{"id":223,"date":"2009-06-24T09:06:40","date_gmt":"2009-06-24T13:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/?p=223"},"modified":"2009-06-24T09:06:40","modified_gmt":"2009-06-24T13:06:40","slug":"happy-birthday-swedish-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/happy-birthday-swedish-blog\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday Swedish Blog!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve noticed (because I must say it has totally escaped even me) that our little Swedish Blog is one year old now! Can you believe it? I\u2019m not sure about you, but somehow this fact is enough to put a big smile on my face.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ve survived one whole year with me! And frankly, I couldn\u2019t have done it without you. Your comments, support, suggestions, and just plain being there and reading what I have to say ten times a month is more than what any blogger could have asked for. Because what\u2019s a blog good for if no one ever reads it, right?<\/p>\n<p>So, while we\u2019re on the subject of age, let\u2019s learn how to say how old we are in Swedish (well, not &#8220;we&#8221; because you&#8217;re not supposed to ask a lady&#8217;s age, but just in general) , OK?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Swedish Blog \u00e4r ett \u00e5r (gammal).<\/strong> \u2013 Swedish Blog is one year old.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>See? It\u2019s easy. Very similar to English. That final \u201c<strong>gammal<\/strong>\u201d is not even necessary. Just like we would say in English that someone is (for example) 14, with \u201cyears\u201d and \u201cold\u201d being understood and omitted.<\/p>\n<p>Same in Swedish. You could say that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Han \u00e4r 14 \u00e5r.<\/strong> &#8211;  He is 14. And that\u2019s good enough.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Notice anything interesting about that final \u201c<strong>\u00e5r<\/strong>\u201d? Even though it looks like a singular noun, in reality it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n<p>Take a look:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>\u00e5r<\/strong> (<em>def.<\/em> <strong>\u00e5ret<\/strong>, <em>pl<\/em>. <strong>\u00e5r<\/strong>, <em>pl. def.<\/em> <strong>\u00e5ren<\/strong>) &#8211; <strong>365 dagar *<\/strong> &#8211; year<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is the kind of stuff that happens with many &#8220;<strong>ett<\/strong>&#8221; nouns, and unfortunately, there&#8217;s no way around it &#8211; you just need to learn it.<br \/>\nAnd how do we ask about someone\u2019s age?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Hur gammal \u00e4r du?<\/strong> \u2013 How old are you?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And our young friend would answer:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Jag \u00e4r 14 \u00e5r. <\/strong>&#8211; I am fourteen.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But what happens if the object about whose age we are inquiring happens to be an \u201c<strong>ett<\/strong>\u201d noun? Then of course, instead of \u201c<strong>gammal<\/strong>\u201d, we have to say \u201c<strong>gammalt<\/strong>\u201d.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Hur gammalt \u00e4r ditt barn?<\/strong> \u2013 How old is your child?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201c<strong>Barn<\/strong>\u201d is an \u201c<strong>ett<\/strong>\u201d noun, and so the adjective \u201c<strong>gammal<\/strong>\u201d acquired one \u201c<strong>t<\/strong>\u201d at the end.<\/p>\n<p>But wait a sec. Now take a look at this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Hur gamla \u00e4r dina barn?<\/strong> \u2013 How old are your children?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201c<strong>Barn<\/strong>\u201d is one of those pesky nouns, just like \u201c<strong>\u00e5r<\/strong>\u201d, that look the same in both indefinite singular and plural forms. But because \u201c<strong>gammal<\/strong>\u201d morphed into \u201c<strong>gamla<\/strong>\u201d, we know we are talking about more than one of your children here.<\/p>\n<p>And this is how a simple birthday celebration turned into a grammar lesson. Ouch!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Har den \u00e4ran p\u00e5 f\u00f6delsedagen, Swedish Blog!<\/strong> \u2013 Happy Birthday Swedish Blog!<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>*<\/strong> A year with 366 days is called \u201c<strong>skott\u00e5r<\/strong>\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000\">PS. Even though it&#8217;s after <strong>Midsommar<\/strong>, it&#8217;s not too late to enter my <strong>Midsommar<\/strong> Swedish book contest!!! If you a reader from a country other than Sweden where Swedish books are hard to come by, all you need to do is to leave a comment under <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/midsommar-book-contest\/\" target=\"_blank\">this post<\/a> telling me IN SWEDISH why I should send the book to YOU (and not to someone else)! Good luck!!!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve noticed (because I must say it has totally escaped even me) that our little Swedish Blog is one year old now! Can you believe it? I\u2019m not sure about you, but somehow this fact is enough to put a big smile on my face. You\u2019ve survived one whole year with&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/happy-birthday-swedish-blog\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6,3079],"tags":[17,3093,1940,918,3126,3152,3171,3174,364864,3232,110,3349,3404],"class_list":["post-223","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-grammar","category-swedish-language","tag-adjectives","tag-age","tag-birthdays","tag-blog","tag-book-contest","tag-definite","tag-en","tag-ett","tag-grammar","tag-indefinite","tag-nouns","tag-plural","tag-singular"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}