The Life and Loves of Medborgarplatsen
So there I was, just kicking around Meborgrarplatsen tunnelbanastation. I can't exactly remember what I was doing there, but I doubt it was very exciting. It rarely is these days. Anyway this guy approached me, you know the type. Somewhere in his forties or fifties, smelling of booze and being simultaneously being ignored by everyone and being observed sneakily by everyone over their shoulder.
He started waving this newspaper and moaned randomly at me. Metro, I think it was. Some article or other appeared to have amused him and he clearly wanted to share this with me. Strangely I didn't appear to be as into the concept as he was. He started to warble in Swedish to me. Foreign as though I am, I could understand what he was saying - all those years of SFI must have paid off. Question is, did I really want to converse with him?
Obviously not. Like most members of the public, I am an annoying shit that way, so I employed the usual, universal approach to such mentalists; I ignored him. Problem is, that rarely works, does it? They never take the hint, never leave you alone. They just go on and on about whatever it is that has got them so worked up. Time to move on to Plan B.
"Förlåt, jag kan inte tala svenska. Jag förstår inte vad du säger", I quite smoothly told him.
I always find this a bit weird. I've been here five years now, I've got used to not always knowing exactly what is going on, but saying that you don't understand Swedish in probably not grammatically correct, but still with a good degree of confidence, Swedish is just plain weird. Its like me writing "I don't understand English" right here, it looks out of place. Stupid, even.
This chap, however, didn't seem to notice. Must've been the booze.
"I was trying to tell you about this article here", he then said.
Hang about, that's cheating. He's a pissed up chap hanging around a tunnelbanastation approaching random strangers, he wasn't supposed to be versed in multiple languages. We save that for the clever people. Panic. Panic on the streets of Stockholm. Danger Will Robinson.
"I'm sorry I don't understand English".
OK, that was pushing it a bit too far. There's all sorts of holes. Again I said it quite confidently and this time I knew I had grammar on my side. I even said it in my usual British accent, being caught off guard meant I hadn't had a chance to think about feining some God-awful European-speaking-English accent. I've now claimed not to speak two languages by telling him, in the language that I am claiming to not understand, that I don't speak the language. I was beginning to think that this wasn't goign well and my train was still nowhere in sight.
"Well not understanding Swedish is fair enough, but not understanding English is disgraceful".
Well that put me in my place. I was actually starting to feel guilty now for trying to get rid of the guy. Clearly it would have been a lot easier to have just listened to him and made some minor comment about the article in the first place. Still, it was a bit late for that.
Luckily, however, the guy walked off, exasperated with my lack of linguistic skills, and stared annoying someone else. He probably spoke German or Cornish or something with him.
Ah, Sweden how I love you. The country where even the tramps dis you for being crap with languages.
M Panda
