The meetups are usually great fun. We sit and talk for two hours in groups of around five and just practise the language. I don't learn much Swedish myself, I have learned something tho, just can't recall exactly what at the moment. But of course I am mainly there for helping and correcting when necessary, apart from having fun then. The Swedish level is quite high, not really like my English but almost always understandable and rarely a long break for trying to find the world. There are no beginners there. Still, in languages slight mistakes in choice of words can change the meaning entirely.
The first example was when I sat down at a table with some others. We introduced ourselves by names and countries. I said that I swapped from the next table as there were two other Swedes there but none here. - Now you at least have one. This guy intended to say that it was completely fine. He ended up saying "Du får duga", which means "You'll have to do." I told him what he said and he was a bit embarassed. I told him that it's better that he makes the mistake now than when he is flirting with some woman, which is very true. Would any of you female readers fancy a guy telling you that you'll "have to do"? I don't think so. We laughed it off and it was actually a great icebreaker.
Later in the same conversation we were talking about work and a woman mentioned that her company could use a proofreader and perhaps writer as well, and asked me if I was interested, which I of course was. When I said so she told me "Du gör mig lycklig." She wanted to say that she was glad to hear and quite literally said "you make me happy". It sounds fine in English but the Swedish word lycklig is a kind of deeper happiness, mainly love related. It is what you'd tell your partner, not someone that made you glad. Think of it like "I feel wonderful with you". Unlike the mistake "you'll have to do" that one was actually a good romantic line, just not in the right situation. Another good laugh.
I havn't escaped messing up either. For me it was during a Swedish-German café that I attend since a few weeks back. Same story pretty much, just sit and talk for two hours. The first hor in Swedish, the second hour in German. My German is good but I do make mistakes. The fun started when a German woman talked about her age when she first saw some series. She said "fünfzehn sechszehn" fast, which sounded like fünfundsechzig to me. In English "fifteen-sixteen", I heard sixtyfive. I asked her what she said because I couldn't believe she was actually sixtyfive and we cleared it up. She then said that it was seven years until she would be sixtyfive, meaning she was fiftyeight. Good impression so far. Then comes my genious comment: Oh, I thought it'd be fewer. What I intended to say was of course that I thought she was younger than fiftyeight as well. What I said was that I thought she'd be sixtyfive in less than seven years. Well played Leo ... well played. But yeah, a charming mistake and of course she saw it as such after a joking angry comment back. And just like the "you'll have to do" it's probably better to get this quote over with now and not in some bar flirting, if I end up in that situation. Not sure a lady would appreciate me saying that I thought she was closer to sixtyfive than she actually is.
So how did I find out about all these meetings? Well, a website with the convenient name meetup.com. It covers the entire world, just set the settings to events in the city of your choice and see what there is. Tomorrow I'm going to play some table tennis and pool at a sports/games bar. Also found it on meetup. Just a great site, who knows what you'll find :) Sing up. I'm not sure exactly how to illustrate this blog post. A picture of a facepalm seems a bit cliché so I'll addd a picture I took outside the east asian museum in Stockholm, where the Swedish learning meetups are. They are called Prata svenska med svenskar if any reader is in Stockholm and interested. There are also other language cafés with a lower level required than this one. I apologise for the photo qualit. I need a new phone, I know.