The Mmmmm

Is not a big surprise that, since I been living in Sweden, I been learning Swedish, and because of the fact that I interact daily with an Icelandic man, from time to time I get some words of Icelandic. However, since Swedish and Icelandic are -somewhat- similar, I have to focus on learning one language at a time until I am fluent, which is why I chose to study Swedish, because I have to be able to ask for shoes of my size in a bowling alley, and the food that I want in a restaurant. I even started to blend both of the languages, for example, instead of the Swedish Tack så mycket I use (and like better) Takk fyrir and Já instead of Ja . But if there is something I had caught myself using more and more, is the usage of M as a whole language.

You see, they say that nordic people speak very little, that they just give short answers instead of all of the long speeches that I am used to give when speaking Spanish. This has even been mention in one of my Swedish classes by my teacher, when she said that “in Swedish less is more, so the shorter the answer the better”. That actually comes in your advantage when learning any of the nordic languages, because you can go by with a ja or a nej. But there is a way to communicate that is more simple and yet very complex and that in fact, I wasn’t aware it existed: THE M. But before I get into the usage of it, let me begin with how we use the "m" sound in my country.

In Mexico, and I am pretty sure in many countries in Latin America, there is the Mhmm sound. That one sound you use when you agree with someone. For example:

In this context, we understand that the second person is agreeing with you. There is a very similar case, let’s say in a very long dialogue, when you are talking about a subject, and you need to communicate that you are in fact listening.

For example:

In this previous conversation, the chef is telling what is needed to make the food recipe, so the other character in question is just making this sound to both agree and confirm that he is listening to the instructions. Similar case is when you talk on the phone to someone.

Then you have the MmmMmm as a negative statement, when you want to denote that you don’t agree with something.

For example:

This can be followed by a movement of the head, side to side, to make the other person to understand that you really are full of juice and you don't longer require some precious vitamin C.

We can have also an interrogative Mmmm when for example you are in fact not paying attention to the things you are being told.

For example:

In the previous example we can understand two things. First, the M as an interrogation comes with the intonation of a question, and that stress in the letter give us to understand that you aren’t paying attention;and secondly, that the chef got angry at him.

And finally the Mmmm as a “I don’t care” or something that is not important. In other words, it could be a short for “Meh”.

For example:

In this example you can also make a movement with your arms, or hands to specify even more how little you care about the movie.

Forgive me if there are other uses of the M word, but so far I think I have simplify a bit this topic. Note that in every single case, the M is stressed differently or it is added an “h” to get to know the intention in which is been used. Now, the problem is that in Iceland, and I have heard some swedes aswell, use the “Mmm” for all of the connotations of the sound. So you could get very lost in translation.

This has been a cultural shock in the way that you feel that the other person, in my case my boyfriend, is not really as enthusiastic about things as you may think, or has some level of disagreement with something. Because it sounds more as if he doesn’t care or that everything is Meh for him. For example: