The rutting season, or in a Swedish rut

People who I meet for the first time still compliment me on my Swedish. The conversation tends to go something like this:

Overly nice Swede: How long have you lived in Sweden?
Me: Two years.
Overly nice Swede: But you speak such good Swedish!
Me, shaking my head and smiling as if to say "not really": Thanks.

Frankly, I'm amazed this conversation is still taking place and I know it will soon stop. That will be a sad day, indeed, even if I've always thought the praise was a little bullshity. After a year and a half of constant progression and a palpable feeling of "I'm getting better! And better! And better!," I stopped improving. Words that used to come easily hide shyly behind easier ones. And (now this may be paranoia) I even suspect that my accent is sounding more American.

Yesterday, I took a little Swedish test online. I did slightly worse than I would have liked, but about as well as I expected. Erik eventually pulled me from the computer, seeing that I was getting stressed out, and said that we would just have to speak more Swedish at home if I want to keep on improving while not in school or in a Swedish work place. Yes, we will. Sigh.

And so came this morning, like any other morning with its cereal, juice, and folic acid tablets, except with a strong cup of masochism on the side. I opened the newspaper and saw "What ho!" a language test. Not one intended for me, mind you, it was an English test for Swedes. The headline read: "Could you pass the English test?" but might as well have said, "144 Steps to Amy Feeling Like Shit!" I should have turned the page and kept on browsing the paper for salacious headlines and interesting nuggets. But I didn't. I went instead to retrieve a pen and set about to translate 144 English words and phrases. This is what I learned:

Among other things, I cannot say the following in Swedish (or French, or German, or Spanish, and the list goes on and on):

"barking up the wrong tree"
"hand-me-downs"
"on the grapevine" (last I checked it was through the grapevine but whatever.)
"out of its misery"
"caught with his fingers in the till"
"breathalysed"
"fractions"
"beaker"
"miser"
"rutting season" (I thought it might have helped if I knew what the hell rutting season was, but after looking it up I think probably not.)
"brought down the house"
"to the core"
"framed" (as in for murder)
"golden eagle" (I answered, guldörn, which literally means golden eagle but apparently the Swedes call it kungsörn or king's eagle. Come on, I knew örn.)

I should clarify. With the exception of rutting season, I could easily get the meanings of these words and phrases across in a conversation. But everything would take a lot longer and sound a bit clumsier. For example, if I wanted to say that "so and so put their dog out of its misery," I would probably say "so and so had their dog killed so that it wouldn't suffer anymore." "I heard it through the grapevine" would become "I heard it through someone who heard it through someone else who heard it through someone else...." I'd say a very mean and cheap man instead of miser. A beaker (if I were ever to talk about one) might be the cup that you use in science or something idiotic like that.

I came to an important realization after taking this test and it was this: I have wasted a whole hell of a lot of people's time with my unidiomatic, roundabout Swedish. And I've decided that my current level of Swedish, hovering somewhere in the vicinity of fluency but not quite there, can finally be given a name: circuitous. Looks like my English is behaving a little verbosely as well. I mean, Jesus, look how many words it took me to tell you that my Swedish isn't up to snuff, or, rather full i sjutton.

(Okay, Erik has never heard the phrase full i sjutton but I swear the dictionary told me it means up to snuff!)