavia, for you americans think of it like how you would cherokee or inuit).
It is the name of a place that is called with a name that means "winter settlement/homestead" in sami (not going to try to type that name).
However. The word "jokkmokk" itself is interesting. "jokk" is sami for "river", but the "mokk" is under heavy debate - the current prevailing theories are 'turn/bend' (so, "riverbend") or 'land passage' (so, "place where you can walk from the river to another waterway").
I had reason to look this up a year or so ago.
But for the vast majority of swedes it just is "a town in the far north" and evokes feeling of the untounched nature that is heavy with beautiful snow, dense forests and rivers (for a swede these are soothing images - do remember that sweden is roughly at the same latitude as alaska)
You didn't need to write an essay
Essay... you young'uns... when I grew up we used stuff that wasn't limited to only a few hundred characters.
A bit less tounge in cheek - it is a cultural thing, those of us that are used to places where the focus is on discussion tend to prefer to write exhaustive answers (especially those of us that are used to non-always-connected methods) since it reduces the ambiguity and the number of round trips needed. (For me writing messages that hit a couple of dozen of thousands of characters are par for the course, I do aim for brevity here while still being somewhat exhaustive)
But I'll bite - without losing information nor using atrocious shorthands, how would you have phrased the original post?
Thank you Herr U for your "essay". I didn't know that about Jokkmokk and found it very interesting.
Sami people are only indigenous to the NORTHERN PART of Scandinavia, not most of it.
Sami are mostly nomadic people spreading from northern Norway to Murmansk, they are not the indigenous people of Scandinavia. That would be the north germanic people i.e. the danish, norwegian and swedes. I think the Sami people consider the Fennoscandia area their home, which is only a small part of Scandinavia.
You are getting crazy good speaking Swedish, YAY !!!!!!
is this the Swedish joke on the world? lol. I'm literally laughing out loud. A curtain rod with dignity? I love that NONE of the names make any sense. Giggling trash cans. sure what not? Thanks for the laugh loves!!!
xoxoxo
Katie LaLicata dignity: closing the curtain when getting undressed.
I think a lot of the time they just look at the design of a product and what they accociate with it. Like some kind of bucket used in the kitchen might have the shape of a flower, so they name it after a flower.
I love the creativity, I suppose my brain just doesn't work like that, and I think its great! its a fun play words =)
There is actually a naming system, but sometimes exceptions occur. www.businessinsider.com/meaning-of-ikea-product-names-2013-11?r=US&IR=T&IR=T
One big exception would be Billy, which is a bookcase but has a male name.
You guys are just the sweetest.
Thanks for the laughs! Turtle eating aunt? Color me intrigued :D
Fick en reklam från alternativ för Sverige innan videon...jokes on them, nu har de sponsrat en regnbågsfamilj
dags att fixa adblock? jag hade helt glömt bort att reklam kan visas på youtube ^^
Hahah
@@burre01 Det är rätt dumt att fixa adblock om man vill stödja kanalerna och människorna man tittar på.
Vadå regnbågsfamilj?
@@mattiaswestman5589 Adblock är ju bäst
You guys energy is great! 😊😊
You are both so funny. thanks so much for the video you made me laugh
My favorite is Bertil.
(A Swedish name, ~=Burt).
And this is a chair cushion / seat pad...
To me, the association of sitting down on top of a person is hilarious.
I also have a friend called Bertil...😀
"I got it directly from the back to school section" lol
Hahaha så kul! 😂😂😂😍 do one more video 😂
jag måsta bara ta och följa eran kanal, En mycket trevlig kanal, mycket skratt och glädje som ni sprider gör mig glad! // Mattias.
De här va så kul Lisa. Bra gjort så 😂😂😂🥰
Dedär va så kul att kolla på!!
"Skäggört" is a flower, Penstemon strictus. Also called "beardtongue" in english :)
Thanks, but anybody would have guessed it's a flower except this girl...
And you are right you can "jämka" the taxes. It means like correct or even out...or even get closer or starting to agree on something:)
Loved it!
