Sommerlav - ing. That was a blast.

I'm off to Stockholm for a weekend break in early August, so I have five to six weeks to familiarise myself with the Swedish language. I know that most Swedes speak English much better than the average Telford yoof but I always think it shows a bit of respect to at least make some kind of clumsy attempt to speak the mother tongue when travelling abroad.

Not gonna be easy though, what's with all these extra letters to the alphabet? (Isn't 26 enough? How greedy is that?) So I'll be keeping an eye on How To Learn Swedish in 1000 Difficult Lessons a weblog from a Stockholm-based American magazine editor struggling to get to grips with the native language as well as the taste of herring. He adds a Swedish word for the day with each update, the latest being sommerlav which means summer vacation.