Prepositions used with days of the week in Swedish Posted by Stephen Maconi on Feb 3, 2016 in Grammar, Swedish Language
Prepositions are a pain. When I first started learning Swedish, I found Swedish prepositions so frustrating, because they often didn’t always match the English ones exactly. Or the Spanish ones. Or the German ones.
Well, worry not! I’m here to save you from your preposition misery! This time, we’ll cover prepositions used with the days of the week.
First, let’s start with a quick review of the days of the week:
måndag – Monday
tisdag – Tuesday
onsdag – Wednesday
torsdag – Thursday
fredag – Friday
lördag – Saturday
söndag – Sunday
In that order! The Swedish week, like in most of Europe, starts with Monday, not Sunday.
Also noteworthy is the fact that all days of the week are common gender (-n-gender), following the gender of dag “day”, and that they are not inherently capitalized.
So, first of all, each day of the week can be used as an ordinary noun. For example:
Fredag är den bästa dagen i veckan. – Friday is the best day of the week.
If you want to talk about your plans for this Friday or “on Friday”, use the preposition på:
Jag och Elina ska ut och festa på fredag. – Elina and I are going out to party on Friday.
What about next Friday? Just like in English, you don’t use a preposition; just nästa “next” and the day of the week:
Vi ska upp till Örnsköldsvik nästa fredag. – We’re going up to Örnsköldsvik next Friday.
Now to the past. How do we talk about last Friday? Unlike in English, we don’t say *sista fredag “last Friday”; the Swedes say “in Friday’s”. It may sound weird to non-Swedes, but in Swedish it’s totally normal:
Min svärmor lagade middag till oss i fredags. – My mother-in-law made dinner for us last Friday (this past Friday).
The formula for last Friday is this: i + [day of the week]+-s → i måndags, i onsdags, etc.
Next, if you want to say the Friday before last, you can say förra fredagen. Note that fredagen is in definite form – i.e., “the Friday”:
Petter hade sin första konsert förra fredagen. – Petter had his first concert the Friday before last.
Finally, if you’re talking about a week somewhere in the distant past or distant future, you say på fredagen “on the Friday”. Take a look:
Jag åkte till Malmö en vecka förra året. På onsdagen såg jag Turning Torso, och på torsdagen åt jag skånsk äggakaka.
I went to Malmö for a week last year. On the Wednesday I saw Turning Torso (see the image above), and on the Thursday I ate Scanian egg cake.
Hope you’ve found this post helpful! Now get practicing. 😉 And don’t forget to check out our other posts!
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About the Author: Stephen Maconi
Stephen Maconi has been writing for the Transparent Swedish Blog since 2010. Wielding a Bachelor's Degree in Swedish and Nordic Linguistics from Uppsala University in Sweden, Stephen is an expert on Swedish language and culture.
Comments:
Bernadette:
Can you explain simply how the sentence structure works, and when the reverse order for the verb phrase is appropriate eg
Jag akte till Malmo v Pa onsdagen sag jag
Thank you.
Sarah:
Thanks so much for this! It has confused me for ages, now I understand. Just have to remember it now!
Michael:
Jag åkte till Malmö en vecka förra året – I went to Malmö for a week last year.
Not the year before last? The pattern just described works only with the days of the week, not with years?
Catalin:
Hi!
Thaks so much for the tips. As Sarah said, now it’s only up to our neurons to remember.
There is one thing that puzzled me though. You say “Jag och Elina ska ut och…”. You also use ” Vi ska upp…”.
Both “up” and “upp” are adverbs. They should accompany a verb (in this case I’d expect “gå” or “åka”) but there is none. Is this the normsl use?
Tjanks,
Catalin
Catalin:
Hi!
Thaks so much for the tips. As Sarah said, now it’s only up to our neurons to remember.
There is one thing that puzzled me though. You say “Jag och Elina ska ut och…”. You also use ” Vi ska upp…”.
Both “up” and “upp” are adverbs. They should accompany a verb (in this case I’d expect “gå” or “åka”) but there is none. Is this the normal use?
Thanks,
Catalin
Julia:
Hello!
I really liked this post! However, I have a question regarding those two sentences:
Jag och Elina ska ut och festa på fredag. – Elina and I are going out to party on Friday.
Vi ska upp till Örnsköldsvik nästa fredag. – We’re going up to Örnsköldsvik next Friday.
I am missing an infinitive verb after ska. I dont know exactly why but this sounds strange to me (i am still a beginner in Swedish). I would put a gå or åker after ska:) Is it a usual way of saying “going out/going up” only by ska upp/ska ut?
Thank you very much in advance for your answer!
rusti:
Hey Julia,
Steve can certainly provide a more detailed answer, but this formulation is very common with “ska”.
Ska du på bio? (Are you going to the movies?)
Jag ska till jobbet. (I’m headed to work)
Ska ni med? (Are you joining?)