{"id":5463,"date":"2012-05-30T23:59:41","date_gmt":"2012-05-30T23:59:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/?p=5463"},"modified":"2012-05-31T16:10:18","modified_gmt":"2012-05-31T16:10:18","slug":"direct-vs-indirect-speech-in-swedish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/direct-vs-indirect-speech-in-swedish\/","title":{"rendered":"Direct vs. Indirect Speech in Swedish"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just recently, we received a comment on Facebook<\/a> (you should really check out our Facebook<\/a> page. You get new vocab words every day, as well as great discussion and some beautiful pictures of Sweden!) about indirect vs. direct speech asking for a quick explanation. Tibor is working on some really great posts about Swedish syntax (you can read the first one here, titled Syntax in (Main and bi-clause) part 1.<\/a>), but in the meantime I thought I\u2019d add a quick post about indirect and direct speech for everyone trying to learn Swedish out there.<\/p>\n

Direct speech, or direkt tal<\/em>, are your direct quotes really. Marcus says \u201cI want to eat dinner!\u201d Marcus s\u00e4ger, \u201cjag vill \u00e4ta middag<\/em>! You are quoting someone directly and using the exact same words and thus it is important to include quotation marks. Indirect speech, or indirek tal<\/em>, will be a sort of reported speech. Here you are explaining that someone has said something: Marcus says that he wants to eat dinner. Marcus s\u00e4ger att han vill \u00e4ta middag<\/em>.<\/p>\n

A few more examples:
\nI like hippopotamuses. Jag tycker om flodh\u00e4star<\/em>.
\nHe says that he likes hippopotamuses. Han s\u00e4ger att han tycker om flodh\u00e4star<\/em>.
\nI want to travel to Sweden. Jag vill resa till Sverige<\/em>.
\nShe said that she wants to travel to Sweden. Hon sade att hon vill resa till Sverige<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Keep in mind, we can do this with questions as well:
\nAre you hungry? \u00c4r du hungrig<\/em>?
\nI want to know if you are hungry. Jag vill veta om du \u00e4r hungrig<\/em>.
\nWhen do you wake up in the morning? N\u00e4r vaknar du p\u00e5 morgonen<\/em>?
\nShe wants to know when you wake up in the morning. Hon vill veta n\u00e4r du vaknar p\u00e5 morgonen<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So what happens with our word order? In direct speech, we follow the classic subject-verb-object word order. In indirect speech with statements, we actually don\u2019t need to change the word orer at all. You\u2019ll notice that Jag tycker om flodh\u00e4star<\/em> has the same word order as Han s\u00e4ger att han tycker om flodh\u00e4star<\/em>, except of course that we have changed our pronoun from jag<\/em> to han<\/em>.<\/p>\n

When we have a question though, we need to make a quick change. Instead of using the verb-subject order, we change it to subject-verb. So \u00c4r du hungrig<\/em>? becomes Jag vill veta om du \u00e4r hungrig<\/em>. Notice that the \u00e4r<\/em> and du<\/em> have switched spots. One more example: VILL DU k\u00f6pa lite l\u00f6sgodis? Hon undrar om DU VILL k\u00f6pa lite l\u00f6sgodis<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Note that with the questions, depending on what kind of question it is, we have to make a few changes. A yes\/no question that starts with a verb, \u00e4r du hungrig? for example, will take om<\/em> as a bisatsinledare<\/em> after your indirect phrase (Jag vill veta OM du \u00e4r hungrig<\/em>). A question word question (one that starts with a question word like n\u00e4r) will just reuse that question word immediately following your indirect phrase (Hon vill veta <\/em>N\u00c4R du vaknar p\u00e5 morgonen<\/em>.). If your question word is your subject like vem<\/em>, who, you need to add som<\/em> in your indirect question (Jag undrar VEM SOM ska \u00e4ta maten.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

Some of the more common phrases when using an indirect question are vill veta<\/em> [want to know], undrar<\/em> [wonder], or fr\u00e5gar<\/em> [asks].<\/p>\n

Good luck, and be sure to watch for part 2 of Tibor\u2019s syntax series<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just recently, we received a comment on Facebook (you should really check out our Facebook page. You get new vocab words every day, as well as great discussion and some beautiful pictures of Sweden!) about indirect vs. direct speech asking for a quick explanation. Tibor is working on some really great posts about Swedish syntax…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6,3079],"tags":[27593,3446,7744,364872,191850],"class_list":["post-5463","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-grammar","category-swedish-language","tag-indirect-speech","tag-swedish","tag-swedish-grammar","tag-swedish-language","tag-swedish-word-order"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t