This has got to be the most amazing/. phenomenon ever! Rapidly approaching 500 comments... Not on a frontpage article, no, on a post! Insightful comments at -1, interesting comments at -1, funny comments at -1... Something is breaking Slashdot, tearing it down before our very eyes... and it looks like it's the editors themselves who are doing it! What will happen to confidence in/. being open and free? Don't miss this one, you've never seen anything like it! Check it out!
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
So with all the thought and effort that could be put into it, it really doesn't accomplish anything.
How about revolutionizing world-wide economy and technology?
Many universities and highschools in developing countries use Western languages for teaching. They have to, because in many cases there is hardly any literature at all in local languages.
Imagine if there were hardly any technical or scientific literature at all in English. Suppose you couldn't even begin to learn the basics without first studying a foreign language -- and not something like German which is almost identical to English, but some really distant language.
People who are already heavily burdened for countless reasons are further burdened by every student having to spend lots of time on this language learning, before they can even get started. It gets immensely costly. If we can learn about this problem and find solutions, these people get a chance to get technology working at home, and to contribute to the world's technological development, and to participate in commerce. A major boon for the planet.
Of course the nuances of lagom don't matter in any way whatsoever in that context. But when you get interested and engaged in a subject, the small details and side issues tend to become interesting too, even if they aren't important by themselves.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
My attempt at humorous irony (apparently completely unsuccessful) wasn't directed at you. Quite the opposite, it was directed at certain attitudes here at/. that I think are greatly exaggerated.
Maybe my humor is too far-fetched. I thought if I say that I dare not reveal what I'm using, this would reveal in a funny way that I'm using something horribly "controversial".
Well, I can never judge myself if my humor will work or not.
It was just irony. I'm typing this at home on a machine which at this moment is running Win2K.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Well, the porn here at/. could use some improvement. I hope I'm not hurting anyone's feelings here, but, to put it bluntly, I don't really find the goatse image very exciting.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
And 1 post pointing out that this is getting out of hand.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
I doubt any new exploits will be found for my Windows 98 SE I'm running at home...
I admire your extraordinary courage and stamina, daring to admit here, at this the greatest of Linux temples, that you are using Windows at home. Using it at home seems to imply that you are using Windows of your own free will!
I am awestruck seeing such courage. I would never dare reveal here what system I'm using at home.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
It really means exactly that. It's pure gibberish also in Swedish. Does anyone know why it got such a strange name?
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
The name "rolig liten hattgubbe" is Swedish, it means "Funny little hat guy." It seems/. is getting more and more infested with Swedish and Sweden every day. What's going on here? An invasion?
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
... but that some such problem (no equivalent phrase) that has faced thousands upon thousands before you is so likely to have been solved before we were even born...... they have found an English equivalent when they needed it...... they filled a gap in the English vocabulary...
Thank you for driving home several times the point that I'm about to make:-)
You are definitely right in that a word or an expression is taken into the language if people feel a need for it. But this particular notion is not necessary in that way. You can always express some sufficiently similar idea that is quite satisfactory.
You can always say something like "Right for the occasion," or "Don't exaggerate," or "Not too many, but not too few either." None of these phrases mean exactly "lagom", but that's no problem, in practically every occasion some such phrase is completely satisfactory. No lack or need is perceived, so there's no incentive to incorporate the exact notion of "lagom" with a special word or phrase of its own.
I might mention that among linguists and translators your theory about exact translatability would be unique. Perhaps you'd enjoy discussing your theory with such people, and perhaps you could contribute something -- I find it interesting that you understand so clearly how languages evolve because people feel a lack or a need. It seems to me that many people don't understand this. If you have understood this by your own observation and thought, maybe you have a natural aptitude for these things.
Several times I've learned a language just for fun and pleasure. If you have the inclination you might enjoy doing the same. You'd get a pleasant surprise! Unfortunately it's extremely time consuming and mentally exhausting. But after that it becomes immensely rewarding, because you feel your mind expand with new notions! Though it's difficult to immerse yourself enough to reach that point, when you do reach it it's truly fascinating!
