Since we were talking about personal pronouns the other day, and as I see, it has provoked some very interesting comments, I thought it would be a good idea to continue on the subject.

“What? There are even more pronouns in Swedish?” I hear you say.

Well, not that many more. Actually, just one more that I think I should mention on here. And depending on how you look at it, it may not even be a pronoun at all. Yes, I’m talking about “man”. Not just any man, but the one that is normally translated into English as “one”. Well, it’s translated as “one” if we want to go all formal, but normally, it becomes something like “you” or “they” or “we”, or simply “people” in English. In other words, this “man” thingie is used when we want to talk about people in general and nobody in particular.

And it looks like that:

• Man blir trött om man sover för mycket. – One gets tired if one sleeps too much. Or more like a normal person would say it: You get tired if you sleep too much. (Though personally, I disagree with this statement. What nonsense! I love to sleep!)

Here’s another example:

• I Sverige dricker man mycket kaffe. – They (people) drink a lot of coffee in Sweden. (Yeah, that’s for sure!)

And another:

• Man ser sjön från balkongen. – You (we) can see the lake from the balcony.

So that’s the easy part. The not so easy part could be the objective form of “man”, which is “en”. Like this:

• Ingen gillar en, om man skryter. – No one likes you if you boast.

But, if the object refers back to the subject, then the reflexive “sig” bit is used. Like this:

• Man frågar sig, varför det hände. – One asks oneself why it happened. Or more like a normal person would say it: You ask yourself why it happened.

I always try to abide by the K.I.S.S. principle when discussing grammar, because that’s what most people learning a foreign language need. But if you feel the need to elaborate on this very “personal” subject, the comments are all yours. Go wild!