How Often Do You Speak Swedish? Posted by Marcus Cederström on Apr 20, 2010 in Grammar, Swedish Language
How often do you actually nee to respond to the question how often? Often enough it seems. And the Swedish language offers you a couple of different options when answering. As a general rule, the response is the word “i.”
Hur ofta läser du dina mejl? En gång i timmen.
How often do you read your e-mail? Once an hour.
Hur ofta äter du godis? Två gånger i veckan.
How often do you eat candy? Twice a week.
Hur ofta går du på bio? Tre gånger i månaden.
How often do you go to the movies? Three times a month.
You get the idea; of course, there are exceptions to this rule which exchange the “i” for “om.” If you do something once a day (dag), once every 24 hours (dygn), or once a year (år) you’ll need to use “om.”
Maybe you don’t obsessively check your e-mail and instead only check it once a day. So:
Hur ofta läser du dina mejl? En gång om dagen.
Or maybe you have a sweet tooth and eat candy twice every 24 hours (and yes, “dag” and “dygn” are a bit different, “dag” meaning day, and “dygn” meaning the 24 hour period that includes day and night):
Hur ofta äter du godis? Två gånger om dygnet.
Or maybe you’re like me and don’t consider yourself much of a movie buff, so instead of going three times a month, you go three times a year:
Hur ofta går du på bio? Tre gånger om året.
The big question then is, hur ofta talar du svenska?
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About the Author: Marcus Cederström
Marcus Cederström has been writing for the Transparent Swedish Blog since 2009. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Scandinavian Studies from the University of Oregon, a Master's Degree in Scandinavian Studies from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and a PhD in Scandinavian Studies and Folklore from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He has taught Swedish for several years and still spells things wrong. So, if you see something, say something.
Comments:
Jimmy Cappaert:
Hej,
Det var svårt att komma ihåg det for mig (använder “i” eller “om”), men nu lyckas det bra. En dag, ett dygn och ett år är naturliga tider och sedan använder man “om”, annorlunda blir det “i”.
Lätt att komma ihåg.
Lycka till!
Jimmy Cappaert
Alastair Reid:
Excellent – just what I have been puzzling about this last week.
What is the best way of improving the tonal aspect of the language? Transparent Language software helps for the words they have recorded (although it crashes on my Mac). However is there any software that I can get that will allow me to copy Swedish speech, e.g. from podcasts, and allow me to compare recordings of my own pronounciation and tone/emphases?
Ankan:
Hi Alastair,
I’ve recently discovered livemocha.com. It’s a language learning site where you can hear native pronunciation, record your own voice and also get audio feedback from native speakers. Maybe you’ll find it useful, it works a treat for me! 🙂
Marcus Cederström:
@Jimmy – lycka till!
@Alastair – Ankan has some good suggestions, but also SR has a lot of podcasts available online which are great for just surrounding yourself with Swedish.
@Ankan – great!, thanks for the suggestions.