Normally, learners of a second language like Swedish want to learn the standard version, which for Swedish as known as rikssvenska or standardsvenska. Yet, Sweden, being the long, vast country it is, has numerous dialects spoken in all the different parts of the country — some big, some small. So even if your goal is to be proficient in standard Swedish, it is a good idea to understand how Swedish dialects can vary.

Dialects in general can differ in many ways: pronunciation, vocabulary, even grammar. Within each of these categories are various subcategories. Here, you can read all about how Swedish dialects differ in terms of grammar.

In Uppland, the municipality hosting the city of Uppsala, the dialect spoken is called uppländska. In Standard Swedish, the word var means “where” in the sense of static location. Vart, on the other hand, asks for direction, as in “to where”. Compare:

Var är mataffären? – Where is the grocery store?
Vart åker ni på semester? – (To) where are you going on vacation/holiday?

In Uppland, you will often hear vart used for both of these:

Vart åker ni på semester? – but also:
Vart är mataffären?

(More about “where” here!)

In many parts of Norrland (dialect norrländska), predicative adjectives are not declined in plural. In other words, an adjective’s form does not change when it is not accompanied by a noun or article. For example:

Jag hittade klänningarna. De var fin.
I found the dresses. They were pretty.

In the example, fin is not changed to its Standard Swedish plural form fina – it remains in its non-changed form fin.

Various parts of, for example, Uppland, Gästrikland, where the city of Gävle is located, and Närke, where the city of Örebro is located, present a particular deviation from the standard language. Some weak verbs in these parts are declined as strong verbs – this means that rather than using the Standard Swedish way of adding something to the end of the verb to make it past tense, the central vowel of the verb is changed for this function. This applies primarily to verbs of Germanic/Nordic origin. For example:

Sofie tröck på knappen. – Sofie pressed the button.
Huset lös i mörkret. – The house shone in the dark.
Sofie böt däcken på bilen. – Sofie switched the tires of the car.

Tröck, lös and böt are considered incorrect in Standard Swedish, but they are frequently used in the mentioned dialects. They are replacements for tryckte (from trycka ‘push’), lyste (from lysa, ‘shine’) and bytte (from byta ‘switch/change’), respectively. Interesting, huh?

What kind of Swedish do the Swedes you know speak? Närkingska? Gävlemål? Do they often use dialectal words you haven’t learnt? What kind of Swedish do you ultimately want to learn? Tell us about it in the comments!