Swedish

Note: This section is incomplete and only has tips and notes up to Adverbs 1.

## External Resources

https://www.reddit.com/r/duolingo/wiki/index#wiki\_swedish

https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/wiki/index#wiki\_swedish

## Basics

### Two genders - but four pronouns!

That seems a bit overkill - but it is actually quite logical (we Swedes like logic).

First of all you might wonder what a gender is. Well, there are two kinds of gender – natural (male and female) and grammatical gender.

English only uses natural gender ("he" for males, "she" for females and "it" for objects) whereas Romance languages such as French use natural genders ("he" and "she") as grammatical gender as well (everything is thus either a "he" or a "she" in French).

Swedish has a double system. When talking about people, we use the natural gender (he and she) but when we aren't talking about humans, you have to look at the grammatical gender. Swedish words belong either to the **en-words** (also called *n-words*, *common gender* or *utrum*) or to the **ett-words** (also called *t-words*, *neuter* or *neutrum*).

The names **en-words** and **ett-words** are derived from the indefinite article (singular) of each group, both corresponding to **a(n)** in English.

Examples:

## Basics 2

### Introducing new stuff with *det är*

In Swedish, when we start talking about something new, or point out what something is, we use the construction *det är*. It is a lot like *it is* in English, but there's an important difference: the Swedish construction never changes. We use it for *ett* words and *en*words, for people and for plural objects, and it's always *det är*. So we say:

*Det är ett äpple* – It is an apple
*Det är en bok* – It is a book
*Det är en flicka* – It is a girl
*Det är tidningar* – They are newspapers

Read more about this construction here.

### *This* and *that* in Swedish

You're going to learn about this more in depth later, but in case you wonder if you couldn't just say *this* or *that* when we say *det är*, here's the deal:

* There are two ways to say *this* in Swedish: either *det här/den här* or *detta/denna*.
* The Swedish counterpart to *that* is *det där/den där*, but sometimes you can also use *det/den* to mean *that*.

Those words are taught a little later in the course so you don't need to worry about them just yet, but just in case you were wondering.

## Phrases

### Välkommen!

This means "welcome", but we don't use it in the expression *you're welcome*. That would be **varsågod**.

### ”I speak -ska”

Nope, Swedes don’t have a particular thing for ska music but most names of languages are derived from the name of the country, the adjective or the nationality with the ending –ska added to it.

Examples:

Oh, and as you have probably already noticed, we do not capitalize adjectives, nationalities or languages (only countries). Unless they happen to come first in the sentence, of course.

## Food

### ”A GLASS AND GLASS-THE”

Swedish uses two separate indefinite articles, both equivalent to the English *a(n)*, **en** and **ett**. The former is used with **en-words** and the latter with **ett-words**, hence the names of the two groups.

### When it comes to the definite form, it gets weird.

Swedish does not use a separate article like English *the*, instead, we add an ending to the word in question. Guess which one!

**en-words** take *-en* and **ett-words** take *-et*.

However, we do not like to have two vowels next to each other (we just think it sounds wrong). So should the word end in a vowel, we just add the corresponding consonant.

SOMETIMES WE DROP THE LAST *-E-* OR *-A-* IN THE WORD (E.G. “EN GAFFEL” – “GAFFELN”) BUT YOU DON'T NEED TO WORRY ABOUT THAT QUITE YET!

Examples:

## Animals

### Fågeln och spindeln

Hmm... did you spot the definite article at the end? Looks a bit strange, doesn't it? One would have expected *"fågelen"* and *"spindelen"*. Well, to be honest, you can - in some Swedish regions (in the South for instance).

The *en*-word endings **–el**, **–en**, **–er** and **–ar** are very hungry endings so they eat up the following **-e-**, leaving us with only a consonant.

