Links mentioned in the video: SwedishPod101, All Pod101 courses
Basic Information about Swedish
The Swedish language is called “det svenska språket” in Swedish, or just “svenska”.
Swedish is spoken by ~10 million speakers, mainly in Sweden, where it’s the native language of around 8 million people, and also in Finland (where it’s the second official language after Finnish) with around 270,000 native speakers.
It’s a Continental North Germanic language that is closely related to Danish and Norwegian, and mutually intelligible with them to some extent, the degree depending on the dialects in question.
The History of the Swedish Language
Like all North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, which developed from Proto-Germanic by the 8th century. Over the next six hundred years or so, Old Norse developed into the various North Germanic languages of today. Old Norse first diverged into Old West Norse (in Norway, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands) and Old East Norse (in Sweden and Denmark). Old East Norse then diverged into Old Danish and Old Swedish by around the 13th century.
Old East Norse is sometimes referred to as Runic Swedish and Runic Danish (even though they were the same until around the year 1100). This name comes from the fact that it was written in the Runic alphabet (specifically the Younger Futhark alphabet).
The Latin alphabet was adopted in Sweden around 1225 due to the Christianization of Sweden, and this marks the beginning of the Old Swedish period. Later that century the Hanseatic League began to arise. It was an alliance of Middle Low-German speaking trade communities spread out across the Baltic region and Scandinavia, including the major cities of Sweden.
Through its domination of trade over the next several centuries and through the settlement of aristocratic families from what is now northern Germany, Middle Low German had a significant impact on the vocabulary of Swedish (along with Norwegian and Danish).
Swedish also became simpler in its grammar as it developed from Old Swedish to Modern Swedish. It originally had a more complex case system (4 cases rather than the current 2 cases), three genders (rather than the current 2), and a more complex verb system.
The printing press and the publishing of a Swedish Bible (The Gustav Vasa Bible) in the sixteenth century marked the beginning of the Modern Swedish period. The Gustav Vasa Bible was a major step towards more standardized orthography.
But it wasn’t until the 19th and 20th centuries that Swedish became more uniform (due to migration and urbanization) and a standard language was created. By the time of the spelling reform of 1906, Swedish was almost the same as the contemporary Swedish in use today.
The Swedish language today
Today Standard Swedish dominates throughout Sweden in general, and most people are fluent in it. Regional dialects are still widely spoken, though they are generally not as distinct as they once were, because of the influence of Standard Swedish. The most prominent dialectal difference today lies in accent.
Swedish Pronunciation and Orthography
There are 29 letters in the Swedish alphabet, 9 of them vowel letters, and 20 of them consonant letters. But those letters represent more than 29 distinct phonemes.
Swedish Vowels
The vowel letters represent pairs of short vowels and long vowels, with short vowels appearing before a long consonant (ie. two or more consonants), and long vowels appearing before a short consonant (ie. a single consonant), a vowel, or at the end of a word. In most cases the long and short vowels are also different in quality, not only length.
Standard Swedish has no phonemic diphthongs (though some dialects such as the Scanian dialects of southern Sweden do).
Swedish Consonants
Some consonant sounds are represented by digraphs:
dj, gj, hj, lj – all represent the sound /j/ (As does j, as well as g before front vowels: e i y ä ö).
sj, skj, stj – all respresent the sound /ɧ/ (As does sk before front vowels e i y ä ö ; otherwise it’s pronounced /sk/).
kj, tj – both represent /ɕ/ (As does k before front vowels: e i y ä ö, otherwise it’s pronounced /k/; and sometimes ch which is used in loanwords).
gn – represents /ɡn/ at the beginning of words, and /ŋn/ in other contexts.
ng – represents /ŋ/ or /ŋɡ/.
rd rl rn rs rt – represent retroflex consonants: [ɖ] [ɭ] [ɳ] [ʂ] [ʈ]
The standard sound represent by r is a voiced alveolar TRILL, and in some words an alveolar tap /ɾ/.
