It is always a problem when you are in a foreign country where people speak a language which is not in your competences… Normally, you try to get people who speak some common language with you, normally English. Good. That occurs in Sweden every day, and life is fine.

But, what about the labels? They do not normally speak different languages. Most of them only speak Swedish, and you don’t understand Swedish… So, what do you do? Guess. You use your imagination, other languages you know, other swedish words in your memory, etc., to try to understand the meaning of the mentioned label (yes, I know a dictionary would be a faster solution, but it’s not the case).

And so I did with this label in one of the ///’s building door. Motorlås… Ok, something of a motor. Hmmm, the door has a motor which opens the lock. Good, first word was partially easy. They speak about the motor in the door… Now, the second part: Öppningstid = 2 sek. Hmmm, Öppnings reminds me to “open” and tid has no meaning for me. Ok. So far, we have something about opening and a motor… and now: 2 sek. Sek? Oh, I’ve seen this before!! SEK stands for Swedish Krone, which is the local currency. It must be that…

Now, a fast use of my imagination links all the words and creates the following meaning for the label:

Lock Motor. Opening Cost = 2 SEK.

It has sense (if you don’t think about it too much), and it makes me be proud of these Swedes: they say how expensive is this trying to minimize the use of this motor… Wow.

But, another day I understood the real meaning and I checked it with a Swede… The “2 sek” part is not money, but time!! And tid means time… It couldn’t be so perfect as I imagined… It just says that it takes 2 seconds for the motor to unlock the door.

I really like the idea of the cost information.