Examples:

### A Møøse once bit my sister...

The national animal of Sweden is The King of the Forest, Alces alces, in American English known as the *moose*. In British English, this animal is called as an *elk*. Just to make things more complicated, there's an American animal called *elk* which is not at all the same animal as the *moose* or what the Brits call an *elk*, this is *Cervus canadensis*, also known as a *wapiti* (in Swedish: *en wapitihjort*, but we don't have them here).
Complications don't stop there. The normal plural of both *moose* and *elk* is the same as the singular, so that it's *one moose, several moose* and *one elk, several elk*. The Swedish word behaves perfectly normal though: *en älg, älgen* in the singular, and in the plural: *älgar, älgarna*.
There are lots of moose in Sweden. The yearly hunt is a big deal, notably the king likes to shoot the big animal. Moose can be a big traffic problem. There are road signs with moose on them to warn for them, these have become a sort of tourist symbol for Sweden, and especially German tourists have been known to steal those signs as souvenirs. Young moose are not shy and often like to enter people's gardens to eat apples.
There's also usually at least one kid in every school who looks a lot like a moose and is nicknamed The moose. :P

## Definites

### Indefinite and definite singular

All Swedish words are divided into two groups: *en-words* (or *utrum*) and *ett-words* (or *neutrum*). Unfortunately, you cannot know to which group a certain word belongs but there are some tips to have a greater chance of guessing right.

* Most words are *en-words*
* Most words designating a person are *en-words* ¹
* Have a look at the ending, many endings take the same article (e.g. **–a**² , **–ing** and **–het** are always *en-words*)

¹ One common exception is **ett barn** *a child*
² The only exceptions are **ett öga**, **ett öra** and **ett hjärta**.

### Forms

The indefinite singular always takes an article. *en-words* take **en** and *ett-words* take **ett**

To form the definite form you simply add **-en** to the *en-words* and **-et** to the *ett-words*.

Examples:

**Liebe Deutschsprachige & Lieve Nederlandstalige** A special warning to you: in the vast majority of the cases, the ending **-en is not a plural ending**, as is German and Dutch! "Studenten" means **the** student. The plural of "student" is in fact "student**er**).

### Special cases

Swedish does not like to have two vowels next to each other, so if a word ends in a vowel, we drop the *-e-* in the ending.

Examples:

Sometimes, we do keep the *-e-* in the ending, but we drop the *-e-* in the preceding syllable instead. This happens to *ett*-words ending in **–el**, **–en**, and **–er**.

Examples:

**But why, oh, why do you do this to me?** Because “vattenet”, “sockeret” would be too blurry and sound way too Danish!

## Plurals

### Plurals

Swedish plurals have a reputation for being irregular and hard to learn. This is, in fact, *not true*. While there are certainly many irregular plural forms in Swedish, there is also a lot of predictability, and a large amount of words are entirely predictable if you know the rules!

Below are the 5 normal Swedish plural forms - both indefinite and definite.

### How to predict the plural

##### **En-words**

* **-a** → **-or**

en kvinn**a** → kvinn**or**
en gat**a** → gat**or**

* **-e** → **-ar**

en pojk**e** → pojk**ar**

* Words in **-are** have no special plural form.

en läk**are** → läk**are**

* **-ing** → -ing**ar**

en tidn**ing** → tidning**ar**

* Words with stress on the final syllable always take **-er**.

en ele*fant* → elefant**er**
en sta*tion* → station**er**
en i*dé* → idé**er**

* Words ending in **-el**, -**-er** and **-en** usually take **-ar**, losing their *e* in the process.

en fåg**el** → fåg**lar**
en vint**er** → vint**rar**

* One-syllable words can take either **-ar** or **-er**, usually the former.

en hund → hund**ar**
en färg → färg**er**

##### **Ett-words**

* If they end in a consonant, they have no plural ending.

ett hus → hus
ett barn → barn

* If they end in a vowel, they take **-n**.

ett yrke → yrke**n**
ett meddelande → meddelande**n**

### Irregular plurals

There are several irregular plural forms, usually these include changing the main vowel.

en man → m**ä**n
en mus → m**ö**ss
en hand → h**ä**nd**er**
en bok → b**ö**ck**er**

### The ending -en

It's important to remember that the ending **-en** can be one of three things:
1. the definite singular of an *en*-word
2. the definite plural of an *ett*-word ending in a consonant
3. the indefinite plural of an *ett*-word ending in a vowel
Beware of this common trap for students of Swedish!

