Possessives not used for Swedish body parts Posted by Katja on Sep 5, 2012 in Grammar, Swedish Language
Although it may seem strange, when Swedes say “Every morning I brush my hair” the literal translation from Swedish sounds more like “Every morning I brush the hair”. Varje morgon borstar jag håret. This is however not limited to brushing your hair alone, it goes for all the body parts in Swedish. In English it is not grammatically correct to say “I was the hair”, in Swedish you have the luxury of using both, even though using the possessive may not be that common.
Jag _kammar_ _håret_.
Jag kammar mitt hår.
I _wash_ my _hair_.
In the table below there are a couple of examples of when different body parts are used. You can substitute “jag” for any other pronoun, han, hon, vi, ni, dom and du. The rest of the sentence does not change, this is one of the nice things about the Swedish language.
| Svenska | English |
| Borsta tänderna | brush my teeth |
| Borsta håret | brush my hair |
| Tvätta håret | Wash my hair |
| Kamma håret | Comb my hair |
| Fixa håret | Fix my hair |
| Tvätta ansiktet | Wash my face |
| Klippa naglarna | Cut my nails |
| Plocka ögonbrynen | Pluck my eyebrows |
| Måla naglarna | Paint my toe/finger nails |
| Måla läpparna | Put lipstick on |
| Klippa håret | Get my hair cut |
| Tvätta kroppen | Wash my body |
| Raka benen | Shave my legs |
| Sätta up håret | Put my hair up in a ponytail |
As always, if your goal is to become a fluent speaker of Swedish then take every opportunity to practice, repeat and use all the words which are posted on this blog.
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Comments:
kimspindel:
Thanks!
It is still possible to use the possessive in English sometimes, though! 🙂
e.g. “I was shot in the foot”
Also, I think you made a typo of “I wash the hair” which made me giggle 🙂
Marcela:
Very useful post for beginners like me, thanks!
Mor:
Yeah, in czech languange we also don’t use possessive because it’s clear that you talk about YOUR body parts and other things too.
Alex:
Same in french… no possessive just before the body part. But still… “Je me lave les mains” literally is: “I *myself* wash the hands”.
Useful blog! Thank you!