Category Archives: Grammar

Åka or Gå?

12
Oct
2008

Today’s topic is one that confuses many Swedish learners – those pesky verbs that are deceptively similar, have pretty much the same meaning in English, yet in Swedish are used in a completely different context. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?
Actually, Swedish has quite a few such verb combinations. But today we’ll start with the one [...]

By Anna | Also posted in Vocabulary | Comments (6)

Swedish Verbs, part 2

23
Sep
2008

A few posts back we started to discuss Swedish verbs, remember? And I told you that those verbs can be divided into two big groups: “ar” and “er”. I also mentioned that there is a third group and then promptly refused to say anything else about it.
Oh yes, that third verb group. This is the [...]

By Anna | Comments (2)

Swedish Verbs, part 1

12
Sep
2008

Long, long time ago, I think in one of my earliest posts, I said that Swedish verbs are easier than English. And for the most part, that is indeed true. There is no goofy “–s” in the third person singular, no irregular “to be”, the auxiliary “do” is gone altogether, and “have/has” is simply “har”. [...]

By Anna | Comments (2)

Real Gender Specific Nouns

4
Sep
2008

In my last post, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, I showed you a Swedish noun with a “real” gender. A noun that has both a male and a female version. That word was “skådespelare” which means an “actor”.
This is actually a bit similar to what happens in English as well. We have an actor and [...]

By Anna | Also posted in Vocabulary | Comments (1)

Partikelverb Part 1

29
Aug
2008

Adrienne asked a question about partikelverb, and because I’m such a good sport, I decided to blog about it today. Now say, I know it’s an impossible task to make partikelverb interesting, but hey, we can give it a shot, right?
So, what’s a partikelverb anyway? As the name suggests, it’s a verb and a particle [...]

By Anna | Comments (6)

A Little Bit About Adjectives

19
Aug
2008

It’s grammar time today, because we can’t have just fun and games all the time. I want you to learn something really useful here, even if only occasionally.
When talking about “jobbig” I briefly mentioned the rules regarding Swedish adjectives. That when an adjective describes an “ett” noun, it gets a “-t” ending. And [...]

By Anna | Comments (8)

Useful Words: Jobbig

29
Jul
2008

In every language there are words that you either just love or simply hate for whatever reason. Personally, I’m not a fan of words that are difficult to spell, and unfortunately the English language is full of them. Like “assassinate”. The only reason I remember how to spell it is because it has two of [...]

By Anna | Also posted in Vocabulary | Comments (12)

Plural Ett Words

26
Jul
2008

I have a foreign neighbor who reads this blog (hi neighbor!), and I think it’s very convenient that she does. She’s right under my nose, she’s learning Swedish, speaks passable English and is not afraid to ask questions. So I wasn’t surprised when she spied me out while I was taking my cats out for [...]

By Anna | Comments (7)

På And More På

21
Jul
2008

I went to the movies tonight with my friend and we saw “Hancock”, it was actually pretty good. Yes, I know, I know. This movie is old news in the US, but here it’s just opened and the theatre was packed. I didn’t even know there were that many people left in my town on [...]

By Anna | Also posted in Vocabulary | Comments (4)

Book Containing Nouns and Their Gender?

15
Jul
2008

One of the readers asked a question about a book containing nouns and their gender. And that’s a very good question indeed. Most, if not all English-Swedish dictionaries are useless when it comes to indicating whether a noun is an “en” or “ett” word. And why is that? Have their editors forgotten the pains of [...]

By Anna | Comments (14)