1. arm**en** *the arm*
2. hus**en** *the houses*
3. äppl**en** *apples*

## Possessives

### My, my, my – possessive pronouns

Swedes like order. Therefore we have different possessive pronouns depending on the person (e.g. “we”) *and* the following word (which, as you know very well by know, is either an **en-word** or an **ett-word** - or plural). However, we thought there would be way too many pronouns if each person had three possessive pronouns, so we made an exception for the third person singular and plural, which only have one each.

### Who is kissing whose husband???

Imagine Maria is going for a walk with her husband Erik. On their way, they stumble across Annika and her husband Sven. Annika then suddenly kisses her husband. Which husband is she *actually* kissing? Her own husband Sven – or Maria’s husband Erik?! This is a crucial question for Swedes, so therefore we use something called reflexive possessive pronouns (only in the third person) which says that “it’s the subject’s”.

Example:

This reflexive possessive pronoun also has three forms – and I daresay you may guess what they look like (and why)! They replace “hans”, “hennes” “dess” and “deras” if the subject is the “owner”.

 Sitt
 Sina

## Pronouns Objective

#### **Pronouns and pronounciation**

By now, you have already learnt the subject pronouns. In this lesson you will learn the objective forms. Pronouns are used a lot which might explain why not all of them are pronounced the way they are spelt. In very informal Swedish you might even find these pronouns written as they actually are pronounced, as in the brackets (crazy, right!).

**How do you know which “it” to use?** If “it” refers back to a word in a preceding sentence, you use **den** to replace **en-words** and **det** to replace **ett-words**. If “it” does not refer to a preceding word (as in “It is raining today”), we always use “det” (which would be “Det regnar i dag”). We also use "det" in the phrase "there is/are" (which would be "Det finns" in Swedish).

## Clothing

### Wearing clothes

The most common way of saying that someone wears clothes in Swedish is *har på sig*
This is a reflexive particle verb. This means that the stress is always on *på*, which is a particle here, not a preposition, and the reflexive pronoun changes with person. So the whole verb looks like this in the present:

jag har på mig
du har på dig
han/hon har på sig
vi har på oss
ni har på er
de har på sig

## Verbs: Present 1

### Present Tense

Verbs are words that describe actions, such as *to run* or *to eat*. Verbs come in many different forms and we're about to learn about the Swedish *present tense*, used to describe what is happening *right now*, i.e. in the present time.

In English, a distinction is made between *he runs* and *he is running*. In Swedish, no such difference exists, both would be correctly translated with **han springer**.

The Swedish present tense is very simple and easy to learn and is formed in three different ways. With very few exceptions, *it always ends with the letter* **-r**. Let's have a look:

### -AR

 simm**ar** | swim(s), is/are swimming

These are the **-ar**-verbs. They are 100% regular. Not that this matters right now, but it will later.

### -ER

 sjung**er** | sing(s), is/are singing

In this group we find the regular **-er**-verbs, but also many of the irregular, so called "strong" verbs. This doesn't matter either at this stage, but again, it will later on!

### -R

 ge**r** | give(s), is/are giving

In this group as well we find a mix. There are regular **-r**-verbs, as well as strong verbs. *All of them are short*, though, consisting of only one syllable.

Also, great news! We do not conjugate verbs based on who is performing the action. Ever! Not for the present tense, not for any tense! Not for any verb! Ever! We promise! 100% guaranteed!

 de **springer** | they run

## Questions

### Asking questions

The main function of any language is the exchange of information. Because of this, being able to ask questions is an essential part of learning any language!

Luckily, asking questions in Swedish does not differ much from asking questions in English at all!

