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As a Swede I've definitely noticed a lot of these things in Swedish pop music. It's fun if a bit embarrassing.

What currently annoys me, though, is that there's this one mistake which always stands out when I hear it, but now I can't remember what it was. I thought it was in an ABBA song, but after going through their lyrics I can't spot it. It's an international hit by a Swedish band in any case. One in which a Swedish idiom is translated word by word and ends up meaning something entirely different.



Could it be "Take on me" with the Norwegian band "A-ha" from 1984?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914

"Take on me" translated word for word will be "ta på meg" (Norwegian) or "ta på mig" (Swedish), meaning "touch me".


If we're translating it word for word, they also say "Take me on" which makes sense in english, but not in Swedish.

EDIT: Maybe in Norwegian it does, at least they offer an explanation here https://genius.com/10492339


That wasn't the one I meant, but this one has also bugged me a lot!




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