Remember when we talked about “ett” and “en” words? I think my post confused a couple of people, who were quick to point out that you can’t put an indefinite article in front of SOME nouns. Yes, that is correct. But even without that article in front of them, the nouns can still be distinguished as either “ett” or “en”. In fact, they MUST be distinguished, if you want to make yourself understood when speaking or writing.

So, let me confuse you further.

Today’s topic: uncountable nouns (icke-räckningsbara substantiv).

We have them in English, too. Words like “milk” and “meat” and “peace”, for example. Normally, we wouldn’t put “an” or “a” in front of them. They don’t get an indefinite article, but of course they can take the definite form – the milk, the meat, and so on.

Swedish works in exactly the same way. Uncountable nouns can’t be accompanied by an indefinite article. But just like in English, such nouns can still be made into definite forms. In English, we put “the” in front of them and our work is done. In Swedish however, it’s not quite that simple. Don’t worry, it’s still simple, but done in a Swedish way.

In the “en” or “ett” post, I claimed that all Swedish nouns could be divided into two groups. The “en” group and the “ett” group. And those little articles are very important, indeed. They tell us how to make the definite form of each noun, and that is done by sticking either the whole “en” or “n” or “t” at the end of the word. And that’s the gist of “en” and “ett” words. Not much to it. Why it’s called “gender” in grammar books, I am not really sure, it’s probably a way for linguists make this language more exciting.

But, but, but… Here is where it gets a little bit confusing.

Just like in English, some nouns – the uncountable ones – can’t be bothered with an indefinite article. But unlike in English, those pesky Swedish icke-räckningsbara nouns are still “ett” or “en” words. Not fun, I know…

Take a look at these examples:

mjölk = milk and mjölken = the milk
kaffe = coffee (in a general sense) and kaffet = the coffee
kött = meat and köttet = the meat
ro = stillness, quiet and ron = the stillness

See? You still need to know whether a noun is “en” or “ett” in order to make the proper definite form. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that the truly uncountable nouns in Swedish don’t have plural forms, and all the ones I listed above fall into that group.

Other examples are:
sand = sand and sanden = the sand
jäst = yeast and jästen = the yeast
silke = silk and silken = the silk
mat = food and maten = the food

And many others, which describe materials and substances.

The same also applies to abstract nouns, just like the above-mentioned “ro – ron”, as those are uncountable in the most literal way.

And just like in English, there are two different words to distinguish between countable and uncountable nouns when it comes to quantities.

många = many
mycket = much, a lot of

So for example,
mycket mat = a lot of food

And
många hundar = many dogs

See? I keep telling you that Swedish is not all that different from English. It has its moments, of course, but they only make it that much more charming to learn.
Ok, enough of this boring grammar stuff for today. Next time we will talk about something more exciting – how they talk in Skåne!