Swedish word of the day: käka
The word käka is a slang word meaning eat. It comes from the word käke, meaning jaw, for obvious reasons. Käft is another term for jaw, which is usually used for animals or colloquially (and slightly offensively) for humans, like in the phrase håll käften (shut up) or käfta emot (talk back).
Your upper jaw is your överkäke, while the lower jaw is the underkäke. A jaw surgeon, also referred to as a maxillofacial surgeon in English, is a käkkirurg.
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Anyway, back to käka. As mentioned, it's a slang word, so you'll usually only hear it used when referring to informal meals or snacks. If you invited someone over to käka middag, for example, this would be something closer to 'coming over for a bite to eat' rather than inviting them over for a formal dinner party.
It can also be used as a noun, käk, which refers to food – roughly equivalent to the English word "grub".
Example sentences:
Vad vill du käka ikväll?
What do you want to eat tonight?
Har du fixat käk eller ska jag handla något på vägen?
Did you get food or should I grab something on the way?
Villa, Volvo, Vovve: The Local's Word Guide to Swedish Life, written by The Local's journalists, is available to order. Head to lysforlag.com/vvv to read more about it.
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Local Sweden
27-05-2025
- Local Sweden
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"It's a brain drain. They're losing doctors, which are highly expensive to train, and there's a huge need for doctors. I was working in the emergency department two or three months ago, and literally every week, almost every day, I got messages from the hospital asking me to come in and work extra." Kazemian is frustrated about the fact that Sweden is throwing away the opportunity to import highly-educated workers and save the country money. "I understand their point of view, that they want to filter people that are most useful for society, but who is more useful than a highly educated worker that you spend zero kronor to educate? For a person like me, a medical doctor, it takes millions of kronor in taxpayer money to educate us and more than seven and a half years. It's time consuming, resource-consuming, and then they say 'no, bye'. They treat me like trash – hejdå." He also feels that the process is set up in a way where you can be punished for making a tiny mistake. 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"It illustrates a growing system failure when it comes to Swedish migration law," she said. "We see time and time again how highly-educated people who have followed every rule, invested time, money and talent in Sweden still have their futures destroyed because of processing mistakes, administrative whims or missing confirmation from the Migration Agency." "In Sasan's case, the unjust handling has extra serious consequences, as it has occurred despite the fact that he is contributing to an area with an acute lack of staff: Swedish healthcare." "These are no longer isolated cases. They have become a pattern, and the pattern means that Sweden is losing people we can't afford to lose – morally, economically or socially."
Local Sweden
12-05-2025
- Local Sweden
Swedish-Iranian academic Ahmadreza Djalali denied relevant care after heart attack: lawyer
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