utländska

Utländska is a Swedish adjective meaning foreign or from another country. It is used to describe nouns relating to foreign origin, nationality, or association, as in utländska företag (foreign companies), utländska studenter (foreign students) or utländska valutor (foreign currencies). The term is commonly contrasted with inhemska or svenska when referring to things from Sweden.

Grammatically, utländska follows standard Swedish adjective inflection. The base forms are utländsk (singular, common gender) and utländskt (singular, neuter). In the plural, the form utländska is used for indefinite plural nouns (utländska företag, utländska böcker). In definite noun phrases, the adjective also takes the -a ending: den utländska boken (the foreign book), det utländska språket (the foreign language), de utländska böckerna (the foreign books/the foreign books the).

Etymology and usage notes: utländska derives from ut- meaning "out" or "external" and land/land- related roots meaning land or country, forming a term for things from outside one’s own country. It is widely used in media, academia, business, and everyday language to distinguish foreign from domestic contexts.

See also: foreign, domestic, loanwords, language contact.