Yeah, I know, you think I'm mistaken. But remember what I said, just in case, for possible future enjoyment.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
What? You mean, actually read the article? Come on, this is Slashdot!
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
It's called Ease of Use. This is a revolutionary new development in User-Friendly, Hassle-Free Internet-Wide DOS Attack Utilities.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
His post is genuinely funny. It really is very funny if you understand what he's saying and have that sort of humor.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Lagom can be translated as moderate only certain contexts, and even then the translation is rather off the mark.
If you drive your car at such a low speed that you're obstructing the traffic flow, then your speed is moderate, but it's definitely not lagom. It's wrong for the occasion, and lagom means right for the occasion.
Much closer translations that people have proposed here are: Just right, suitable, appropriate, adequate, satisfactory. All of these proposals are closer than moderate, but none of them is really the same as lagom.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
a small group of you people believe you know something that nobody before you has ever thought of.
Why are you so annoyed about a simple and extremely ordinary language difference?
Do you seriously believe that uniqueness is impossible, that each and every word in each and every language has an exact counterpart in English?
To give you a very simple counterexample, in the Swedish Sign Language of the Deaf "just in case" is expressed with a single sign. English does not have a corresponding single-word expression. (Nor does Swedish.)
For an example that is less simple but much more interesting, even your closest neighbor may give different nuances and connotations than you do to lots of words, for example love, drug, abortion, democracy and freedom. If close neighbors give words different nuances and connotations, how can you hope to have identical nuances and connotations across nations, in separate languages that have evolved separately for generations?
I'm not sure if you're serious or trolling. In fact, the funniest part is that I find your argument that uniqueness is impossible extremely un-typical of Americans, and extremely reminiscent of certain backwater regions of Sweden, where lagom and conformity are traditionally enforced by social pressure to such an extent that they become badly oppressive and stifling. You say "a small group of you people believe you know something that nobody before you has ever thought of." That's the very essence of the Jante law, the notion that nobody can have an original idea, that invention and originality is impossible, don't stick out, don't assume that you are something.
Original notions are possible! Diversity is possible!
There are several thousand languages out there, among people with immensely different traditions, beliefs and needs. The languages of these different people have evolved separately for very, very long. Of course there are nuances and connotations that are unique for different groups and places and traditions.
American English has imported a lot, but that doesn't mean it has imported every single detail and nuance. Why should it?
To learn new notions, don't limit yourself to German. German and English are extremely close to each other in their notions. Try something radically different. One radically different example might be one of the Sign Languages of the Deaf. In those languages things tend to happen simultaneously rather than sequentially, and the grammar includes elements such as your facial expression, the point where you look, little motions of your body, and localizations of you hand signs in the three dimensions of space.
It's a rich world. This richness does exist, whether you see it or not. Don't evade this richness. Take it in and enjoy it.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
The English word "moderate" has a very close translation in Swedish, "måttlig", and this word is not synonymous to "lagom". The meaning is related but it's definitely not the same.
And don't worry, nobody gets peeved about such things. They're curiosities of life, nothing to get worked up about, they're just things that some people find entertaining and others find boring. Nothing special. Relax, have a laugh.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
I think the difference between "appropriate" (in Swedish "lämplig") and "lagom" is that "apppropriate" means that something is the way it should be, while "lagom" means it's the way people want it to be. One is about rules, the other is about what people want, what makes people satisfied.
Things like Kum-ba-ya hippy depend on people's personality and insecurity and I don't see any such connotations in this word. And I don't think the general Swedish attitude has much of hippy "why can't we all just get along" in it. It's much more decisive and systematic, we tend to say "let's take these and these and these steps, so that in the end we can get along in spite of our differences." It's efficient, pragmatic and result-oriented.
Sometimes there's an excessive tendency toward consensus that can be a problem, but it's far from hippyish.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
It may sound excessive with all this attention to the word and all these descriptions of it, but of course here in Sweden we only have lagom lagom.:-)
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
It's subjective. It's lagom for a particular person. If two people listening to music together find it hard to agree how loud they want it, then what is lagom loud for one is too loud for the other, and what is lagom loud for the other is too quiet for the first.
