The Proper Way To Pronounce IKEA’s Most Challenging Item Names

If you’ve ever wondered about the proper pronunciation of all those IKEA item names, this video will teach you the right way to say some of the more difficult-sounding items. Not only that, you’ll learn what those words actually mean.

In this video from the Apartment Therapy YouTube channel, Maxwell Ryan sits down with Mikael Ydholm, Head of Research at IKEA, to ask him how to say certain item names at IKEA.

I won’t try to describe the proper pronunciations, but here’s a breakdown of what Ydholm says each word means in Swedish:

• FJÄDERMOLN: A kind of cloud.
• BJÖRKSNÄS: The name of a Swedish village. Bjork means tree.
• YDDIGEN: A lake.
• PJÄTTERYD: A little village outside of Elmtaryd, Sweden. The place where IKEA was born.
• FÖRHÖJA: To lift up something from something else.
• VIKTIGT: That’s important.
• STJÄRNBILD: The stars in the night sky.
• ÖRFJÄLL: A village in the northern part of Sweden.
• JORDGUBBE: A strawberry.
• KRYDDNEJLIKA: Cloves, like you would put in oranges during the holidays.

Now when you see these item names as you walk the store, you can wow people with your Swedish by pronouncing them properly and revealing their secret meaning. Oh, and if you’re wondering what the name IKEA itself means, it’s an acronym: Ingvar Kamprad, Elmtaryd, Agunnaryd. Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, grew up at Elmtaryd in Agunnaryd.

Learn to Speak IKEA [YouTube]