First, we have a selection of question words, just like in English.

 var
 vart
 hur
 varför
 vem
 vems
 när
 vilken/vilket/vilka

Most of the time, we use these just like we would in English.

 **Var** är du?
 **Vems** hund är det?

Note that the Swedish equivalents of *which* are conjugated just like the adjectives.

 Ett-words
 Plural

Also you might have noticed Swedish contains two words for *where*. What for? It's quite simple really, one is for location, where you are, and one is for direction, where you are heading.

* **Var är du?** *(Where are you?)*
* **Vart går du?** *(Where are you going?)*

Don't worry if you mix these up sometimes, a lot of native speakers do it all the time!

### Inversion

Inversion is when you change the word order in certain situations. Let's take a look at English:

* **You are running.**
* **Are you running?**

Notice how we completely changed the meaning of the sentence just by switching the positions of *you* and *are*. Amazing!

And even more amazing: Swedish uses a system very similar to this:

* **Du springer.** *(You are running.)*
* **Springer du?** *(Are you running?)*

Just like above, we made a question just by switching the positions of *du* and *springer*.

One thing to note is that when using modal verbs (auxiliary verbs) you only invert the modal verb:

* **Han kan springa.** *(He can run.)*
* **Kan han springa?**. *(Can he run?)*

Again, very similar to English. Note however that unlike English, Swedish does not use *to do* as an auxiliary verb.

* **Do you run?** *(Springer du?)*
* **Do you like me?** *(Gillar du mig?)*

Enough reading, it's time for some practice! Good luck and enjoy the simplicity that is Swedish questions!

## Prepositions

### Prepositions

Prepositions are words that describe spatial or temporal relations. In other words, words such as: *on,* *under*, *to*, and *from*.

Prepositions in Swedish are used very similarly to their English counterparts.

Many times they will be literal translations of each other:

-*Äpplet är **på** bordet. (The apple is **on** the table.)*

-*Barnet är **under** bordet. (The child is **under** the table.)*

But sometimes the translations don't match at all:

-*Jag är **på** stan. (literally: I am **on** the city)*

This means that while prepositions many times are very similar in the two languages you are going to have to learn them the hard way: through practice and experience.

But there's no need to be discouraged by this! Remember, a lot of them are similar to English and there are not very many prepositions in either Swedish or English. Just make sure to keep at it and you will be speaking great Swedish in no time!

Good luck!

## Conjunctions

### Conjunctions

A *conjunction* is a small word used to link sentences together. English examples are *and*, *but*, *because*, and *that*.

Some conjunctions, such as **och**, **eller** and **men** are normal conjunctions and merely join two sentences together:

Jag ser dig **och** du ser mig. *I see you and you see me.*
Jag vill äta glass **men** det vill inte du. *I want to eat ice cream but you don't.*

But there are also so called subordinate conjunctions, such as **att**, **eftersom** and **innan**. They create a *subordinate clause*, which means that they introduce something that is dependent on the rest of the total sentence.

Jag vet **att** du är här. *I know that you are here.*
Jag äter maten **eftersom** den är god. *I eat the food because it is good.*

Now, this is all fine and dandy, but there is something to these subordinate conjunctions that is important to know! Just like in English, they can be moved around in and be put both *before* and *after* the rest of the sentence. When they are moved to the front, the verb of the other, main part of the sentence must immediately follow them!

Att du är här **vet** jag . *That you are here, I know.*
Eftersom den är god **äter** jag maten. *Because it is good, I eat the food.*

NB: The conjunction **därför att** can never start a sentence, in such cases we use **eftersom** instead.

## Occupations

### Occupations - Without Articles

Generally when you speak about professions in Swedish, you don't use an article. So when you say in English *I am a doctor*, in Swedish you should say *Jag är läkare*., without the article.

The article can be used with professions in some cases, but beware, it may change the meaning. Compare:
*Han är clown* = He works as a clown. (it is his job)
*Han är en clown* = He is like a clown. (he behaves like a clown)
In English, if you say *He is a clown*, you could mean either one of those two things.

