{"id":6575,"date":"2014-01-30T20:31:27","date_gmt":"2014-01-30T20:31:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/?p=6575"},"modified":"2014-01-30T20:35:44","modified_gmt":"2014-01-30T20:35:44","slug":"the-laid-back-swedish-sentence-s-passive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/the-laid-back-swedish-sentence-s-passive\/","title":{"rendered":"The Laid-Back Swedish Sentence \u2013 S-Passive!"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve written a bit about passive verbs here in the past (Where does the -s-passive come from?<\/a>, Making active verbs passive in Swedish<\/a>, Passive in Swedish<\/a>), but it\u2019s been a while, so I thought I would revisit the subject by focusing exclusively on the s-passive.<\/p>\n

First, the passive gets used quite a bit in newspaper headlines. From SVD.se on January 30th<\/sup> we have the following:
\nZabel tvingas<\/span><\/b> l\u00e4mna Djurg\u00e5rden
\n<\/i>Hela byar i Nigeria t\u00f6ms<\/span><\/b> p\u00e5 kvinnor
\n<\/i>Lexbase kastas<\/span><\/b> ut helt<\/i><\/p>\n

While you might not end up using it all that much in your everyday speech as you first learn Swedish, it is super helpful to understand.<\/span><\/p>\n

Second, a quick example:
\n<\/span>Marcus k\u00f6rde bilen<\/i>. Marcus drove the car. (Active)
\nBilen k\u00f6rdes av Marcus<\/i>. The car was driven by Marcus. (Passive)<\/p>\n

There are a couple of things going on here. First, it\u2019s important to note that in both sentences, the general meaning is the same. There is a car. Marcus is the driver. But the passive form changes the focus of the sentence and suddenly, the subject from that active sentence, <\/span>Marcus<\/i>, is no longer the subject in the passive sentence.<\/span><\/p>\n

So let\u2019s look at how we actually make the change from an active sentence to a passive sentence. We\u2019ll stick with that super simple sentence from above:
\n<\/span>Marcus k\u00f6rde bilen.<\/i><\/p>\n

In this sentence, Marcus<\/i> is the subject, k\u00f6rde<\/i> is the verb in the past tense, and bilen<\/i> is the object.<\/p>\n

If we are going to change this sentence from active to passive, we need to rearrange the subject and object a bit. In fact, the object, in this case <\/span>bilen<\/i>, becomes our subject. So let\u2019s put it first:
\n<\/span>Bilen<\/i> + Marcus<\/i> k\u00f6rde<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Next, we need to actually change the verb from active to passive. We do this by adding an \u2013s. So <\/span>k\u00f6rde<\/i> becomes <\/span>k\u00f6rdes<\/i>. Let\u2019s add that to our burgeoning passive sentence:
\n<\/span>Bilen<\/i> k\u00f6rdes<\/i> + Marcus<\/i>.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re getting close. Now we need to do something with <\/span>Marcus<\/i>. Remember, <\/span>Marcus<\/i> was the subject in that original sentence, but in a passive sentence, <\/span>Marcus<\/i> becomes what is known as an agent. To do that, we need to add the preposition <\/span>av<\/i> in front of Marcus. So now we have <\/span>av\u00a0<\/i>Marcus<\/i>. Add that to the sentence and we get:
\n<\/span>Bilen k\u00f6rdes av Marcus.<\/i><\/p>\n

Ta da, a passive sentence! Of course, there are always some sentences that are a little trickier, but the basic rules apply.<\/p>\n

A couple of things to note, if you\u2019re working with an active sentence that uses man<\/i> as in Man \u00e4ter godis p\u00e5 l\u00f6rdag<\/i>, you can handle that man<\/i> a couple of different ways as you change the sentence to a passive one. One, just get rid of it. Godis \u00e4ts p\u00e5 l\u00f6rdag<\/i>. The other alternative is to use det<\/i>. Det \u00e4ts godis p\u00e5 l\u00f6rdag<\/i>. Admittedly, kind of a clunky sentence in Swedish, but you get the idea.<\/p>\n

And finally, not every passive sentence will have an agent (in our case, <\/span>av Marcus<\/i>). Sometimes this is because it isn\u2019t important or even known. For example:
\n<\/span>Frukost serveras kl. 7<\/i>. (By whom? Maybe that\u2019s not important.)
\nMannen sk\u00f6ts ihj\u00e4l<\/i>. (By whom? While it is important, it might not be known.)<\/p>\n

Now you should be ready to go. Good luck!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve written a bit about passive verbs here in the past (Where does the -s-passive come from?, Making active verbs passive in Swedish, Passive in Swedish), but it\u2019s been a while, so I thought I would revisit the subject by focusing exclusively on the s-passive. First, the passive gets used quite a bit in newspaper…<\/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":[364864,8305,364872],"class_list":["post-6575","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-grammar","category-swedish-language","tag-grammar","tag-passive","tag-swedish-language"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6575","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\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6575"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6581,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6575\/revisions\/6581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}