Archive for 'Swedish Language'
How to Use “Man” in Swedish Posted by Marcus Cederström on Nov 30, 2012
Man is one of those sometimes confusing words in Swedish. It can be used a couple of different ways and mean a couple of different things. First, and maybe most obvious, it means “man” in English when you’re just using it as your classic noun. It can also be used to create a passive tense…
Using the construction “Det känns som …” Posted by Stephen Maconi on Nov 29, 2012
Greetings, readers! I hope you enjoyed my previous post about Göteborg. (If you haven’t checked it out, you’re missing a personally-filmed video!) This time around, I would like to discuss a certain construction found in the Swedish language, namely sentences that start or end with the phrase Det känns som … . It is a…
Toilet phrases in Swedish Posted by Katja on Nov 7, 2012
This post will not be about how to say so many rude things as possible even though rude words seem to be some of the first people learn in a new language. The aim of this post is to give you phrases you can use when looking for a bathroom or you need to excuse…
Suffixes: -aktig and -mässig Posted by Stephen Maconi on Oct 23, 2012
In the Swedish language, there are lots of different avledningar, or bound morphemes that you can add to words to change their part of speech as well as their function in a given context. Some examples of avledningar are: -het be- för- (when unemphasized) -ig -lig -bar And there are many more. But two avledningar…
Tricky Swedish idioms Posted by Katja on Oct 5, 2012
Idioms are probably one of the most difficult areas in learning a language, partly because most of these idiomatic expressions are not written down making them hard to find. But generally most people just expect speakers of the language to know them, and these are of course a huge reflection of a society and…
Adjectives and specificness in Swedish, Part 2 Posted by Stephen Maconi on Sep 28, 2012
Eariler this week, I posted an article here on the Transparent Swedish Blog about how adjectives are conjugated in Swedish when describing uncountable nouns. Now I will explain how to conjugate adjectives when using countable nouns! First, a short review of adjectives in general. Adjectives can come either within nominal phrases (for example, en…
Adjectives and specificness in Swedish Posted by Stephen Maconi on Sep 24, 2012
Adjectives can come either within nominal phrases (for example, en stor hund, ‘a large dog’) or in the predicate (for example, hunden är stor, ‘the dog is large‘). Depending on where in the syntax of a Swedish sentence the adjective comes, it must be conjugated according to different rules. Here are the rules for uncountable…