You guys are the cutest couple on youtube after Texan in Tokyo stopped making videos.
That’s crazy!! Can’t believe what these words mean, I’m always amused at the products at ikea when I go
One time me and my family went to IKEA and bought a lamp with the name Snuva, which kind of means cold, as in "get a cold", when you get sick. The funny thing is that I had a cold that day. Maybe not so funny, but whatever
Fjälla: totally agree with the northern connotation of the word. Enadearing, and sometimes degrading term for girl, depending how you use it.
Flitighet: diligent work, but you say it to a kids these days. If you say it to a grown up , it is more endearing. In Småland, it used to be common back in the day, in proverbs hanging on the walls and such.
Stolpa is just a name, I don't think it's an actual word. Just a "hittepå" /pun sort of name.
Dignitet: a noun, but it means "of great importance"
Jokkmokk: what people used to call me when teachers mispronounced my last name in class growing up (sorry Norrland).
Blaska: make a mess with; or play with water. My grand mother used to say it and she's from Skåne.
The catalogue, hmmmm.....I am not fond of the names serving "old frumpy man realness" if you know what I mean. When something is too obvious, like when the design is pretentiously aiming to immulate something Danish, but painfully obviously is Swedish, and you're just like "why do we have to be Danes to be minimal?" I don't remember the series but that's what I thought about anyway. Let them Danes be Danes and we'll visit when we have the time hahaha! We do Sweden so well :)
Hahah bästa videon! // best video Idea ever!
loved this!!
Haha kul det var att kolla på detta! Så sött
Detta var såå kul!!
Bästa jag sett!!
Ni är så vackra tillsammans, önskar er all lycka ♥️♥️♥️🇸🇪
Hej hej!
I just wanna say that i've been a youtube user since the beginning of time and I can quality tell what is good and what isn't, and im 120% sure this channel is about to blow up. Very soon.
Keep it up, cheers
Love you ladies! Hugs and kisses from Russia! The IKEA names are hilarious, now I want to know translations of every single item 😆
write to me at erikaring@hotmail.com if you want anything translated into English :)
Love you and your ideas for videos it always makes me lough 😍🤗 thank you from Israel 🙏🏼
"Stolpa" is also slang for walking fast/firmly, which fits with the swedish expression "time walks".
Tack!
Thanks,I am learning.
I love that she took stuff from the “back to school section” with thrash bags and like a table, like who brings that to school😂😂
college kids :)
Its fun to hear people trying to pronounce Swedish things when it’s things only Swedish people can pronounce and don’t ask why I know that I am swedish
Thank you, thank you. I have always wondered what the heck these words may mean...just assumed that the nomenclature related to the item.
BTW, you two are looking great. Always look forward to your blogs.
Don’t assume that. As a swede, we have no idea what they relate to most of the times;-)!
Yeah, this is Swedish humour at its finests. 🤣
Du pratar svenska enough to göra en video på swedish. Ha en riktigt bra weekend! (Bra weekend....) lol
Jag älskar den här video
Im still laughing, hillerious!!
Ni är så underbart fina och roliga
jämka [samman] = adjust [things, numbers, opinions, ... to each other]
stolpa [in] = make a brutal or insensitive entrance
Also, stolpa = Put up (down?) posts for a fence.
I laughed so hard at Jokkmokk :D As a person who can speak Swedish at some level (Finland) I'm always amused at Ikea because those names!!! I guess you tried to say "endemic forest/plant" with "urskog", indigenous is more people than animals or plants as they are endemic
That was pretty good. Well done.
Fjälla can also mean girlfriend. And it can mean the specific activity to go to and traverse a mountain.
Good job! I would never have come up with a good word to describe "Jämka", I thought you came as close to it as you could :) But I would rather describe "Flitighet" with "hard work", but it's tough since the word "flitig" can be "frequent" as well as "hard working".
Yes, flitighet is better translated as industriousness, the quality of a person who prefers to keep busy with some kind of work. Diligence better describes a person who always does all of the work required, and does it well. It is the difference between someone who is driven to keep busy with work, and someone who is driven to fulfill his obligations.
