I heard that yesterday the Chinese Swedes on Xiaohongshu quarreled over the translation of the word kommun in Swedish.
The reason is that the Swedish magazine "Fokus" has made a ranking list of the most livable cities in Sweden (the list of the most livable cities in Sweden has been announced, and you must not have expected the first place!). ）。 The top 10 in the leaderboard are:
1. 于默奥 (Umeå)
2. 卢勒奥 (Luleå)
3. Karlstad
4. Lidingö
5. 默恩达尔 (Mölndal)
6. Täby
7. 恩舍尔兹维克 (Örnsköldsvik)
8. 厄斯特松德 (Östersund)
9. 纳卡 (Nacka)
10. 隆德 (Lund)
Some skeptics argue that Lidingö (4th), Täby (6th) and Nacka (9th) should be "districts" of Stockholm and not "cities" because they are connected by subways, and who can take two or three subway stops to another "city"?
In fact, it is possible to ask the rhetorical question: Lidingö, Täby and Nacka all have different tax rates, and whoever moves from one district of the same city to another will have different tax rates?
So, how exactly should the word Kommun be translated, and right?
In fact, there are two words in Swedish that are generally translated as "city" in the Chinese context: one is stad and the other is kommun.
In official documents, stad is kommun, kommun is stad, it's the same thing entirely. However, in everyday conversation, the meaning of the two words is different: stad is "city" in the historical and cultural sense, that is, "city" in the most simple perception of the people, while kommun is "city" in the sense of administrative division at the national government level.
A potentially more accurate translation of the word Kommun would be "municipal district". However, it is a bit difficult to say such a thing when you usually speak, so it is usually translated as "city" when you translate it. Just like Chinese, if you want to talk about provincial-level administrative regions, you will only say "province", and you will not say "provinces, municipalities directly under the central government, autonomous regions and Xinjiang Construction Corps" as in news broadcasts.
The phenomenon of "city" in the sense of history and culture and "city" in the sense of administrative division at the national government level does not completely overlap, not only in Sweden, but also in China.
For example, Beijing, the capital of China, which everyone is familiar with, although all of us call it a "city", in fact, it is a provincial-level administrative region in terms of administrative division. In everyday conversations, no one will call it "Beijing Province", because in terms of history and culture, as well as in the most simple perception of the people, Beijing should be a city.
In addition, there are some so-called county-level cities in China, such as Wuchang City, Heilongjiang Province, which is more familiar to everyone, and Yiwu City, Zhejiang Province, which specializes in wholesale small commodities. But what does it matter? Unless it's a job within the system, or a middle school student needs to take an exam, who cares about what the administrative level of a city is?
Seeing this, someone may say: "I don't want to know so much, you just tell me, if someone tells me that he lives in Stockholm, how do I understand this sentence?" ”
This question, unfortunately, probably no one can give an absolutely correct standard answer. If someone tells you that he lives in Beijing, it is actually difficult for you to know at once from this sentence whether he lives in the Second Ring Road or Mentougou, right?
Generally speaking, in the simple perception of most people, if you say you live in Stockholm, you generally assume that the other person is living in the greater Stockholm area (Storstockholm).
It's rare to hear someone say they live in Stockholm (Stockholm kommun/stad). This may be probably because the area contained in the administrative district of Stockholm has a huge span of social and economic development, that is, it contains not only the "tall" areas in the simple perception of the people, such as the city center, but also many no-go zones that everyone has heard of (Sweden's latest version of the no-go zone list in 2021 is hotly released), which is what the Chinese often call "bang bang zones", such as Rinkeby, Tensta, Skärholmen of these. So, if someone just says, "I live in Stockholm", no one can tell whether he lives in a place where the price is more than 200,000 kroner per square meter or less than 20,000 kroner per square meter.
If someone wants to express the concept of "Stockholm city center", they usually use the word Innerstad (or Innerstan). This area is approximately the same as the area where you need to pay a "Trängelseskatt" (entrance fee) to drive into. There is another name for the city center called Inom tullarna, which literally translates to the area "inside the toll booth", that is, Skanstull, Hornstull, Norrtull, Roslagstull, which are the areas enclosed by the historical "toll booths" in Stockholm. The concepts of Innerstad and Inom tullarna, while highly renewable, do not coincide exactly. Inom tullarna is traditionally considered the center of the city, while Innerstad will include some new areas, such as Hammarby sjöstad, which is part of Innerstad but not Inom tullarna.
Greater Stockholm is not an administrative region defined by the national government, but rather a place that belongs to Stockholm by default. However, many real estate agents will also use this concept when conducting housing price statistics or when the National Bureau of Statistics does some statistics. If this concept is used in surveys, there will usually be a footnote explaining how the Greater Stockholm area (Storstockholm) is defined in the report, and which municipal districts (Kommun) are included, because the definition of this concept is not very uniform, and it is easy to misunderstand without footnotes. In addition to the Greater Stockholm area, the concepts Storgöteborg and Stormalmö are more commonly used.
In general, there is a high degree of overlap between the areas included in the greater Stockholm and Stockholm provinces, but there are still some differences. Because Stockholm is an administrative region defined by a national government, the boundaries are very clear, but the definition of Storstockholm is even more ambiguous. Norrtälje kommun, for example, is considered to be a municipal administrative district belonging to the province of Stockholm at the level of the national administration, but in the simple perception of the general public, it is generally not considered to have much to do with Stockholm, after all, the distance to Stockholm is about the same as Uppsala from the map.
除了斯德哥尔摩市(Stockholms kommun/stad),斯德哥尔摩省(Stockholms län)和大斯德哥尔摩区(Storstockholm)这三个概念以外,其实还有一个概念是有时候会遇到的,就是Stockholms tätort。
Tätort is not an administrative concept, but a geographical one. Its literal translation in Chinese is "dense settlement", and in Sweden it is defined as a continuous area with at least 200 inhabitants and the distance between houses should be less than 200 meters.
There is also an overlap between the concepts of Storstockholm and Stockholm tätort, but they are not identical. For example, due to the division of the huge Nacka Nature Reserve, the districts of Fisksätra and Saltsjöbaden have been separated from the Stockholm tätort area and belong to their own dense settlements, but they both belong to Nacka kommun in the province of Stockholm (Stockholms län). In the simple perception of the masses, it is generally considered to belong to Greater Stockholm (Storstockholm).
I don't know if you have read this article? If you're dizzy, that's right. There is an old Chinese saying that "it is rare to be confused". If there can be more tolerance and understanding, and less sincerity and mutual contempt, everyone can live a happier and more relaxed life.