Posts tagged with "personal pronouns"

Swedish Pronouns

Posted by Tibor 11 Comments
Jul 19 2010
 Singular and Plural  1 st, 2 nd, 3 rd person  Grundform or Personal Pronouns  Object forms  Possessive  Reflexive  Reflexive possessive
 singular:  1 person  jag  mig  min  (verb) + mig  min
   2 person  du  dig  din  (verb) + dig  din
   3 person  han, hon  honom, henne  hans, hennes  (verb) + sig  sin
   3 person neutrum  den, det  den, det  dess  (verb) + sig  sin
 plural  1 person  vi  oss  vår  (verb) + sig  vår
   2 person  ni  er  er  (verb) + er  er
   3 person  de/dom  dem  deras  (verb) + sig  sin

Ok guys. More grammar on the Swedish blog, even though it is hot summer weather and you don´t want to open your books. I am not just giving you a table but of course some explanations to it. There are some things you should be aware of. I think we can skip the personal pronouns because that is easy but let me give you some examples.

a., Personal Pronouns; Hon är vacker och rolig. She´s beautiful and funny. ( In cases like these you don´t have to put out the personal pronoun two times since you are talking about the same person Marie).   

b., Object forms; Jag ser honom. I see him. Vi träffade dem igår. We met them yesterday.  or De väntar på oss. They are waiting for us. Har du sett den senaste filmen med Sandra Bullock? Have you seen the latest movie with Sandra Bullock? Nej, jag har inte sett den. (Where den referes to the word movie since it is called en film in Swedish so you use the pronoun den. If I hade asked you; Have you seen my umbrella? Then the answer would have been; Nej, jag har inte sett det. Because it is called ett paraply in Swedish.

*Note that in SG/3 in this case people often use han/hon instead of honom and henne in spoken language, especially in Western Sweden. However this use is considered incorrect. But you can hear it a lot so it is good to know. Some lingvists say that in Old Swedish the forms were hon/han and not honom and henne so it might be the original form. Another theory is that people know that it should be henne/honom but we want to save some time when explaining things for example in situations when we both know the object of our conversation: Jag såg (han Christian) igår. And then it easily becomes Jag såg han igår. But you should stick to Jag såg honom igår. That is the correct one or you can say Jag såg Christian igår.

c., Possessive Pronouns; There is never bestämd form i.e definite form of nouns after these pronouns. For example: Mitt hus (since it is called ett hus in Swedish), Min kamera (since it is called en kamera in Swedish), or Våra hus or våra kameror in plural. Find the explanation and tables about Swedish plurals here.  It is also good to know that in PL1 and 2 forms can be pronounced as våran and eran but vår and er are also common of course. Only in spoken language but in written we always stick to the rules! Also note that I haven´t added the t-forms like vårt hus, ert hus and the plurals like våra hus and era hus in the table but they are in use. The forms are always depended on the article of the noun. If it is ett hus then you´ll get vårt, ert, if it is for example en bil, en man, en dotter you would get vår and er.

d., Reflexive Pronouns; You have some reflexive forms and might have some reflexive verbs in your language as well (like in German for example), but they seldom match with Swedish or they have other functions in other languages, so I recommend you to learn the reflexive verbs/phrases by heart like for instance: kamma sig (we say: to comb oneself), tvättar sig (to wash oneself) lägger sig (to lie down). Jag är jättetrött och  ska lägga mig en stund. I am very tired I´ll lie down a bit. Note that in English you use a so called phrasal verb (verb + preposition) to express this action. You wouldn´t say in English ”I lie myself but it is exactly what you say in Swedish”.

Jag lägger mig, Du lägger dig, Han/Hon/Den/Det lägger sig, Vi lägger oss, Ni lägger er, De lägger sig.

e., Reflexive possessive; In this case to make a huge and hard topic blog short I would say that you should think about (one´s own) in English whenever using or hearing these constructions in Swedish. For example. Hon kom med sitt barn på mötet. She came with her (own) child to the meeting while Hon kom med hennes barn på mötet. She came with her (another woman´s child) child to the meeting. Don´t mix the two! Think always about that it is yours/someone else´s own something you talk about. You use sitt in case of t-forms like in the example and sin in case of n-forms like. Han körde sin blåa bil. He drove his (own) blue car. Also note that I havn´t added sina in plural in this table. It functions as a plural form for both sitt and sin. For example: Hon kom med sina döttrar på mötet. She came with her (own) daughters to the meeting or Hon sålde sina två hus i Málaga. She sold her two (own) houses in Málaga.

Anybody’s “man” – another personal pronoun

Posted by Transparent Language 5 Comments
Sep 2 2009

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! :)

Dem Pesky Personal Pronouns

Posted by Transparent Language 12 Comments
Aug 26 2009

The other day I got an email asking me to clarify which form of the third person plural personal pronoun (that would be the Swedish equivalent of “they” in English) was correct. The question, of course, was about “de” and “dom”.

Hmmm… it’s an interesting question. Both of those words are pronounced the same – as ”dom” and mean exactly the same. In fact, the explanation that you can see in many grammar books for foreigners is that we write “de” and pronounce it “dom”.

Hmmm… then what about those not so infrequent times when you can see “dom” actually written as “dom”? Though personally it rubs me the wrong way, you can find plenty of “dom” in less formal written Swedish. And that’s one thing I really don’t understand. After all it’s so much faster and more efficient to write “de” instead of “dom”. And I don’t know if it’s just me, but “de” just LOOKS more sophisticated, too.

So yes, we say “dom” and write it mostly as “de”, except for the times when we write it as “dom”. Easy!

But then there’s “dem” which also sounds like “dom”.

“Dem” is the object pronoun of “de”. “What’s that?”, I hear you ask. That’s when a personal pronoun acts as an object in a sentence. Like that:

  • Jag ser dem. – I can see them.

So basically, you have two different words: “de” and “dem”, which are both pronounced as “dom”. And sometimes written as “dom” as well.

See? That wasn’t confusing at all, now, was it? :)

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