Originally posted by: devalanteriel På Duolingo Arkiverat här
It's late December, and that means it's time for one million annoying songs on the radio. So I thought, why not translate one in Swedish that you probably haven't heard?
The song I chose is called Mer jul and was written by the synthpoppers Adolphson & Falk in 1981, the final version released as a single in 1984. It contains quite a few cultural references - traditional and pop - with the theme being someone who just can't get enough of Christmas, so it's a great fit for teaching a bit extra about the Swedish holidays. I'm the same age, so I grew up with it.
YouTube:
Spotify:
There are quite a few uploads of it on YouTube, so if either link doesn't work in your region, it should be easy to find!
I hope you'll enjoy it, and happy holidays or merry Christmas to you and yours. 
S for Swedish
T for Translation, which will mostly be literal
E for Explanation, if needed
Verse 1
S: Jag är en lugn person med takt och ton
T: I'm a calm person with tact and strain
E: takt och ton is a fixed expression meaning proper and polite, i.e. "manners". It's also a bit of a pun, since takt also means "pace" or "cadence", and ton also means "tone" or "note".
S: måttfull och balanserad
T: sober and balanced
E: in the senses of "not extravagant" and "level-headed"
S: Jag är tyst och still och det ska mycket till innan jag blir exalterad.
T: I am quiet and still, and it takes a lot to make me overexcited.
E: det ska mycket till is a common expression meaning "it takes a lot (to)", good one to know.
S: Men jag har en last som håller mig fast i ett järngrepp varje vinter.
T: But I have a vice that keeps me hooked in an iron grip every winter.
S: När året ä4 slut och snön ligger djup
T: When the year is over and the snow lies deep
E: Bit of a hidden reference - snön ligger djup is a perfectly normal expression, but it's also one of the most famous lines from the very well-known poem Tomten by Viktor Rydberg. In fact, it also features in this course.
S: och slädarnas medar slinter.
T: and the runners on the sleighs are slipping.
Refrain
S: Jag vill ha mer jul - ge mig mer jul:
T: I want more Christmas - give me more Christmas
S: Tusen stjärnor som tindrar, glitter så långt jag ser.
T: A thousand stars sparkling, glitter as far as I can see.
S: Av juleljus som glimmar vill jag ha mer.
T: Of Christmas candles glimmering, I want more.
E: Nu tändas tusen juleljus is one of the most classic Christmas songs in Sweden. It was written by Emmy Köhler in 1898, and it's a Christian song which has been added to the hymnbook of the Church of Sweden.
Verse 2
S: En show glöms bort om den bara visar opp effekter som man knappast anar.
T: A show is forgotten if it only displays effects you hardly notice.
E: Note the alternate form opp for upp - the phrasal verb visa upp means "display".
S: Så ge mig trettio grader kallt, tomtar överallt
T: So give me thirty degrees cold, tomtar everywhere
E: That's -30 Celsius, or -22 Fahrenheit. Certainly not unheard of in large parts of Sweden. My dog is a lapphund, and he loves it.
Of course, the tomte is one of the most iconic creatures in Nordic folklore. (Note again the poem mentioned above.) He was a supernatural being, often thought to be the original settler of a farmstead, who had opted to stay after death to keep looking after the enclosures, and especially its animals. If you treated him well, he'd reward you, but he'd also punish you if you didn't properly care for his domains. Forgetting his annual rice porridge with butter during Christmas was absolutely unforgivable. (Rice porridge is still a very common Christmas meal in Sweden. I had it just this morning.)
As time went on, eventually the tomte came to be romanticised during the 19th century, as did a lot of similar traditional beliefs. He gradually become associated with Christmas, partially because of Rydberg and very much because of Jenny Nyström who popularised his look as a small old man with a red hood and a white beard.
At the same time, in the US, the poem A Visit From St. Nicholas ("'Twas the night before Christmas...") had introduced the first modern take of Santa Claus, who was then given his trademark look by Thomas Nast. Later, Haddon Sundblom standardised Santa's image in Coca-Cola's 1930s ad campaigns - and he was born to a Swedish-speaking family, so he was very likely aware of Nyström's take on tomten.
Hence, in the end, Santa Claus came to be called jultomten in Swedish - so literally the Christmas tomte, as the concepts merged somewhat.
Also, another point of interest, though not Christmas related: the Celsius temperature scale is named for the Swedish 18th-century scientist Anders Celsius, who achieved quite a lot before succumbing to tuberculosis at a young age.
S: och en skog av gröna granar.
T: and a forest of green spruce.
E: The spruce is virtually ubiquitous in Sweden, excepting some southern coastal areas, some parts in the mountains, and the region of Skåne. It is, of course, the species we use for Christmas trees.
S: Jag vill ha snötyngda hus, tusentals ljus, kulörta kulor i drivor,
T: I want snow-covered houses, thousands of candles, colourful globes in heaps,
E: snötyngd literally means "snow-weighted", and drivor has a double meaning since it means both "in heaps" as in "loads of", and also a bank of snow.
S: bjällerklang som ackompanjemang på alla julens skivor.
T: Jingle bells as accompaniment on all of the records of Christmas.
E: The American song Jingle Bells is very common in Swedish, titled Bjällerklang - essentially a direct translation, as it literally means "bell jingle".
Verse 3
S: Ge mig en svårknäckt nöt,
T: Give me a tough nut to crack,
E: Nuts are traditionally eaten on Christmas, but nöt can mean "riddle" as well, so it also refers to the tradition of writing rhymes on presents with clues as to the contents. It's a bit like how English can use the same idiom somewhat similarly.
