Ahh the difference a dot makes…

First let me tell my American friends and family that the Swedish alphabet has three additional letters.  These letters are found, in the order listed below, at the end of the Swedish alphabet.
Å  :  sounds ~ long O with a short A sound at the end
Ä  :  sounds ~ short A with a slight short E at the end
Ö  :  sounds ~ short U followed by a slight R sound.
Or at least that is the way they sound to my ear.
On the keyboard, these letters are secretly hidden within the “{[“  key, the “:;” key and the “ ”’ ” key toward the right-hand side of the keyboard.

This afternoon I was translating sentences to try to learn Swedish words.
The sentence I meant to translate was:
“Vad är det för kött?”
According to the website I was using, this translates into:
“What is the meat in this dish?”
No problem.
But when I was translating it via Google Translate (which is my new best friend) I inadvertently replaced the “ä” with “å”.
So instead the sentence, “Vad år det för kött?” read,
“What year it is for meat?”
 I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds like I am suggesting that the meat I was served is years old.  Not good.
Interestingly, when I translated the sentence via Google Translate, using the correct spelling of “är”, it came out to “What’s the beef?”

Two additional notes on the language, and it’s people:
* According to a quick Internet check, the Oxford English dictionary has ~ 171, 500 entries with full definitions.  Swedish has more in the neighborhood of 41,000 words.  One website described it as a more concise language having few words.  That works for me!

* In Sweden everyone is considered equal.  Not just “kinda”.  It is a big deal here. Thus, in the 1960’s – 1970’s, titles of Mr., Mrs., etc. were pretty much made obsolete.  Everyone is simply referred to by name.  So if you meet the Prime Minister, feel free to call him Fredrik.  There is an exception to this rule.  Royalty.  …What is it about royalty?....