Archive for 'Grammar'
Possessives not used for Swedish body parts Posted by Katja on Sep 5, 2012
Although it may seem strange, when Swedes say “Every morning I brush my hair” the literal translation from Swedish sounds more like “Every morning I brush the hair”. Varje morgon borstar jag håret. This is however not limited to brushing your hair alone, it goes for all the body parts in Swedish. In English it…
How to ask for directions in Swedish Posted by Katja on Aug 24, 2012
More likely than not you will at some point have to ask for directions or be asked for them. At times like that who wouldn’t want a couple of good phrases up their sleeve? There are some basic phrases which will most likely help you in understanding what the other person is saying. In this…
Describing and asking where an object is in Swedish Posted by Katja on Aug 21, 2012
I can’t say how many times I’ve thought “had it been a snake it would have bitten me”, in other words, the object I was looking for was much closer than I thought. I thought I would share how to ask, in Swedish, where things are and of course equip you so you can answer…
Swedish Strong Verbs Posted by Marcus Cederström on Aug 10, 2012
Strong verbs are those verbs that don’t follow the rules. They’re the ones that are just a little bit different. Strong verbs are tricky in all kinds of languages. They feel like just rote memorization. Especially after having mastered the rules and patterns that guide so many of our verb forms. It’s no different in…
Swedish Prepositions Posted by Marcus Cederström on Jul 19, 2012
Prepositions are hard. In just about any language. Just think about some of the prepositions we use in English. They don’t always make sense. Trying to learn a different language, like Swedish, prepositions can be a challenge. There are plenty of prepositions to choose from. Below you’ll find a quick list, but this post will…
Countable vs. uncountable nouns Posted by Stephen Maconi on Jun 29, 2012
In English, there are countable nouns and uncountable nouns. An example of a countable noun in English is “cat”. It is considered a countable noun because there can be one or several instances of “cat”. Uncountable nouns, such as “music”, cannot have several instances – you cannot have *”one music” nor *”two musics”. It’s just…
How to ache in Swedish Posted by Stephen Maconi on Jun 8, 2012
Well, it’s probably not something that most people like to think about, but at some point in your life you will get some sort of headache, stomachache, or even throat-ache (which, of course, is called a sore throat in English). And if you’ve accustomed yourself to speaking Swedish in every situation without exception (the way…