The names are to help the late Ingvar Kamprad to keep track of the products (he was dyslexic). Instead of serial numbers the use words from Sweden in a system. For example bookcases are professions and Scandinavian boys' names. Bed textiles are flowers and plants :)
When I went to Sweden the second time, my boyfriend and I went to Ikea and he translated some of the names for me 😆omg! it was so funny and random. Sometimes the names were totally unrelated, just like you guys said~ ps the candy is great especially if you want to make cool gingerbread houses~
Ooooo! I am one of the first to see! :)) I have just started following this channel, very recently. You guys are adorable. Much love
Perfect timing! We are glad that you found us. :)
I was totally yelling out the answers haha
Im Swedish so this is so fun to watch😂
I lmao when I realized I've been using the "LACK" as a foot rest while watching
You both young ladies are super cool. The love you both have is just beautiful. Never let go. Godbless!! Om Shanti.🙏🙏
You ladies are my marriage goals. Funny video though.
When I was younger my mom bought me a toy looking like a moose. It was called ekorre / squirrell 😂😂😂
Its so fun to see that you really can speak Swedish, bu then just turns into a American, (when you speak English)
//Ya gurl fron Sverige🇸🇪
Fjälla is also old slang for "girlfriend", but it is also the name of a place in Sweden, and IKEA often uses place names for products. "stolpa" is to walk strictly and quickly.
You guys are soooo sweet! 🌼
I think my favourite IKEA product name is Grunka (like... "thingamajig" I guess?) which they use for some cooking utensils. It is just a funny word, and since it is applicable to anything I think they should use it more.
Finding out I am not only a human but also a table leg was rather amusing ;)
Too funny. I happen to be an American whos been living in Göteborg for 11 years has been working at an IKEA for the past 7 years.
Haha omg this is soooo funny 😂😂 E från Malmö 👍😊
Ingvar Kamprad actually decided that every doormat they sell should be named after Danish towns as an insult to Denmark. I guess he had something against Danes for some reason.
Think the Sweeds are taking the piss out of the rest of us lol
Hiya its been 4years since your proposal video how time flys 💕
these were so great xD our cutting board is named viktig !Tror att det passar :p
There is a frame named ribba. It means crossbar, but it is also slang for erection. :D
no joke. I think the Swede's are sitting over there laughing at all us American buying these products. I find all the humor in this in the world. =P
Our humor is a subtle kind.
Katie LaLicata Ikea also give doormats etc Danish names so you always step on them lol.
Katie LaLicata Yes we are 🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪
Say-im Happy that i bought 3x Lack-a few weeks ago! They dont look angry-they come in black and white.A big Ikea seller-for years.I must look at all my Ikea furniture and Google the translations! Hej Do!
Kul!!🤪👍🏼
”Jämka” means get along/ together make things work. The word ”lack” in the meaning angry is slang. ”Blaska” can also mean wash up something by hand.
1:38 "Fjälla" is also an older word for "girl" or "Girlfriend", it's fallen into disuse however.
2:40 Flitighet = Diligence
3:08 Jämka = Adjust
3:32 Stolpa = Stomp away, walk.
4:38 Urskog = Wild Forest, Jungle. the Amazon Rainforest is a good example.
6:45 it can also mean "assume"
7:06 Blaska also means "Swill", as in "are you going to drink that swill?" "Ska du verkligen dricka den blaskan?"
Stolpa would for me mostly mean "putting up fence poles" or making holes for them at least. Or thats how we say in roslagen growing upp on the country side.
"Stolpa" could also to mean in general "to line up" as in " stolpar i en förenings stadgar" or 'Stolpa några punkter på en lista"
you honestly did a good job, i was just sat there at some points just staring and thinking how the hell do you translate that..
I have a pillow called “gosa syrén” which translates to cuddle lilac (a bush of flowers with an amazing smell)
Hello, do you really meant what you said or it's just acting? you are beautiful.
That was so funny