Lagom loud for you would be a level where you feel satisfied and comfortable.
If the two persons trying to agree are Swedes, very likely they'll find some compromise, some level that is ganska lagom for both.
Ganska: Not very, somewhat, reasonably. Ganska loud, somewhat loud but not very loud. Ganska lagom, somewhat lagom but not very lagom. As opposed to precis lagom, exactly lagom.
Our language is infested with words for these kinds of nuances!
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Yes, it has the connotation that things are as they should be, that they are not annoyingly excessive or annoyingly scarce, that they are the way you want them or the way you find adequate and satisfactory.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Sorry, it seems Geocities won't allow me to link directly to the sound file. It stopped working after I posted, when I closed the window with the ad banner.
I suppose this link will be more friendly and keep working.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Here's a sound file. I can only arrange a wav file now, if anyone wants to take it and remake it to a different format, feel free.
For people who can't hear the file, I think for English-speaking people the pronounciation would be written LAR-GOM. Similar to "lard" or "laugh", and "from" or "Tom". Both syllables are stressed! Swedish is curious in that many words have two stressed syllables. To use the word fluently in an English sentence I don't think you can have this double stress; in that case the stress must fall on the first syllable, not the second: LAR-gom.
I'd like to start using it:-)
It would be fun if this word would spread!
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
"Moderate" is a nice try but it doesn't really convey the meaning.
You use lagom in constructs such as lagom much, lagom fast, lagom friendly. Lagom much means "the right amount for the occasion" or "the right amount for the person concerned." The lagom amount of food will be different for someone doing heavy physical work and someone sitting still. What's lagom for me may not be lagom for you -- and may not be moderate.
Similarly, of course, lagom fast is the right speed for the occasion, and lagom friendly is showing the right friendliness or politeness for the occasion.
It can be used with irony, denoting a sort of opposite. "So lagom nice," with irony, means it did not suit me at all, it was not nice at all.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Slashdot Mirror
This has got to be the most amazing /. phenomenon ever! Rapidly approaching 500 comments ... Not on a frontpage article, no, on a post! Insightful comments at -1, interesting comments at -1, funny comments at -1 ... Something is breaking Slashdot, tearing it down before our very eyes ... and it looks like it's the editors themselves who are doing it! What will happen to confidence in /. being open and free? Don't miss this one, you've never seen anything like it! Check it out!
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
So with all the thought and effort that could be put into it, it really doesn't accomplish anything.
How about revolutionizing world-wide economy and technology?
Many universities and highschools in developing countries use Western languages for teaching. They have to, because in many cases there is hardly any literature at all in local languages.
Imagine if there were hardly any technical or scientific literature at all in English. Suppose you couldn't even begin to learn the basics without first studying a foreign language -- and not something like German which is almost identical to English, but some really distant language.
People who are already heavily burdened for countless reasons are further burdened by every student having to spend lots of time on this language learning, before they can even get started. It gets immensely costly. If we can learn about this problem and find solutions, these people get a chance to get technology working at home, and to contribute to the world's technological development, and to participate in commerce. A major boon for the planet.
Of course the nuances of lagom don't matter in any way whatsoever in that context. But when you get interested and engaged in a subject, the small details and side issues tend to become interesting too, even if they aren't important by themselves.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
My attempt at humorous irony (apparently completely unsuccessful) wasn't directed at you. Quite the opposite, it was directed at certain attitudes here at /. that I think are greatly exaggerated.
Maybe my humor is too far-fetched. I thought if I say that I dare not reveal what I'm using, this would reveal in a funny way that I'm using something horribly "controversial".
Well, I can never judge myself if my humor will work or not.
It was just irony. I'm typing this at home on a machine which at this moment is running Win2K.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Well, we know the porn will get better.
/. could use some improvement. I hope I'm not hurting anyone's feelings here, but, to put it bluntly, I don't really find the goatse image very exciting.
Well, the porn here at
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
And 1 post pointing out that this is getting out of hand.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
I doubt any new exploits will be found for my Windows 98 SE I'm running at home...