S: sötare gröt,
T: sweeter porridge,
E: Oh right, I brought up the porridge too early. Anyway, risgrynsgröt ("rice grain porridge") is very, very common Christmas food here. It's mostly eaten with sugar, cinnamon, and whole or fatty milk. Butter and saftsås - a simple sauce of berries, water, and potato starch - are common as well. It's traditional to leave a blanched almond in the kettle, and whoever gets it is said to be marrying next year.
S: djupare dopp i grytan,
T: deeper dips of the kettle_
E: Another ubiquitous Christmas food is dopp i grytan, which literally means "dip in the kettle". The kettle contains cooked-down broth from the Christmas ham, and you submerge your bread - usually a wort-based Christmas bread called vörtbröd - in it to soak up the broth. So it's a kind of sop. In fact, Christmas Eve (which we celebrate rather than Christmas Day) is sometimes called dopparedagen ("the dipping day") in Swedish, since the tradition is so strong.
S: glittrigare glim och grötigare rim
T: more glittery glow and more porridgy rhymes
E: glim is a kind of faint glowing. We also have the porridge again, but it's a pun now, since grötig ("porridgy") means messy, sloppy, or unnecessarily convoluted - so it's basically a call for cheesier rhymes of the kind mentioned above.
S: och mer Arne Weise i rutan.
T: and more Arne Weise on tv.
E: Arne Weise, who sadly passed away earlier this year at the respectable age of 89, hosted the Christmas broadcasts on SVT (Swedish PBS) for over thirty years, almost every year between 1972 and 2002 and a few times before that as well. After he retired, a different celebrity has been used every year, and while they're good at what they do - it's not quite the same thing. The word rutan literally means "the frame" and is a (now somewhat oldfashioned) colloquialism for the tv.
S: Jag vill ha rymligare säck,
T: I want a more spacious sack,
E: As in the one Santa brings presents in, of course.
S: segare knäck,
T: tougher toffee,
E: knäck is a kind of traditional Christmas toffee. You make it from heavy cream, syrup, sugar, butter, and sometimes almonds. It can get exceptionally chewy.
S: fetare fäsk från grisen,
T: fatter pork from the hog,
E: Pork is the basis for many Christmas foods as well, most importantly the ham - which is lightly salted and baked in the oven or cooked before being griljerad. I honestly don't know if there's an English word for griljera - it's related to "grill" and it's the process of putting the ham on grids and swabbing it with egg, breadcrumbs, and mustard before putting it in the oven. The literal meaning of griljera is just "put on grids".
S: krimsigare krams,
T/E: This is borderline impossible to translate, but krimskrams means something like "trinkets" or better yet "tawdry rubbish". So it's a pun, since krimsigare isn't an actual word, but they use it like an adjective in the comparative. Hence, basically, "tawdrier rubbish".
S: längre långdans
T: longer longdance
E: långdans is a kind of dance in which people join hands and dance in a snake-shaped formation. If you've seen Ingmar Bergman's movie Fanny och Alexander, you've seen the långdans in the beginning, before the misery starts. We also dance around the Christmas tree, but this is called ringdans ("ring dance").
S: och raskare räv på isen.
T: and a quicker fox on the ice.
E: There's a song called Räven raskar över isen ("The fox hurries across the ice\") which is attested as early as the 17th century, and is still being sung. It starts with a verse for the girls, then one for the boys, then one for the women, then one for the men, and then a number of craftsmen such as the baker and the chimney-sweep.
I'll translate the song as well because why not:
Räven raskar över isen, räven raskar över isen
The fox hurries across the ice, the fox hurries across the ice,
Får vi lov, ja får vi lov, att sjunga [people's] visa?
May we, yes may we, sing the song of the [people]?
Så här gör [people] var de går, och var de sitter och var de står.
[people] do like this wherever they go, and wherever they sit and wherever they stand.
Så får vi lov, ja får vi lov, att sjunga [people's] visa?
So may we, yes may we, sing the song of the [people]? \
For instance, during flickornas visa, the girls would curtsy, and during pojkarnas visa, the boys would take a bow, etc.
There's no point in wishing for a quicker fox - it just serves to enhance the absurdity.
Outro
S: Jag vill ha mer, mer... ge mig mer, mer...
T: I want more, more... give me more, more...
E: This keeps repeating for a minute while some other clips are being interspersed with the song. Three of them are from Swedish Christmas songs (Nu är det jul igen, Hej tomtegubbar, and Karusellen / Jungfru skär / Jungfru skön), and three are from Disney's Silly Symphonies.
You'll probably wonder why... In Sweden, and some other countries, the show From All of Us to All of You is shown annually on Christmas Eve, and it's always one of the most watched shows of the year - especially by children, of course, but any adult Swede will know most of it by heart. Most of the content is always the same: shorter versions of Santa's Workshop, Clown of the Jungle, Mickey's Trailer, Ferdinand the Bull, and Pluto's Christmas Tree are shown, as are scenes and songs from Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp, The Jungle Book, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and Robin Hood.
It's traditional for parents to fall asleep during Ferdinand, because it's boring, although my mother claims it's her favourite.
If you're over a certain age and have a keen ear, you may be slightly shocked to hear a bit of Santa's Workshop during this segment, as this cartoon has been shelved indefinitely by Disney. The original contains multiple racial stereotypes, but above all a horribly racist blackface character - and parts of her interaction with Santa is used in the sound clip in the song. The offensive chunks have been cut from the Swedish show for quite a while now, but the song is almost 40 years old, and it wasn't considered offensive at the time.