Introduction

Svensk Genders

That seems a bit overkill - but it is actually quite logical (Swedes like logic). There are two kinds of gender – natural (male and female) and grammatical gender in Swedish.

English only uses natural gender ("he" for males, "she" for females and "it" for objects) whereas Romance languages such as French use natural genders ("he" and "she") as grammatical gender as well (everything is thus either a "he" or a "she" in French).

When talking about people, will use the natural gender (he and she) but when we aren't talking about humans, you have to look at the grammatical gender. Swedish words belong either to the en-words (also called n-words, common gender or utrum) or to the ett-words (also called t-words, neuter or neutrum).

The names en-words and ett-words are derived from the indefinite article (singular) of each group, both corresponding to a(n) in English.

English	+ är(to be)/har(to have)	English
I	jag	me	mig (mej)
you (singular)	du	you	dig (dej)
he	han	him	honom
she	hon	her	henne
it (with en words)	den	it	den
it (with ett words)	det	it	det
one	man	one	en
we	vi	us	oss
you (plural)	ni	you	er
they	de (dom)	them	dem (dom)

		The Female	The Male
en kvinna / Kvinnan	en man / Mannen	kvinnor	Män
en flicka / Flickan	en pojke / Pojken	flickor	Pojker

Verbs

Infinitives in Swedish end in -a. When conjugating verbs, the same form is used for all subject pronouns, whether singular or plural. To form the present tense of verbs, either add -r to the infinitive or remove the -a and add -er.

tala - to speak (-ar verb) and stänga - to close (-er verb)

Present Tense		Past Tense		Present Tense*		Past Tense
jag talar	I speak	jag talade	I spoke	jag stänger	I close	jag stängde	I closed
du talar	you speak	du talade	you spoke	du stänger	you close	du stängde	you closed
han talar	he speaks	han talade	he spoke	han stänger	he closes	han stängde	he closed
hon talar	she speaks	hon talade	she spoke	hon stänger	she closes	hon stängde	she closed
vi talar	we speak	vi talade	we spoke	vi stänger	we close	vi stängde	we closed
ni talar	you speak	ni talade	you spoke	ni stänger	you close	ni stängde	you closed
de talar	they speak	de talade	they spoke	de stänger	they close	de stängde	they closed

det är

In Swedish, when start talking about something new, or point out what something is, we use the construction det är.

It is a lot like it is in English, but there's an important difference: the Swedish construction never changes. We use it for ett words and en words, for people and for plural objects, and it's always det är.

• Det är ett äpple* – It is an apple

• Det är en bok – It is a book

• Det är en flicka* – It is a girl

• Det är tidningar* – They are newspapers

Read more about this construction here: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/9708920

This and that

You're going to learn about this more in depth later, but in case you wonder if you couldn't just say this or that when we say det är, here's the deal:

There are two ways to say this in Swedish: either det här/den här or detta/denna.

The Swedish counterpart to that is det där/den där, but sometimes you can also use det/den to mean that.

Those words are taught a little later in the course so you don't need to worry about them just yet, but just in case you were wondering.

• There are two ways to say this in Swedish: either det här/den här or detta/denna.

• The Swedish counterpart to that is det där/den där, but sometimes you can also use det/den to mean that.

Excerpt

/

Jag är en pojke. (I am a boy.)

Hon / Du(Ni) äter ett äpple. (She / You are eating an apple. )

Vi är flickor. (We are girls.)

De är pojkar. (They are boys.)

Kvinnan dricker vatten och äter bröd. (The woman is drinking water and eating bread.)

Han dricker vatten. (He drinks water. )

Kvinnan äter bröd. (The woman eats bread. )

Du har ett brev. (You have a letter.)

Hon läser en bok. (She is reading a book. )

Flickan har en bok. (The girl has a book. )

ett barn / Barnet / mjölk / ris / en smörgås / en meny / En tidning

( a child / the child / milk / rice / a sandwich / a menu / a newspaper )