Kids talk, Part I

Some excerpts from my 3.5 year old son (no guarantee for my Swedish, corrections are welcome :

Pointing at a lady in the bus near to us: “Pappa! Han luktar bajs! (Daddy, he smells shit!)”

Few days after his mummy comes home with a new sibling: “När går han tillbaka i mammas mage?” (When does he go back into mummies stomach?)

“Jag vill inte har skelett, det gör ont, tar bort den Pappa.” (I don’t want a skeleton, it hurts, take it away, daddy”

“Om jag får ingen godis, so slänga jag din iPhone” (If I don’t get sweets, I will throw away your iPhone)”

Telenor, I hate you!

Time has passed since I had time to blog. In the main time the family got an offspring, which explains my disappearance. Luckily for the blog, I always have problems with things I buy, do or expect from companies. So this time it is Telenor, the operator I  got my iPhone from (which is still the best purchase I have ever made in my life! I can’t imagine a day without my iPhone). After wondering some friends in Germany never responded to my SMS I called them and found out that they never got any SMS. After some quick test I was convinced that something is wrong with my operator and not the other side. So here is the CHAT transcript from the Telenor costumer service; it might be of use for other Telenor users.  RED TELENOR, BLACK ME, note the typos and bad Swedish and English, but I was too angry and still chatting with others.

Välkommen till Telenors Kundservice du pratar med XXXX. Vad kan jag hjälpa dig med?
Hej, min svenska är inte så bra det kan blir lite svenglish om det är ok.
Jag är kund hos er och allt funkar bra sedan jag har bytt från tele2 till er
men nu har jag hört att kompisar i utlandet har inte fått mina sms
[...]

Ok, vilka länder gäller det? [...]

Mest tyskland [...]

Vet du vilken operatör de använder ? [...]

[...]

Ok, för vi har endast sms avtal med operatörerna 02 Germany, T-Mobile och Vodafone.
Men har de någon av dessa operatörer ska det fungera så de kan ta emot dina sms. [...]

[...] when i signed the contract no one told me that telenor cant sent sms to all countries and operators. i thought that was normal [...]

Gör då såhär att du skriver upp några exempel på sms som du skickat, datum, tid och till vilket nummer. Exemplen får vara max 3 dagar gamla och så återkommer du med dessa exempel på måndag mellan 8-16,30 när våra tekniker finns på plats så kan de se vad som händer med de sms du skickat.

[...]

Ok, det är endast med de operatörer som jag skrev ovan som vi har sms avtal med i Tyskland. Detta innebär att det kan fungera att skicka till andra men vi kan inte garantera att operatören i  Tyskland skickar meddelanderna vidare till mottagaren.

men det betyder, att jag måste fråga alla mina kontakter i utlandet, vilken operatör dem har för att vara säker?

Ja, kolla med dem vilka operatörer de använder så kan vi kolla hur det ser ut med avtalen.

jag tar den på engelska. you are saying I have to ask all my contacts which operator they have to be sure that they get my sms?
Thats was a rhetorical questions, not serious, since I would feel stupid too ask everyone
what is your operator since telenor has to check whether the sms will arrive or not

Yes you have to check with them to know if there is something wrong or if they just have an other operator.

[...]
could you give me a link on your page, where this is stated; i mean countries and operators

Det finns inte på vår hemsida.

so i have to ask you everytime I have to sent it to another country?
ok, than we can continue maybe since I use to sent sms to Turkey and italy as well

Ett ögonblick så kan jag skriva in länderna och operatörerna som vi har avtal med här på chatten åt dig.
Australien Telstra Corporation Limited
Danmark TDC, Telenor ,Telia
Finland Sonera, Elisa
Frankrike Orange, SFR
Grekland Cosmote, Vodafone
Island Siminn
Isle of Man Manx Telecom
Italien Vodafone, Telecom Italia S.p.A
Jersey Jersey Telecoms
Litauen Tele2
Makedonien T-mobile
Malta Vodafone
Nederländerna KPN B.V, T-Mobile, Vodafone
Norge Telenor Mobil AS
Polen Polkomtel
Schweiz Swisscom Mobile
Spanien Vodafone, Orange, Telefónica Móviles
Storbritannien 02 UK, T-Mobile
Sydafrika MTN
Turkiet Turkcell
Tyskland 02 Germany, T-Mobile, Vodafone
Åland Aland Mobiltelefon Ab
Österrike T-Mobile Austria

so is this indicated somewhere? or is the chat the only source i have if I go out and tell people not to get the iphone from telenor? i guess i can copy it from this chat, right?

Jag tror inte det står i prislistan eller på vår hemsida faktiskt.

Javisst, du kan kopiera det från chatten. Om inte annat så kommer du få en kopia på denna konversation till den mailadress du angav när du loggade in på chatten.

UPDATE: This is the latest list I got from TELENOR.

