Posts under "Vocabulary"

Why does ‘hand’ become ‘händer’ in plural?

Posted by Steve 3 Comments
Jan 24 2012

This is one question that boggles the minds of many learners of the Swedish language (as well as the other Nordic languages). Why doesn’t ‘hand’ just become ‘hander’ or ‘handar’ in plural?

The answer to this lies in a major change that occurred throughout Germanic Europe in the Early Middle Ages (which in Scandinavia was the middle of the Iron Age, 450~500 AD). The process is known today as the i-omljud in Swedish (in English the Germanic umlaut, i-umlaut, or i-mutation). What happened during this change was that an unemphasized i (prounced like ‘ee’ in modern English) in a word brought emphasized back vowels (vowels produced in the back of the mouth: a, o, u) forward, closer to i. For example, what you’re here to find out:

- The plural of hand in Old Norse was handiar. But since it is natural for human beings to simplify things, people began to say hændar (/´hændər/), combining the a with the i, creating a new sound, æ (pronounced similarly to the a in hat). From there, the æ as well as the ar at the end became more and more weakly pronounced, leading to its modern pronunciation, /´hɛndər/, orthographized as händer. The singular form, hand, however, remained the same because it lacked an i to change it.

The i-omljud also affected the other back vowels, o and u. Before this process, Old Norse only had five vowels: a, e, i, o, and u, like the rest of the Indo-European languages of that time. After the i-omljud, though, three more vowels had developed, namely y (what you get when you combine i and u), æ (i and a combined, as shown above), and ø (from i and o). The letters æ and ø were used when the Latin alphabet was first adopted but were replaced by the Low German ä and ö toward the end of the Middle Ages (in Sweden, 1050~1520 AD). Previously, Swedish was written completely in runes.

What about å then? When did that appear? Check back in one week and you’ll be able to find out!

“This” and “these”

Posted by Katja 6 Comments
Jan 19 2012

In Sweden there are lots of different dialects, and of course people use different words for the same thing. Something as simple as “this” you’ll find lots of variations of and for someone learning Swedish that can be a bit confusing. Especially if the word everybody is using in some areas is grammatically incorrect, and never before mentioned in a textbook.

Swedish English equivalent
 

detta

denna

det här

 this  
Swedish English equivalent
 

dessa

domma

de här

dom här

  these 

Domma is said especially around Jönköping and maybe Stockholm a little bit(?) but is found in other parts of Sweden as well.  This is not grammatically correct, but you will still hear many people say it.

So you know the en and ett rules by now right? Well, just to check. Table which is in Swedish bord. Ett bord, we do not say en bord. Detta and denna follow the same priciple, you would say “detta bord” and not “denna bord”. You could also say “det här bordet”.

Then to point out to somebody which tables you were meaning, you would say “dessa bord” meaning these tables (bord is a exception, we do not say bordar for several tables, we just say ett bord, flera bord. One table, several tables). The noun you use after “dessa” is in in-definitive plural form, like dessa stolar (these chairs) dessa dörrar (these doors) etc.

Domma is used when you are actually supposed to be using dessa.

De här is strictly speaking only supposed to be used in written language but when people talk they still pronounce it as de här. This is maybe illogical but we don’t say de här bord, instead we say de här borden. So we specify by using bord-en or for one table,  or det här bordet. Det här works for all nouns, regardless if it is a en or ett.

Dom här is used the same way as de här, so no worries there :)

Short dialog 

Ett par går runt i IKEA och tittar på bord.

A couple are walking round in IKEA looking at tables.

Person A) Dom där borden är fina.

Person B) Dom här? (pekar)

Person A) Nej, dessa. (pekar på ett annat bord)

Person B) Jaha. Ja, jag tycker om dom också.

Swedish English equivalent
 

bord

peka

fin (plu. fina)

annat

tycka (progressiv form; tycker)

också

jaha

  

table

to point

nice

other, different

to think, like

as well, too

oh

Next time you hear some Swedish see if you can hear the differences.

Stop or shut?

Posted by Steve 3 Comments
Jan 17 2012

Similar to the nouns in last Tuesday’s post, there are a number of Swedish verbs that have the same infinite form but different meanings and different conjugation.

One of the best examples is the words sluta, meaning either “stop”, “end”, or “shut”, depending on its context and grammatical conjugation. It is also worth noting that sluta as “stop” or “end” is intransitive, meaning that you can not sluta something – inserting a direct object after it makes no sense. You can, however, sluta doing something or sluta med something. Here are some examples

Lektionen slutarom fem minuter. – The lesson ends in five minutes.
Sluta tjata på* mig! – Stop nagging me! (*På in this case is tied to the verb, but not emphasized. You can’t say, for example, tjata mig.)
Sluta med tjatandet! – Stop with the nagging!

[Note: If you want to "stop" something (i.e. from doing something), you can use the word stoppa. If you want to "stop" something from being in motion, use the word stanna.]

Here is the conjugation of sluta meaning “end” or “stop”:

sluta – to stop/end
slutar – stop/end, stops/ends, am/is/are stopping/ending
slutade – stopped/ended, was/were stopping/ending
har slutat – have/has stopped/ended, have/has been stopping/ending
hade slutat – had stopped/ended, had been stopping/ending


Sluta with the definition of “shut”, however, is a transitive verb, meaning that something can’t just sluta; it has to sluta something else. Here is an example:

Jag slöt ögonen och somnade. – I shut my eyes and fell asleep.

