{"id":6100,"date":"2012-11-30T23:59:11","date_gmt":"2012-11-30T23:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/?p=6100"},"modified":"2018-08-10T14:43:00","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T14:43:00","slug":"how-to-use-man-in-swedish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/how-to-use-man-in-swedish\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Use “Man” in Swedish"},"content":{"rendered":"

Man is one of those sometimes confusing words in Swedish. It can be used a couple of different ways and mean a couple of different things. First, and maybe most obvious, it means \u201cman\u201d in English when you\u2019re just using it as your classic noun. It can also be used to create a passive tense when coupled with an active verb (Man talar inte i kyrkan<\/em> for example). Here, man<\/em>would probably be translated as \u201cone\u201d in English (and not the number…).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s this usage that you see a lot in Swedish. \u201cOne\u201d in English feels awkward. It doesn\u2019t get used all that often, and when it does people notice. Often times, people will use \u201cyou\u201d instead of \u201cone.\u201d But in Swedish, man<\/em> is used quite often as a pronoun and acts as \u201cone\u201d might. It is the subject form (object form is en, possessive is either ens or sin, sitt, sina, and the reflexive is sig. So now you\u2019ve got it all.) of this particular pronoun. Remember, we have plenty of other pronoluns to choose from (jag<\/em>, du<\/em>, han<\/em>, hon<\/em>, den<\/em>, det<\/em>, vi<\/em>, ni<\/em>, de<\/em>). Man though is used a lot in Swedish when someone might instead say \u201cyou\u201d or \u201cpeople\u201d or even \u201cthey.\u201d For example:<\/p>\n