If there are any adjectives involved however, the article is used:
*Hon är en bra läkare* = *She is a good doctor*.

## Adjectives 1

### Adjectives

In English, adjectives never change their form. In Swedish however, they change all the time—in fact, they have to! Just like German, Spanish or French, adjectives in Swedish have to *agree* with the noun they modify.

This means, that Swedish adjectives have different forms depending on whether the noun is **definite** or **indefinite**, whether it’s **singular** or **plural**, and whether it’s an **en** or an **ett word**.

### Indefinite forms

When an adjective is used with an indefinite noun, such as *en fisk* or *ett hus*, it changes according to the form of the noun it modifies.

For singular *en*-words, the suffix is *-Ø* (i.e. nothing at all), meaning the adjective is identical to the basic form:
*en stor fisk*, *en gul bil*, *en snäll hund*.

For singular *ett*-words, the suffix *-t* is added to the basic form:
*ett stor**t** hus*, *ett gul**t** bord*, *ett snäll**t** meddelande*.

For plural words, the ending is always *-a*, regardless of the gender of the word:
*stor**a** fiskar/hus*, *gul**a** bilar/bord*, *snäll**a** hundar/meddelanden*.

### Definite forms

If the noun is definite, the adjective takes the ending *-a* in all cases, no matter gender or number. What’s important to note, however, is that whenever a definite noun is used together with an adjective, an article is placed in front of the adjective. This article is **den**for singular *en*-words, **det** for singular *ett*-words, and **de** for plural words (note that *de* is pronounced as ‘dom’).

en stor fisk → **den** stor**a** fisken
ett gul**t** bord → **det** gul**a** bordet
snäll**a** hundar → **de** snäll**a** hundarna

This article is mandatory—the only time it isn’t used is in proper names and epithets: *Svarta Havet* ‘the Black Sea’, *Röda Torget* ‘the Red Square’, *Vita Huset* ‘the White House’.

The definite form of the adjective is also used with possessives, even though the noun itself is not definite:

min fisk → min stor**a** fisk
ditt bord → ditt gul**a** bord
Eriks hundar → Eriks snäll**a** hundar

In addition to the definite *-a* form, there is also a definite form ending in *-e*. This form is used in the singular when the noun being referred to is male (and would be referred to as *han* as opposed to *den*):
*den stor**e** mannen*, *den ny**e** ministern*, *den klok**e** pappan*.
It is common in epithets referring to men:
*Lill**e** Prinsen* ‘the Little Prince’, *Alexander den Stor**e*** ‘Alexander the Great’.

It should be noted that this masculine form is optional in the written language, and usually absent in colloquial Swedish, the exception being in names and titles such as those mentioned above.

### Alternative patterns

There are a number of adjectives not conforming to the pattern described above. Some of these are irregular, but most of them can be grouped together in the patterns shown below.

### Irregular adjectives

Some adjectives simply do not change at all, just like in English. These generally end in *-s*, *-e* or *-a*:
*en **bra** film*, *ett **bra** hus*, ***bra*** *personer*
*den **bra** filmen*, *det **bra** huset*, *de **bra** personerna*
*en **främmande** film*, *ett **främmande** hus*, ***främmande*** *personer*
*den **främmande** filmen*, *det **främmande** huset*, *de **främmande** personerna*

A couple of adjectives have irregular forms:

en **liten** pojke, ett **litet** hus, **små** katter
den **lille/lilla** pojken, det **lilla** huset, de **små** katterna

en **gammal** man, ett **gammalt** hus, **gamla** katter
den **gamle/gamla** mannen, det **gamla** huset, de gamla katterna

## Adverbs 1

### Adverbs

Adverbs are small words modifying verbs, adjectives or other adverbs! English adverbs often end in **-ly** (such as *happily*), but many simply have no particular ending (such as *very*).