If you want to say “His eyes shut“, because sluta in this definition is transitive, you have to say either:

Hans ögon slöt sig. (if they shut themselves on their own, i.e. via reflex) or:

Hans ögon slöts. (if they were shut, most likely by him himself, saying it from a first-person, relatively literary perspective).

Sluta meaning “shut” is conjugated like so:

sluta – to shut
sluter – shut/end, shuts/ends, am/is/are shutting
slöt – shut, was/were shutting
har slutit – have/has shut, have/has been shutting
hade slutit – had shut, had been shutting

Another good example of this phenomenon is sticka, meaning either “knit” or “be off” or “leave”.

sticka – to knit sticka – to be off/leave
stickar – knit, knits, am/is/are knitting sticker – am/is/are off, leave/leaves, am/is/are leaving
stickade – knit(ted), was/were knitting stack – was/were off, left
har stickat – have/has knit(ted), have/has been knitting har stuckit – have/has left/gone
har stickat – had knit(ted), had been knitting hade stuckit – had left/gone

These are only two examples of such words. There are several more that will pop up as you learn more Swedish!

Dust or pond?

Posted by Steve 3 Comments
Jan 10 2012

There are lots of words in Swedish, just as in English, that have several meanings. One example of this relatively common phenomenon is the Swedish word damm. (Please keep in mind that the double m makes the vowel a short. If you pronounce the a long, you’re saying dam, which means ‘lady’.) Damm can mean two things: ‘dust’ and ‘pond’. Actually, it can also mean ‘dam’, but in this post I will use ‘dust’ and ‘pond’ as examples. (It has the same grammatical conjugation as damm meaning ‘pond’.)

So how do you know which one someone means? Well, just like in most cases, the meaning is relative to the context. Obviously, if someone says Det finns damm över hela mitt rum, he/she doesn’t mean “There’s a pond all over my room”.

Another important difference is the grammatical usage and conjugation of the words. Damm meaning ‘dust’ is not countable, meaning you can’t say Det finns tre damm i det här rummet, or ‘There are three dusts in this room”. However, you can say Det finns tre dammar i den här skogen, meaning “There are three ponds in this forest”.

You’ll notice that in the previous examples, the plural forms for “dust” and “pond” are different. Technically, “dust” can’t be plural at all, but since it’s a neutral-gender word (that ends in -et in definite form), I followed the general conjugation rules and left it as damm. For damm in the meaning of “pond”, however, the definite conjugation is dammar since it is a common-gender word (that ends in -en in definite form). This is what I meant by grammatical differences.

Another example is the word lag – it can mean either “team” (in neutral-gender form) or “law” (in common-gender form). The conjugations go like this:

lag (team) lag (law)
lag (teams) lagar (laws)
laget (the team) lagen (the law)
lagen (the teams) lagarna (the laws)

You may notice that lagen can both mean “the teams” or “the law”. Interpretation of this depends on the context, just like the singular, indefinite forms of lag and lag and damm and damm.

These are far from the only examples of this phenomenon in Swedish. You’re sure to come across plenty of them as you study the language in further depth!

Sweden’s Newest Religion

Posted by Marcus Cederström 2 Comments
Jan 6 2012

Sweden is not a religious country. At all. In fact, it is often described as one of the most secular countries in the world. That does not mean that there are not religions, or that there is no spirituality. Such things are alive and well in Sweden. In fact, Sweden has recently become the birthplace of a new religion: Det Missionernade Kopimistsamfundet or the Missionary Church of Kopimism.

The church has decided that the file sharing is a religion. The Swedish government has even acknowledged the church as an official religion. The church claims that it has over 3000 members in more than ten countries. Isak Gerson, a philosophy student at the University of Uppsala founded the religion a couple of years ago and since then has been working to have it recognized by the Swedish government. Just recently that recognition was given.

While this news seems to have taken the internet world by storm, it doesn’t amount to all that much. Nor should it be all that surprising. The acknowledgement as an official religion in Sweden is similar to incorporating a business. It’s an important step, yes, but it has a way to go to supplant the already established religions in Sweden. Of course, it fits well in a country that already has a political party, the Pirate Party, which shares similar views in terms of file sharing.

Below, you’ll find a short vocab list of religious words that may come in handy. In parentheses you’ll find whether it is an en or ett word as well as whether it is a noun, verb, or adjective. Good luck!

(ett) sakrament                        a sacrament (noun/substantiv)
(en) tro                                      a belief (substantiv)
(att) tro                                    to believe (verb)
(en) helig skrift                        a religious text (substantiv)
andlige                                       spiritual (adjective/adjektiv)
(en) religion                             a religion (substantiv)
religiöst                                   religious (adjektiv)
(en) gud                                   a god or God (substantiv)
(en) ängel                                an angel (substantiv)
(en) kyrka                                a church (substantiv)
(en) domkyrka                         a cathedral (substantiv)
(att) be                                     to pray (verb)
(en) bön                                   a prayer (substantiv)
kristen                                     Christian (adjective)
(en) kristen                              a Christian (substantiv)
(en) kristendom                       Christianity (substantiv)
muslimsk                                 Muslim (adjektiv)
(en) muslim                             a Muslim (substantiv)
Islam                                       Islam (substantiv)
judisk                                      Jewish (adjektiv)
(en) jude                                  a Jew (substantiv)
(en) judendom                         Judaism (substantiv)

Back to the Top