How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons

The Christmas trees are up in Stortorget, Kornhamnstorg and Mosebacke torg. Greenery and white lights are hanging from the second storeys of the houses lining the winding streets of Gamla Stan. The big department store, NK, has gone all out, as usual, with its own greenery and lights. On Skeppsbron, they've even put together the huge live tree (pieced together somehow from parts of smaller trees, it's very barbaric but the result is a picture-perfect hundred-foot tree). And last but not least, my favorite, the julmarknad - Christmas market - is up in Stortorget as well: two rings of red wooden stalls selling glögg, pepparkakor and cheap little wooden trinkets.

So now it's time to learn one of the two Swedish snaps visor - drinking songs - that I can actually sing, one especially popular at Christmastime:

Hej, tomtegubbar slå i glasen och låt oss lustiga vara!
Hej tomtegubbar slå i glasen och låt oss lustiga vara!
En liten tid
Vi leva här
Med mycket möde och stort besvär!
Hej, tomtegubbar slå i glasen och låt oss lustiga vara!

And dammit, I can't find a real translation, but my own version, taking many liberties with the language, would go something like this:

Hey, goblins, toss back a glass and let's have fun.
Hey, goblins, toss back a glass and let's have fun.
We only live here a short while, and life is full of awful hardship and terrible trouble.
So, goblins, toss back a glass and let's have fun.

As you can see, the Swedes have a rather grim sense of humor.

I love it.

- by Francis S.