Out with our "sparks"!

Here is Jan and her kick sledge, or as we more normally call it, her spark.
If you just want to look at the picture you can stop here because the following is all about language.
So why do we use the Swedish word “spark”, as we speak English together?  This is one of a smattering of Swedish words that have become part of our everyday language.  These Swedish words that we use in this way have no real equivalent in British English so we learned both the concept and the (Swedish) word at the same time. (I'd never seen a "spark" until I got to Sweden.) The simplest way to describe the “thing” was to use the Swedish word, even as we spoke English with each other.  As long as we are talking English with other English-speakers living in Sweden it works really well, because they have all done the same thing! Even regular visitors, who speak no Swedish, have learned these terms from us!
I’m sure other English speakers who have emigrated to other countries and learned the language are familiar with the concept. And of course it works the other way too. Sometimes a concept arrives in English, and the foreign name comes along too.  So the next time you use the words smorgasbord, ombudsman, orienteering, or gravad lax remember that you can thank the Swedes for both the idea and the word!
PS Kick sledge is a Canadian word I learned years later. But by then “spark” was well and truly embedded in my language.