In Swedish, the common adverbial ending, like English *-ly*, is **-t**. These adverbs are identical to *ett*-word adjectives.

vacker → vacker**t** *beautifully*
glad → gla**tt** *happily*
snäll → snäll**t** *kindly*

Some adjectives ending in **-ig** take an adverbial ending in **-en** or **-tvis**.

verklig → verklig**en** *really*
naturlig → naturlig**tvis** *naturally*

And, of course, many adverbs simply have no particular ending: e.g. *ofta*, *kanske*, *alltid*.

### Placement of adverbs

Unlike English, adverbs are always placed *after* the verb in sentences that start with the subject. This is because of the V2 rule – the verb must always come second.

Jag springer **ofta**. *I often run.*
Du äter **hemma**. *You eat at home.*

Like English, adverbs are placed before adjectives and other adverbs.

Huset är **mycket** blått. *The house is very blue.*
Jag är **lyckligt** gift. *I am happily married.*
Han är **aldrig** hemma. *He is never at home.*

## Determiners

### *Detta?* *Det här?* What's this?

In Swedish, there are two sets of words, both meaning this/these.

First, there is **den här, det här, de här.** (singular en, singular ett, plural)

Second, there is **denna, detta, dessa.** (same thing here)

The difference in usage is a question of dialect and of formality.

* **denna/detta/dessa** are generally considered more formal. They are used together with an *indefinite* noun, and this formation is usually found mostly in the written language.

* **den här/det här/de här** are generally considered slightly less formal. They are used with a *definite noun*, and are common both in the written language and in the everyday language of Central and Northern Sweden, as well as Finland.

* **denna/detta/dessa** are also used in the spoken language of Western and Southern Sweden. In this case they're usually followed by a *definite* noun, but this formation is never written in the standard language.

Summary of the standard forms

 **detta** hus
 **dessa** böcker
 **dessa** hus

### *Någon*, *något*, and *några?* Who are they?

These words have a few meanings depending on the context. Most commonly, they will mean **some**, **a few** or **any** when describing something else. They have to agree in gender or number with what they describe, thus it's **någon bok** (any/some book), **något hus** (any/some house) and **några stenar** (some/any/a few stones).

Furthermore, when used on their own as pronouns,

* **någon** means **someone** or **anyone**.

* **något** means **something** or **anything**.

* **några** means **some** (plural of someone/something) or **any** (plural of anyone/anything).

It might seem strange that both some and any can translate here, but context will tell.

You might come across the word **någonting** in Swedish. It means just the same as något, but is a little more formal.

### All, alla, allt!

Lastly, there are the words **all**, **alla** and **allt**. They are used to indicate *all of something*. By now, you've probably guessed it right, and indeed these also have to agree in gender or number with the noun, giving us:

* **All mjölk/mjölken** "all (the) milk", en-word
* **Allt smör/smöret** "all (the) butter", ett-word
* **Alla bilar/bilarna** "all (the) cars", plural

Just like någon/något/några, they can also be used on their own as pronouns, in which case:

* **alla** means **everyone**.

* **allt** means **everything**.

And just like with *någonting*, there is the word **allting**, which means the same as **allt**, but is a bit more formal.

You'll learn more about the forms of these words and a few more in these exercises. Good luck!

## Numbers

There are no Tips and Notes for this section.

## Verbs: Present 3

### Lesson 7: Particle Verbs

Particle verbs are very characteristic for the Swedish language. You have some in English too, but in Swedish there are many more and they
are more frequently used. An English example would be *turn off* like in *Turn off the radio!*, which would be *Stäng av radion!* in Swedish, also with a particle verb.

In particle verbs, the particle is always stressed. The presence of the particle changes the meaning of the verb, so that the verb with the particle can mean something quite different from what the verb means on its own, just like *Turn off the radio!* means something very different from *Turn the radio!*

So, while *dyker* on its own means 'dives', *dyker upp* means 'shows up', 'appears'. While *håller* on its own means just holds, *håller med* means 'agrees'.
In negated phrases, *inte* comes between the verb and the particle: Don't turn off the radio! will be *Stäng inte av radion!*