Hey this is the countries respectively operators we got a interworking agreement with.
Land & Operatör:  Driftsatt den:
Australien
Telstra Corporation Limited  2009-05-01

Danmark
TDC  2007-11-23
Telenor  2002-03-01
Telia  2009-06-15

Finland
Sonera  2002-03-01
Elisa  2003-03-01

Frankrike
Orange  2004-02-01
SFR  2001-12-19

Grekland
Cosmote  2005-04-01
Vodafone  2002-04-01

Island
Siminn  2004-03-01

Isle of Man
Manx Telecom  2007-10-11

Italien
Vodafone  2002-06-01
Telecom Italia S.p.A  2004-06-01

Jersey
Jersey Telecoms  2002-06-01

Litauen
Tele2  2009-05-01

Makedonien
T-mobile  2002-05-15

Malta
Vodafone  2002-07-01

Nederländerna
KPN B.V  2002-05-01
T-Mobile  2002-08-01
Vodafone  2002-04-01

Norge
Telenor Mobil AS  2002-07-01

Polen
Polkomtel  2004-09-01

Schweiz
Swisscom Mobile  2002-03-01

Spanien
Vodafone  2002-04-01
Orange  2002-05-01
Telefónica Móviles  2002-05-01

Storbritannien
02 UK  2002-03-01
T-Mobile  2002-08-01

Sydafrika
MTN  2001-12-10

Turkiet
Turkcell  2002-09-01

Tyskland
02 Germany  2002-06-01
T-Mobile  2004-12-23
Vodafone  2008-02-11

Åland
Aland Mobiltelefon Ab  2008-07-21

Österrike
T-Mobile Austria  2004-02-01

To keep in mind

Being handicapped in learning languages I have to remind myself about the following three Swedish verbs. I catch myself quite often interchanging them.

Jag förstör –> I destroy
Jag förstår –> I understand
Jag förstorar –> I magnify

Mr. No and Family Guy

Since our son was born we started to introduce to teach him what is good/allowed and what is bad/not allowed, by saying to him “good”, “gut”, “bra”, “aferim”, “masaAllah” etc. or “Nein” for the latter case. The latter is the most often word we are using since he started crawling. After friends have told us that he might think that his name is “Nein” we got worried and started to add “no”, “nej” and “hayir” to the word list. But somehow he still turns his head to us if we say “Nein” and then he starts smiling. Another thing he did or still does reminded me very much on Family Guy, namely that he gets shocked/scared if he himself farts or he even wakes ups and cries if he does it during his sleep. So the content of Family Guy isn’t always made up as you see here:

And only for people with Swedish humour the following:

Sorry for todays content, but for young parents these topics are daily business.

Getting compliments

Being in Sweden has changed my attitude towards compliments. In Germany, be it in school or university, I or we were quite used not to hear many compliments; except nerds (forget for a second that I am a nerd, actually I am not; just a wannabe nerd, so keep on) could get some German compliments, like “Gut! Sitz! . But being in Sweden, has changed everything. Here (not in Italy) everyone is doing bra (good), or more often mycket/jätte bra (very good) and equally often everything one does is bra jobbat (well done/performed). First it seemed strange to me, but with time it felt good, really good and I think it really animates students to do more. Here in Italy people are lazy to say it, but use instead their thumb to show that something is well done. But, whenever I go out with our son, I get a lot of compliments. I do not know why and for what, but it has something to do with our son. I just filter the words complimento, bambino and bellissimo out of a string of Italian words. It feels strange to get compliments for something one can’t control actively (appearance of an infant) and additionally as a Muslim you are supposed to read two prayers from the Quran (looking for the English term of it; German: Schutzsuren; Arabic: Mu’awwidhatayn; Turkish: Muavvezeteyn) each time you are getting excessive compliments; so you can imagine how much we murmur if we are outdoors in Italy.

So after all the years in Sweden I still haven’t learnt how do deal with compliments. Additionally I spend two years of my childhood in a special school were we got lots of compliments, but it all didn’t help much. (Keeping this in mind my old teachers might think that schools in Sweden are generally special schools) Maybe it is because I figured out that they complimented us without having accomplishing something, just to make us feel good or to motivate us. Now, some 20 years later, I still feel that compliments are not distributed with caution. For me it is the same with with food. If you didn’t accomplish your goals for the morning, why should your stomach get an reward? (Try to tell that to an Italian in respect of his coffee breaks; they even drink it if it is hot and the only thing I can see is icecream or cold water) I think, nowadays, many things are just said without reason or meaning, just for the sake of smalltalk.

That is also what I dislike in conversations with especially Turks (as already mentioned here and here) or Arabs (mainly males have this “disorder”). I suppose it is a cultural thing, and not meant to tease me. Imagine you meet a nice Turkish or an Arab guy and you start a conversation. Normally the question “How are you?” comes up. This would happen one time in a “normal” conversation (twice if we consider both parties). But almost all Turks or Arabs I have met (not all of course, but statistically it is the majority of those whom I have met so far) repeat this question or rephrased after 2-5 minutes. Until some years ago I always repeated my (same) answer and kindly asked them as well (like a while loop). But since few years I stoped answering the same question (no matter how smartly they rephrased it) and interestingly they don’t seem to notice or to react to this. But I still felt like loosing time in a conversation or felt even annoyed so I started telling those guys to stop asking me and even to ask me at all, because if I wasn’t in a good health or state they would either see it or I wouldn’t stand in front of them. I told the latter of course only to extreme ones, most others got only the request to stop asking me after the first time; but also those stopped asking me at all. The conversation in time has reduced a lot, much more than I thought. Imagine how much time one looses with repeated phrases, where the answer even doesn’t seem to have an impact. My behaviour wasn’t seen as a attempt to save us from empty talks, but as an insult. So I suppose it is an cultural thing and I have to be careful with things I say. Sometimes it would be useful i in real life to have the internet chat function “busy” or “appear offline”.

Linguistic similarities

Who thought there were any similarities between Italian and Swedish? The following is only for those of you who understand Swedish: