The Focus of This Lesson Is to Learn How to Make a Self-Introduction.
Jag är född i Stockholm, men växte upp i Uppsala.
"I was born in Stockholm, but I grew up in Uppsala."

We have in previous series learned how to introduce yourself by name with phrases like jag heter [name], meaning "my name is [name]," and we will in this lesson take this a step further and learn how to do a self-introduction, similar to the one done by Emma in this lesson's dialogue. Being able to make a self-introduction can prove useful in situations where you meet a new group of people, like at a new workplace or when attending a conference. A self-introduction in Sweden should not be too long, and the content of it will vary from situation to situation. In this lesson, we will therefore try to cover some standard phrases that might be suitable in most self-introductions.

Let's start with the standard phrase Jag är född i Stockholm, men uppvuxen i Uppsala, which means "I was born in Stockholm but was brought up in Uppsala" but literally translates to "I am born in Stockholm but was brought up in Uppsala." Notice here how the verb född is in its present tense, even though we are talking about something that happened in the past. In Swedish, we will use the present tense for sentences like the one above when the subject is still alive but the preterit tense föddes when we talk about people who are no longer alive. Here are two examples.

For Example:

1. Jag är född i Linköping.
   "I was born in Linköping."
2. Napoleon föddes på Korsika.
   "Napoleon was born on Corsica."

Another phrase that might be good in a self-introduction is jag arbetar som [occupation], meaning "I work as [occupation]." Notice here that we are using the verb att arbeta instead of the verb att jobba, which both translate to "to work." The reason why we should prefer the verb att arbeta is because a self-introduction is more of a formal situation, and the verb att arbeta compared to the verb att jobba has a more formal sound to it. Here are two examples.

For Example:

1. Jag arbetar som läkare.
   "I work as a doctor."
2. Jag jobbar som snickare.
   "I work as a carpenter."

If you are not working and are studying, you can instead use the phrase jag studerar [name of subject you are studying], meaning "I am studying [name of subject you are studying]." There are two Swedish verbs that correspond to the English verb "to study": namely, att studera and att plugga. Using att studera in a self-introduction is to be preferred because it has a more formal sound to it. Here are two examples.

For Example:

1. Jag studerar biologi.
   "I am studying biology."
2. Jag pluggar filosofi.
   "I am studying philosophy."

The last phrase that we are going to look at is the phrase jag bor i [name of place where you live] med min [noun that denotes the type of relations you have with the person you live with, such as friend, partner, boyfriend, girlfriend], which means "I live in [name of place where you live] with my [noun that denotes the type of relations you have with the person you live with]." Notice how we use the preposition med ("with") instead of hos, which also corresponds to "with." In a previous lesson, we have talked about the Swedish preposition hos, which can be a bit tricky for non-native speakers to use correctly. In Swedish, using med when talking about a person with whom you live communicates that you live together with that person, such as a friend, a partner, or a parent. If you instead use the preposition hos, that means that you are staying at a person's home. The person that you are staying with can of course also be a friend, a partner, or a parent, but the accommodation is theirs, and your staying there is not seen as something permanent.

For Example:

1. Jag bor med min sambo.
   "I live in Stockholm with my partner."
2. Jag bor hos min vän.
   "I am staying with my friend."

pappaledighet ("paternity leave")

In Swedish, as in English, you have specific words for parental leave, depending on whether the parental leave concerns the father of the child or the mother of the child. In this lesson's dialogue, we introduced the word pappaledighet, and it corresponds to the English phrase "paternity leave." The Swedish word for "maternity leave" is mammaledighet, and the word for "parental leave" in Swedish is föräldraledighet.

sambo ("partner")

The word sambo is a tricky word to understand because it does not really have an English counterpart. In this lesson's dialogue, we translated the word sambo as "partner" because Emma is referring to David, a person whom she is having a relationship with. Let us look at the sentence from this lesson's dialogue.

For Example:

1. Ja, jag bor i Midsommarkransen med min sambo David och våran dotter Elsa.
   "Yes, I live in Midsommarkransen with my partner David and our daughter Elsa."

The word sambo does have a more specific meaning than the word "partner" because we only use it for a person whom we have a relationship with as well as live with. Being a sambo means that you live together with your partner in a marriage-like relationship, but it's not a registered partnership.

Parental Leave in Sweden

In Sweden, the right for parents to take out parental leave is regulated through law, and this more specifically means that mothers and fathers have the right to be on parental leave until the child is eighteen months old. Swedish parents have the right to a total of 480 days of paid parental leave. If the custody of the child is shared, the mother and the father each have the right to half of these days, but the parents can divide the days any way they wish. On top of the 480 days, the fathers also get an extra ten days of paternity leave when the child is born, enabling the parents to be on parental leave together for the first ten days. Even though this regulation gives the legal right for mothers as well as fathers to stay home with their children, mothers use the majority of parental leave. In 2010, fathers used twenty-three percent of the parental leave. Statistics show that mothers with lower education and fathers with higher education are the groups that tend to use the parental leave the most.