Comments on: Grevens Hund

By: Frida

Frida — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 12:15:17 +0000

Hello. I’m doing a work in my music class about songs who would fit a five year old. I’m from Sweden and this was my favourit song when i was little. I was realy surprised to see that someone who doesn’t know the language at all were playing these kind of songs to his kid. I’m glad. It’s a nice song.
‘Serru’ isn’t a real word. It means somethin in between ‘you see’ and ‘you know’. And ‘båd’ mens the same thing as ‘både’ wich in English mens both, you missed that.

By: thomas

thomas — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 10:49:18 +0000

@Sam: Yes, that’s right. I think I copy/pasted the lyrics from somewhere and didn’t realize the discrepancy until later. Your ears aren’t fooling you. The cat in the recorded version is a she!

By: Sam

Sam — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:38:26 +0000

I believe, in the verse with the cat, they aren’t saying “hans namn” (his name) but rather “hennes namn” (her name). I may be wrong but that’s how it sounds to me. I am, however, also an English speaker learning Swedish so I may have misheard.

By: Linda

Linda — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 16:54:57 +0000

Yes, “serru” is a local version of “ser du”, meaning “you see”.

By: thomas

thomas — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:46:58 +0000

@Rmss: Thanks for giving me the updated link to your blog! I had been wondering why you haven’t shown up in my feed reader lately! I’m glad to hear that your Spanish is coming along well.

By: Rmss

Rmss — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:00:16 +0000

Sorry, this is the correct address.

By: Rmss

Rmss — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:59:30 +0000

Wow, that’s great. My sister (we’re Dutch) lives in Australia but doesn’t teach her son Dutch because she things English is more of a use (obviously) and Dutch has no use at all at this moment. I think that’s a shame…

By the way; I switched hosts for my weblog and started again with a blank page. See my name for the address.

By: thomas

thomas — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:02:39 +0000

@adjusting: Thanks for help with the translation! It would make sense that they tumble around together too. “The Count” is interesting. It makes the song sound old.

As for “serru”, it wouldn’t surprise me if you were right. In the English “Bingo” song, we sing “and bingo was his name-o”, the “-o” part being added to “name” for rhyming and meter purposes.

Thanks for the help!

By: adjusting

adjusting — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:51:26 +0000

‘Greven’ means ‘The Count’.
The verb ‘trillar’ means ‘tumble’.
‘varann’ means ‘each other’.
So I believe ‘trilla om varann’ means something like ‘They tumble around together.’

The one thing that stands out for me is the word ’serru’.
I haven’t been able to find it in a dictionary.
It looks like it might be a slurred form of ’ser du’, meaning ‘you see’, but I’m just guessing.