medelsvårt

Medelsvårt is a Swedish adjective used to describe something that lies between easy and hard in terms of difficulty. It is commonly applied to tasks, problems, exams, games, or activities to indicate a moderate level of challenge. The term is frequent in educational and everyday contexts, where scales often run from lätt (easy) to svårt (difficult), with medelsvårt occupying a middle ground.

The word is a compound formed from medel meaning middle or average and svårt meaning difficult. It functions as a modifier before a noun, for example ett medelsvårt prov (a moderately difficult exam) or en medelsvår uppgift (a moderately difficult task). In practice, spelling is generally preserved as one word: medelsvårt, with the neuter form typically used for neuter nouns and the common form used for en-words in everyday speech.

Usage notes: medelsvårt communicates a clear sense of intermediate difficulty without specifying a precise level. It is versatile across contexts, including education, work tasks, and puzzle or game design. In more formal assessment language, other rating schemes or numerical scales may be used, but medelsvårt remains a standard, widely understood descriptor in Swedish.

See also: lätt, svårt, and related Swedish terms for describing task difficulty. Etymologically, medelsvårt reflects the broader Swedish pattern of combining a degree modifier (medel) with an adjective (svårt) to express intermediate characteristics.