This is one sound that differs depending on the dialect, which some southern dialects of Swedish pronouncing it as a uvular trill [ʀ] (in careful speech), or a (voiceless [χ] or a voiced [ʁ]) uvular fricative.
Swedish Pitch Accent
Like Norwegian, Swedish has pitch accent. Most words feature a pitch accent, or a shift in tone, on the stressed syllable. There are two tone patterns. Tone 1 is a rising tone: The pitch rises on the stressed syllable then falls on the unstressed syllable that follows.
Tone 2 is falling-rising-falling tone: The pitch falls on the stressed syllable, then rises and falls again on the unstressed syllable that follows
Many pairs of words can be distinguished based on their pitch accent. For example:
Tone 1: boken (the book). Tone 2: boken (overripe, spoiled – of fruit).
In the above example, “boken” with tone 2 is a very uncommon word. Here is a more classic example:
Tone 1: anden (the duck). Tone 2: anden (the spirit).
Tone 2 normally appears in words with multiple syllables and inflection (aside from the definite article). Tone 1 normally appears in words with only one syllable, and words with the definite article attached. But the example above with “anden” shows that is not always the case.
Some Features of Swedish Grammar
Swedish Definite Articles
The “en” in boken is a definite article. (high-low on bok)
Jag läste boken. “I read the book”. Word-for-word it’s I-read-book-the. Swedish word order is S-V-O as in English, the only difference here being the placement of “the”.
The definite article takes the form of a suffix in Swedish, and its form depends on the gender and number of the noun. Modern Swedish (at least in its standard form) has two genders: common gender, and neuter gender. For singular common gender nouns, the definite article is usually ~en or ~n.
Swedish singular definite and indefinite articles
The definite article for singular neuter nouns is ~et or ~t. stället “the place”. (the final “t” is silent in most dialects).
Unlike the definite article, the indefinite article comes before the noun, en for common nouns: en bok, and ett for neuter nouns: ett ställe “the place”.
Swedish plural definite and indefinite articles
Indefinite plural nouns are formed by adding indefinite suffixes, which differ depending on the noun’s ending.
Common gender: Böcker “books”.
Neuter gender: ställen “places”.
For plural definite nouns in the common gender you add ~na to the indefinite plural. böckerna “the books”.
For plural definite nouns in the neuter gender you add ~a (to those ending in a vowel) and you add ~en to those ending in a consonant. ställena “the places”.
Breaking down Swedish sentences and their grammar
Basic Swedish Syntax
Han dricker inte kaffe. ”He doesn’t drink coffee”.
Word-for-word it’s HE-DRINK-NOT-COFFEE. Again this sentence is SVO, with one difference from English syntax: the negation marker (inte) comes after the verb rather than before it. And also notice that while English has the auxiliary verb “do” (here in the form “doesn’t”), Swedish has no equivalent of that.
If we make the sentence affirmative, it shares the same syntax as its English translation: Han dricker kaffee. “He drinks coffee”.
Swedish Personal Pronouns
Han is the 3rd p singular personal pronoun. Swedish has a system of personal pronouns similar to that of English, with a couple of differences: there are 2nd person plural pronouns which are also used as formal 2nd person singular pronouns; there are two equivalents of the English impersonal 3rd person sg pronoun “it”: one for common gender (den) and one for neuter (det).
AND there is also a controversial gender neutral pronoun: hen. This is not a pronoun that arose naturally in Swedish, but it was constructed in order in order to replace the use of masculine pronouns in contexts when you are not specifically referring to a man or a woman. (You know, in English I might use “He or she” in such as context). Some people accept this pronoun and others reject it. It isn’t widely used in speech, but is sometimes used in writing and on TV.
Dricker han kaffe? “Does he drink coffee?” Ja, det gör han. “Yes, he does”.
