15 Scary Swedish Adjectives Posted by Marcus Cederström on Oct 31, 2013 in Vocabulary
Happy Halloween! As we learned in 15 Scary Swedish Creatures, Swedes don’t really celebrate Halloween. They’ve got Alla helgons dag instead. Of course, scary creatures can come out at any time of the year and that means you need some scary adjectives to describe them. Steve has covered some of the grammatical details of adjectives here: Adjectives and specificness in Swedish and here: Adjectives and specificness in Swedish, Part 2 so definitely check those out. What follows is a list of 15 scary Swedish adjectives.
| Singular Obestämd: En | Singular Obestämd: Ett | Singular Bestämd: Alla | Plural: Alla | English |
| hårig | hårigt | håriga | håriga | hairy |
| hemsk | hemskt | hemska | hemska | awful |
| konstig | konstigt | konstiga | konstiga | strange |
| kuslig | kusligt | kusliga | kusliga | gruesome |
| läskig | läskigt | läskiga | läskiga | scary |
| blodig | blodigt | blodiga | blodiga | bloody/gory |
| mörk | mörkt | mörka | mörka | dark |
| ond | ont | onda | onda | evil |
| otäck | otäckt | otäcka | otäcka | dangerous/scary |
| rädd | rätt/rädd* | rädda | rädda | scared |
| skrämmande | skrämmande | skrämmande | skrämmande | frightening |
| förbannad | förbannat | förbannade | förbannade | cursed |
| spöklik | spöklikt | spöklika | spöklika | ghostly |
*There’s a bit of a debate about this in linguistic circles. Some people say you must follow the rule and thus it is rätt, others are a bit more pragmatic and say it should be rädd. Just be aware of the debate.
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About the Author: Marcus Cederström
Marcus Cederström has been writing for the Transparent Swedish Blog since 2009. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Scandinavian Studies from the University of Oregon, a Master's Degree in Scandinavian Studies from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and a PhD in Scandinavian Studies and Folklore from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He has taught Swedish for several years and still spells things wrong. So, if you see something, say something.
Comments:
Svante:
Yes “rätt” in Singular Obestämd: Ett is correct. Though a lot a Swedes does not speak correct anymore 🙂 so you might not hear that very often. It even sounds a bit odd to modern ears, but it’s correct.
Adam:
That kind of “rätt” is never used. Stay away from it. People won’t even know what adjective you are using, as “rätt” also means right (as in correct, not the direction).
Solveig:
“Ett rätt barn.” Anything else just sounds wrong. I suspect “rätt” looks wrong because most nouns that can be scared are “reale” (nouns that used to have a grammatical gender like in French and German). “Barn” is “reale,” i.e. a noun that never had a gender.
Marcus Cederström:
The debate continues…