Swedish Courses Forum - Recent Posts

RE: Nouns and verbs can have two different forms when conjugated

Course Administrator — Sat, 11 Sep 2021 08:39:54 +0000

Hi,

Thank you for asking.

To give you some peace of mind, it is more common in Swedish than in English that we conjugate nouns and verbs differently. So, we may have two ways of conjugation and it can be totally normal here. It depends on two facts: Sweden has a lot of dialects and Swedish changes over time.

I refer to Lexin because it is not a random dictionary on the Internet. This online dictionary was created by two important organizations: Institutet för språk och folkminnen (Institution of language and public memory), och Kungliga Tekniska högskolan (one of the top Swedish universities). Usually, Lexin shows the most common conjugation.

You may also check SAOL (Svenska Akademiens ordlista, Word List of the Swedish Academy). It's also a good resource and it also shows conjugation.

Easier and closer to practice are Lexin and SAOL. I highly recommend sticking to them in order to avoid being confused even more.

Anastasia

Nouns and verbs can have two different forms when conjugated

Course Administrator — Sat, 11 Sep 2021 08:38:51 +0000

Hi! I've noticed that some nouns and verbs can have two different forms when conjugated.

RE: "det" in short answers - Module 9

Course Administrator — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 11:41:38 +0000

It's the structure of kortsvar that requires us always say "det" after ja or nej. So, the answer itself always starts with "det", then a verb followed by a subject.

"det" in short answers - Module 9

Course Administrator — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 11:40:57 +0000

In the section I Butiken, there is a dialogue question: "Har ni några vita byxor i storlek M?", and the reply is: "Nej, det har vi inte. " Since byxor is plural, why isn't the reply: "Nej, dem har vi inte."?

The Definite Form - something belongs to someone

Course Administrator — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 06:47:18 +0000

Hon skadade sitt finger… / Hon skadade fingret… (in Swedish we use the definite form to say “someone’s own”: Hon borstar tänderna. – She brushes her teeth.)

RE: sin, sitt, sina - Module 15

Course Administrator — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 06:30:44 +0000

Correct phrase:

Malin sa att hennes fotled var… – after “att” we have “bisats”, which means another sentence (another pair of a subject and a verb), there are two subject verb pairs here: 1 – Malin sa, 2 – hennes fotled. We can use sin, sitt and sina only when it is only one subject-verb pair in a sentence and if sin, sitt, sina is referred to a subject in this pair.

sin, sitt, sina - Module 15

Course Administrator — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 06:29:54 +0000

Malin sa att sin fotled var… - it's incorrect to say so with "sin"

RE: Exercies #2 Page 2 - Module 8

Course Administrator — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 06:28:22 +0000

Yes, that's correct. It will be "blåa jeansen" and "mörkgröna shortsen" 😊

Exercies #2 Page 2 - Module 8

Course Administrator — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 06:27:24 +0000

On Page 2 exercise #2 you included blåa jeans, randiga byxor, and mörkgröna shorts as examples of the indefinite plural forms, but in the definite plural section that followed you included randiga byxorna but did not include jeans or shorts as examples. Am I correct that the definite plural forms would be blåa jeansen, and mörkgröna shortsen?

RE: Preteritum or perfekt

Course Administrator — Thu, 22 Jul 2021 15:12:26 +0000

We can use both preteritum and perfekt when we are talking about the same situation, because perfekt shows us the meaning of the action, that it has happened, while preteritum shows us the actions and for preteritum it is important that these actions are happened then, in this period or point in time.

An example:
Jag har tittat på den här filmen. Jag och min väninna gick på bio igår. Vi träffades på Hötorget, köpte popcorn och tittade på den.
(We may say these sentences together in Swedish, one after another. The first sentence – I have seen this film at some point in my life, it’s important that I have seen it. The second and the third sentences – I describe when it was and what consecutive actions I have done to achieve it.)

People usually have this question about preteritum and perfekt up until C1 and C2 levels because there are a lot of cases when we use one or another. Now I just want you to remember the word markers that will help you and the main meaning of these tenses: preteritum – the time is important, the exact time in the past; perfekt – the result is important.

Preteritum is close to Past Simple in English, perfekt is close to Present Perfect in English. These analogies usually don’t help even native speakers, so try to remember the main meanings of these tenses and analyze them when you see sentences either in preteritum or perfekt, because Swedish and English are rather different when it comes to small details.