Remember when we talked about adverbial clauses?

Yes, boring grammar stuff today, sorry! But we haven’t quite finished with the subject, and actually, the bit we will discuss today is interesting. What, you didn’t know that grammar can be interesting? Don’t believe me? Just wait and see for yourself! (And it’s easy, too – I promise!)

So, let’s dig out the last example from that previous post. Here it is:

• Jag blir arg, om han kommer hit. – I get mad if he comes here.

Last time I told you about word order in such sentences. And then I mentioned that it gets all goofy when you add “inte” to the mix in that subordinate clause.

So, what happens is you want to say: I get mad if he doesn’t come here? Watch this:

• Jag blir arg om han inte kommer hit.

See the odd location of “inte” in this example? It’s because “inte” is technically a sentence adverbial, and as such it is ALWAYS positioned BEFORE the verb in a subordinate clause.

Other examples of sentence adverbials are:

• alltid,
• ofta
• aldrig

and other similar words.

So, if you want to say that you get mad, because he always comes late, how would you do it? Like that:

• Jag blir arg, eftersom han alltid kommer för sent.

And just like “inte,” this “alltid” when used in a subordinate clause ends up BEFORE the verb.

And if you want to say that you DON’T get angry if he doesn’t come here? Easy!

• Jag blir inte arg om han inte kommer hit.

See? It’s only in the subordinate clause that “inte” moves to the front of the verb.

Now, that wasn’t that bad, was it?
Easy peasy. But oddly enough, this word order bit is one of the most common mistakes that non-native speakers of Swedish tend to make. So, get this one right and you can make a very good impression by showing how duktig you are. 🙂

PS. When you read this post I will be moving house and most likely without an internet connection for a few days. I will be back here posting as usual vecka 11.

Vi ses!