I admire your extraordinary courage and stamina, daring to admit here, at this the greatest of Linux temples, that you are using Windows at home. Using it at home seems to imply that you are using Windows of your own free will!
I am awestruck seeing such courage. I would never dare reveal here what system I'm using at home.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
It really means exactly that. It's pure gibberish also in Swedish. Does anyone know why it got such a strange name?
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
The name "rolig liten hattgubbe" is Swedish, it means "Funny little hat guy." It seems /. is getting more and more infested with Swedish and Sweden every day. What's going on here? An invasion?
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
... but that some such problem (no equivalent phrase) that has faced thousands upon thousands before you is so likely to have been solved before we were even born ... ... they have found an English equivalent when they needed it ... ... they filled a gap in the English vocabulary ...
:-)
Thank you for driving home several times the point that I'm about to make
You are definitely right in that a word or an expression is taken into the language if people feel a need for it. But this particular notion is not necessary in that way. You can always express some sufficiently similar idea that is quite satisfactory.
You can always say something like "Right for the occasion," or "Don't exaggerate," or "Not too many, but not too few either." None of these phrases mean exactly "lagom", but that's no problem, in practically every occasion some such phrase is completely satisfactory. No lack or need is perceived, so there's no incentive to incorporate the exact notion of "lagom" with a special word or phrase of its own.
I might mention that among linguists and translators your theory about exact translatability would be unique. Perhaps you'd enjoy discussing your theory with such people, and perhaps you could contribute something -- I find it interesting that you understand so clearly how languages evolve because people feel a lack or a need. It seems to me that many people don't understand this. If you have understood this by your own observation and thought, maybe you have a natural aptitude for these things.
Several times I've learned a language just for fun and pleasure. If you have the inclination you might enjoy doing the same. You'd get a pleasant surprise! Unfortunately it's extremely time consuming and mentally exhausting. But after that it becomes immensely rewarding, because you feel your mind expand with new notions! Though it's difficult to immerse yourself enough to reach that point, when you do reach it it's truly fascinating!
Yeah, I know, you think I'm mistaken. But remember what I said, just in case, for possible future enjoyment.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Can't anyone read anymore?
What? You mean, actually read the article? Come on, this is Slashdot!
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
It's called Ease of Use. This is a revolutionary new development in User-Friendly, Hassle-Free Internet-Wide DOS Attack Utilities.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
His post is genuinely funny. It really is very funny if you understand what he's saying and have that sort of humor.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
I really wont believe anything until I hear consistent testimony from several different people that are on several different sides of the subject
Enjoy.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Lagom can be translated as moderate only certain contexts, and even then the translation is rather off the mark.
If you drive your car at such a low speed that you're obstructing the traffic flow, then your speed is moderate, but it's definitely not lagom. It's wrong for the occasion, and lagom means right for the occasion.
Much closer translations that people have proposed here are: Just right, suitable, appropriate, adequate, satisfactory. All of these proposals are closer than moderate, but none of them is really the same as lagom.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
a small group of you people believe you know something that nobody before you has ever thought of.
Why are you so annoyed about a simple and extremely ordinary language difference?
Do you seriously believe that uniqueness is impossible, that each and every word in each and every language has an exact counterpart in English?
To give you a very simple counterexample, in the Swedish Sign Language of the Deaf "just in case" is expressed with a single sign. English does not have a corresponding single-word expression. (Nor does Swedish.)
For an example that is less simple but much more interesting, even your closest neighbor may give different nuances and connotations than you do to lots of words, for example love, drug, abortion, democracy and freedom. If close neighbors give words different nuances and connotations, how can you hope to have identical nuances and connotations across nations, in separate languages that have evolved separately for generations?
I'm not sure if you're serious or trolling. In fact, the funniest part is that I find your argument that uniqueness is impossible extremely un-typical of Americans, and extremely reminiscent of certain backwater regions of Sweden, where lagom and conformity are traditionally enforced by social pressure to such an extent that they become badly oppressive and stifling. You say "a small group of you people believe you know something that nobody before you has ever thought of." That's the very essence of the Jante law, the notion that nobody can have an original idea, that invention and originality is impossible, don't stick out, don't assume that you are something.
