F ~ Far = father

Hejsan igen!

Bonus word igen. It means again and is pronounced “eee + yen”. I'm excited about today's lesson because of how well it shows the preciseness of Swedish. Our word today is “far” which is pronounced just like the English word which means a long distance. In Swedish it means father. Not daddy, that is “pappa”. (Oh look, another bonus word, pronounced “pop + po(ndering)”. Far's companion word is mor which I'm pretty sure you can guess is mother. It's pronounced like the English word for windswept, lonely landscape (ala Wuthering Heights – moor). It's casual version, like mommy, is “Mamma” pronounced “mum + ma” as in English for ma, as in ma and pa. Phew. That's a lot of words for one lesson. But, check out what we can do with them!

In English, when referring to the older generation, we say complicated things like, my grandfather on my dad's side. In Swedish, that would be “Farfar”. Father's father. I'll write them out for you. Instead of paragraphs to introduce a room full of relatives, here's all you need. Four words.

Farfar = father's father

Farmor = father's mother

Morfar = mother's father

Mormor = mother's mother

Isn't that just deliciously simple?

I'd like to share my family with you.  Picture quality horrid since these are digital shots of old photos from the seventies which were then glued into a scrapbook and cover in plastic protective sheets...but you'll get the idea.

This first one is my Far, my Pappa.  Taking care of me after I broke my hip getting hit by a car.  I'm nine, and he's holding me up because I had to be vertical for certain parts of the day to keep circulation going or some such nonsense. 

This is my Farmor.  I'm about eleven, I think.  

This is Farfar, I'm 17. 

 I only met my Morfar a couple of times.  He visited us in Sweden in 1972, which makes me 7.  He died unexpectedly of a massive heart-attack in 1974, which was the year we came to the US.  And the reason why.  

This is my Mormor, my Grandma Vivian who lived until she was a week from 98.  She died two years ago. 

 I love my family.  Thanks for the letting me cheat on the postcard thing.  At least it wasn't vacation pictures! Ok, technically some of them were...