Archive for 'Swedish Language'
Swedish grammar: Conjunctions and subjunctions Posted by Stephen Maconi on Jun 15, 2016
In Swedish, there are three main conjunctions: och, eller, and men – “and”, “or”, and “but”, respectively. Conjunctions are grammatical words which are used to represent a connection between two words of the same kind. For example, en mor och en far – “a mother and a father”; glad men trött – “happy but tired”. Conjunctions…
“Myself”, “yourself”, etc. in Swedish Posted by Stephen Maconi on Jun 13, 2016
Many of you already know that Swedish employs reflexive verbs, just like in German or Spanish. For example, Albert rakar sig. – Albert is shaving. In the example, att raka sig means “to shave (oneself)”. It differs from att raka (i.e., without sig), in that it refers specifically to the subject shaving her/himself. Without…
Body parts in Swedish: The Head and Face Posted by Stephen Maconi on Apr 8, 2016
Maybe you have a doctor’s appointment. Maybe you have a headache. Maybe you just have a pretty face. Life is full of reasons to talk about your body, and when in Sweden, do as the Swedes do – speak Swedish! There are lots of body parts, so let’s start you off with vocabulary words describing…
“Must” and “have to” in Swedish Posted by Stephen Maconi on Mar 29, 2016
In English, we differentiate between “must” and “have to”. “Must” is generally considered more formal and authoritative, whereas “have to” may be interpreted more colloquial and less hard. Swedish, on the other hand, uses måste in all contexts. For Swedes, it’s just an ordinary, statusless modal verb. Måste used in the same way as…
In and out in Swedish – Part 2 Posted by Stephen Maconi on Mar 21, 2016
Välkomna tillbaka, mina damer och herrar! (And everyone else, of course!) In part 1 of In and out in Swedish, you learned how in and ut indicate movement while inne and ute indicate static location (i.e. non-movement). You also learned that in can be combined with a preposition to mean “into”. This is the same…
In and out in Swedish – Part 1 Posted by Stephen Maconi on Mar 18, 2016
Hej på er, Swedish learners! Swedish is, as many of you know, a Germanic language. As a result, a lot of central words to the language are very similar to English words. This is the case for in and ut, respectively meaning “in” and “out”. But in and ut in Swedish are a bit…
Inverted sentences in Swedish Posted by Stephen Maconi on Feb 19, 2016
I’m sure you’ve heard it. I’m sure it’s confused you. Some pesky Swedish speaker saying things like Idag ska jag träffa honom and Det tror jag inte. Sentences where the subject comes after the verb. “Blasphemy!”, you might be thinking. Truth be told, inverted sentences are, in fact, used in abundance in Swedish. But…