Original notions are possible! Diversity is possible!
There are several thousand languages out there, among people with immensely different traditions, beliefs and needs. The languages of these different people have evolved separately for very, very long. Of course there are nuances and connotations that are unique for different groups and places and traditions.
American English has imported a lot, but that doesn't mean it has imported every single detail and nuance. Why should it?
To learn new notions, don't limit yourself to German. German and English are extremely close to each other in their notions. Try something radically different. One radically different example might be one of the Sign Languages of the Deaf. In those languages things tend to happen simultaneously rather than sequentially, and the grammar includes elements such as your facial expression, the point where you look, little motions of your body, and localizations of you hand signs in the three dimensions of space.
It's a rich world. This richness does exist, whether you see it or not. Don't evade this richness. Take it in and enjoy it.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
The English word "moderate" has a very close translation in Swedish, "måttlig", and this word is not synonymous to "lagom". The meaning is related but it's definitely not the same.
And don't worry, nobody gets peeved about such things. They're curiosities of life, nothing to get worked up about, they're just things that some people find entertaining and others find boring. Nothing special. Relax, have a laugh.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
I think the difference between "appropriate" (in Swedish "lämplig") and "lagom" is that "apppropriate" means that something is the way it should be, while "lagom" means it's the way people want it to be. One is about rules, the other is about what people want, what makes people satisfied.
Things like Kum-ba-ya hippy depend on people's personality and insecurity and I don't see any such connotations in this word. And I don't think the general Swedish attitude has much of hippy "why can't we all just get along" in it. It's much more decisive and systematic, we tend to say "let's take these and these and these steps, so that in the end we can get along in spite of our differences." It's efficient, pragmatic and result-oriented.
Sometimes there's an excessive tendency toward consensus that can be a problem, but it's far from hippyish.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Not too much more though. :-)
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
It may sound excessive with all this attention to the word and all these descriptions of it, but of course here in Sweden we only have lagom lagom. :-)
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
It's subjective. It's lagom for a particular person. If two people listening to music together find it hard to agree how loud they want it, then what is lagom loud for one is too loud for the other, and what is lagom loud for the other is too quiet for the first.
Lagom loud for you would be a level where you feel satisfied and comfortable.
If the two persons trying to agree are Swedes, very likely they'll find some compromise, some level that is ganska lagom for both.
Ganska: Not very, somewhat, reasonably. Ganska loud, somewhat loud but not very loud. Ganska lagom, somewhat lagom but not very lagom. As opposed to precis lagom, exactly lagom.
Our language is infested with words for these kinds of nuances!
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Yes, it has the connotation that things are as they should be, that they are not annoyingly excessive or annoyingly scarce, that they are the way you want them or the way you find adequate and satisfactory.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
A better link to the sound file.
Sorry, it seems Geocities won't allow me to link directly to the sound file. It stopped working after I posted, when I closed the window with the ad banner.
I suppose this link will be more friendly and keep working.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Here's a sound file. I can only arrange a wav file now, if anyone wants to take it and remake it to a different format, feel free.
:-)
For people who can't hear the file, I think for English-speaking people the pronounciation would be written LAR-GOM. Similar to "lard" or "laugh", and "from" or "Tom". Both syllables are stressed! Swedish is curious in that many words have two stressed syllables. To use the word fluently in an English sentence I don't think you can have this double stress; in that case the stress must fall on the first syllable, not the second: LAR-gom.
I'd like to start using it
It would be fun if this word would spread!
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
"Moderate" is a nice try but it doesn't really convey the meaning.
You use lagom in constructs such as lagom much, lagom fast, lagom friendly. Lagom much means "the right amount for the occasion" or "the right amount for the person concerned." The lagom amount of food will be different for someone doing heavy physical work and someone sitting still. What's lagom for me may not be lagom for you -- and may not be moderate.
Similarly, of course, lagom fast is the right speed for the occasion, and lagom friendly is showing the right friendliness or politeness for the occasion.
It can be used with irony, denoting a sort of opposite. "So lagom nice," with irony, means it did not suit me at all, it was not nice at all.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.