Posts tagged w/ ett words

Swedish Possessive Pronouns

Posted by Anna Ikeda
Jun
30
2009

I have never suspected that possessive pronouns (possessiva pronomen) can be the cause of so many emails! In my post about birthdays, I used a couple of possessive pronouns, and seemingly all of you who had my email address got in touch saying something along those lines “Yo Anna, if you are going to use some goofy examples, don’t you think it would be a good idea to explain first why sometimes ‘din’ is ‘ditt’ or ‘dina’? Because we are not, like, you know, mind readers and stuff.”

Ahhh… Those Swedish personal pronouns… They sure are fun! And don’t worry, they are not as complicated as you think. And by the way, I think I did cover them somewhere on this blog last year.

But since your wish is my command, let’s review those bits, because you are right, they are important, and getting them right makes all the difference between sounding like an idiot and speaking like someone who actually cared enough to learn it properly.

In English, it’s straightforward and easy. Whether you are talking about “my car” or “my children” – “my” stays the same, no matter what.

In Swedish, it’s a bit more involved than that, simply because Swedish nouns are divided into “en” and “ett”. And because most possessive pronouns behave just like adjectives, they need to be treated like adjectives. And hence, most of them get the “t” ending when accompanying “ett” nouns and “a” ending for plural nouns.

Take a look:

  • min bil – my car

but

  • mitt hus – my house

and

  • mina skor – my shoes

Unfortunately, not all possessive pronouns follow this simple pattern. If they did, our lives would be just too easy, right?

Here’s one example:

  • hans katt – his cat

and

  • hans hus – his house

and

  • hans pengar – his money (money is plural in Swedish)

And unfortunately, this one is not the only one. There’s more of them pesky little buggers who don’t like to conform.

Here is the complete table of possessive pronouns:

  • my – min – mitt – mina
  • your (singular) – din – ditt –dina
  • his – hans – hans – hans
  • her – hennes – hennes – hennes
  • its – dess – dess – dess
  • our – vår – vårt – våra
  • your (plural) – er – ert – era
  • their – deras – deras – deras

“Dess” is the possessive pronoun of “den” and “det” but it’s not used very much. Normally, the concept of “its” is expressed in some other way, like for example:
Jag har en katt. – I have a cat.
But instead of saying “Dess päls är vit.” – Its fur (coat) it white.
We would rather say
Den har vit päls. – It has white fur (coat).

There is also a mysterious (at least mysterious to many Swedish learners) pronoun “sin” but I think we should cover it in its very own special post.

PS. Today is the LAST DAY to enter my Midsommar Book Contest!!! The deadline is midnight EST (Eastern Standard Time in the US). So don’t miss out!!! :)

Scroll a few posts back to get the details!

 
Posted under Grammar
Tagged with , , , , 		1 Comment | Post a Comment

Swedish Supines and Past Participles and More Grammar

Posted by Anna Ikeda
May
22
2009

You know how I always tell you that Swedish is so similar to English that learning it should be a cake-walk really?

Well, today, I will break with this long-standing tradition and instead I’m going to tell you that Swedish is not like English at all and that it can be quite hard to get it right.

I’ve never even thought about this issue, because well, frankly, it’s never even crossed my mind. Until I had to help someone deal with supines and past participles. And the trouble began.

“Wait!” I hear you say, “isn’t it, like, pretty much basic and easy in English?”
Yes it is. But it’s not so easy in Swedish. Especially for an English speaker (hence I kindly ask all native Swedes reading this blog post to please consider this fact while commenting, thank you).

You see, the English supine is the bare naked infinitive form, the kind we stick “to” in front of.
But in Swedish, the supine is the stuff we use to construct perfect tenses - as in “jag har/hade + Swedish supine.

So, it looks like the Swedish supine is what in English we’d call a past participle.

So, what’s a past participle in Swedish? Hmmm… It’s also a verb form, but it’s used as an adjective. And it also follows the same rules as all normal adjectives do.

So, let’s take a look at this:

  • skriva – to write

and in all the tenses:

  • skriver – write (present tense)
  • skrev – wrote (past tense)
  • skrivit – written (used in perfect tenses – this “skrivit” is the Swedish supine)

and

  • skriven – “written” as an adjective – this is the Swedish past participle, this form is used with “en” nouns
  • skrivet – “written” as an adjective – this form is used with “ett” nouns

and

  • skrivna – “written” as an adjective – this form is used with plural nouns.

“Ouch!” I hear you say and I don’t blame you. Maybe these very simple examples will make it clearer:

  • Någon har skrivit ett brev. – Someone has written a letter. - That’s our garden variety present perfect tense. Nothing complicated here. “Skrivit” is the Swedish supine.
  • Detta brev var skrivet på engelska. – This letter was written in English. - “Brev” is an “ett” noun and the past participle form we need to use here is “skrivet”.
  • Denna text var skriven i december 2008. – This text was written in December 2008. - “Text” is an “en” noun and the past participle form that matches it is “skriven”.
  • Alla gamla böcker var skrivna på latin. – All old books were written in Latin. - “Böcker” is a plural noun, and so we need to use the plural form of past participle, which in this case is “skrivna”.

Of course I made it difficult for you by choosing an irregular verb for these examples, so next time I’ll show you how this Swedish past participle stuff works with normal, boring, regular verbs, OK?

 
Posted under Grammar
Tagged with , , , , , , , , 		4 Comments | Post a Comment