Archive for 'Grammar'
Going places without a “go” verb in Swedish Posted by Stephen Maconi on Feb 5, 2016
Swedish loves to cause lots of confusion when it comes to talking about going to places. There are lots of verbs which correspond to the English “to go”; to name a few: gå, åka, fara, sticka, ge sig iväg, and even dra (“to pull”) in some cases. But since there apparently aren’t enough verbs to talk…
Prepositions used with days of the week in Swedish Posted by Stephen Maconi on Feb 3, 2016
Prepositions are a pain. When I first started learning Swedish, I found Swedish prepositions so frustrating, because they often didn’t always match the English ones exactly. Or the Spanish ones. Or the German ones. Well, worry not! I’m here to save you from your preposition misery! This time, we’ll cover prepositions used with the…
Emphasizing adjectives in Swedish with “så” and “sådan” Posted by Stephen Maconi on Nov 30, 2015
There are lots of ways to emphasize adjectives in Swedish. Many of these ways are very similar to how we emphasize adjectives in English. One way to emphasize adjectives in Swedish is to use så or sådan. Both create the same emphasis, but they are used in different ways. The difference between så and sådan is similar…
Swedish exclamations using “vad” and “vilken” Posted by Stephen Maconi on Nov 10, 2015
Hey! It’s the fuzz! Run away! Careful, now! Cheers! All of those are examples of exclamations, known this way because they are short phrases we exclaim. Some or all instances might be called interjections, depending on whom you ask. In Swedish, as in many other languages, there are various types of interjections. The kind we’ll…
Swedish Word Order with Question Words Posted by Stephen Maconi on Nov 5, 2015
The world’s languages vary immensely. There are an infinite number of things which can be different among languages. One of these things is the use of question words: what kind of sentence patterns they usually come in, as well as how they, when used as subordinating conjunctions, differ from other subordinating conjunctions. (“Whoa, what’s…
Swedish Autumn quiz! Answers and details Posted by Stephen Maconi on Oct 21, 2015
Hejhej! We got some great results on the Swedish Autumn quiz from last week! Now it’s time for me to post the correct answers. Even if you haven’t done the quiz (which it’s never too late to do! Just click the link right there^), you can learn some extra Swedish with the answers here…
Super Swedish grammar: The beef rule Posted by Stephen Maconi on Oct 7, 2015
Yes, Swedish has a rule known as the BIFF rule. This is spelt and pronounced in speech the same way as the word biff, which means “beef”, so I like to call it the “beef rule” in English. Fortunately enough, the language doesn’t regulate beef, however — the BIFF rule, in Swedish biff-regeln, has to…