As you can see from this question, in Swedish it’s very simple to form a yes or no question: you simply move the verb to the front of the sentence.
Dricker han öl? (öl = cognate with English “ale”). Nej, det gör han inte. “No, he doesn’t”.
The most common way to answer yes or no questions is to first say “Ja” or “Nej”, then “det”, followed by a verb, followed by the pronoun, then the negation marker inte if it’s negative. In many cases the verb is a form of göra which means “do”. (göra is the infinitive)
Swedish Verb Forms
For each verb tense there is only one form of the verb. It doesn’t change depending on who or how many people are speaking.
In the present tense it’s Jag gör “I do”, Du gör “You do”, Han gör “He does”, etc.
In the past tense it’s Jag gjorde “I did”, Du gjorde “You did”, Han gjorde “He did”, etc.
In the future it’s Jag ska göra “I will do”, Du ska göra “You will do”, Han ska göra “He will do”, etc.
Obviously this makes verbs easier to use than in many other languages.
Jag har aldrig varit i Norge. “I have never been to Norway”.
Word-for-word it’s: I-have-never-been-in-Norway. This is almost word-for-word the same as the English sentence, except that “i” translates as “in” rather than “to”.
This sentence features the present perfect, which is formed in a similar way to its English equivalent. Notice that I said “similar”, not “the same”. First there is the auxiliary verb: the present form of the verb “ha”, which means “have”.
Then there is “varit”, a form of the verb vara, meaning “be”. In English it’s the past participle, but in Swedish it’s a different form called the supine, and there is a different past participle form for other uses.
Notice also that the adverb “aldrig” comes between the two verbs.
Varför inte? “Why not?” – Varför means “Why” and is a cognate of the archaic English word “Wherefore”, which you may know from Roman and Juliet: “Wherefore art thou, Romeo?” – which doesn’t mean “Where are you, Romeo?” like most people think. It means “Why are you Romeo?” As in, why can’t you be from a different family? But I digress…
Swedish Comparatives
Öl är dyrare i Norge än i Sverige. “Beer is more expensive in Norway than in Sweden”.
Word-for-word it’s: beer-is-more expensive-in-Norway-than-in-Sweden. It almost translates directly into English, except for the way the comparative is expressed.
In English there are two comparative forms:
(1) with the ~er suffix, and
(2) with more before the adjective (with most 2 syllable adjectives, and all adjectives with 3 or more syllables).
In Swedish it’s similar, with single syllable adjectives taking the suffix ~are, and adjectives with 2 or more syllables being preceded by mer. In this case the English word “expensive” has 3 syllables, so it uses more, while the Swedish word dyr has only one syllable, so it takes the ~are ending.
It’s worth adding that “dyr” is a cognate of the English word “dear”. In some varieties of English, “dear” is used with the meaning of “expensive”, which makes the English and Swedish sentences even more similar to each other.
One more thing to note here is the verb är. It is the present tense conjugation of the verb vara, meaning “to be”. Vara is the infinitive form. It developed from Old Norse Vesa (→ Vera → Vara).+ The English verb “to be”, in all its different conjugations, developed from two different verbs: Old English bēon and OE wesan (wezan)→ which is cognate with the Swedish word.
Swedish superlatives
Vad är Sveriges största stad? “What is the biggest city in Sweden?”
Word-for-word it’s WHAT-IS-SWEDEN’S-BIGGEST-CITY.
First we have the question word “vilken” meaning “which”.
Next, we see är again, the present tense of “vara” meaning “to be”.
Next we see Sveriges. As I mentioned earlier, Swedish used to have 4 cases, but now only has two – the nominative, and the genitive, which is shown with an “s” at the end of the noun – similar to how apostrophe s is used in English to show possession.
Next, största is the superlative form of stor which means “big”. Just like Swedish has comparative forms that partly resemble the English ones (in this case större –bigger), it also has a superlative form that partly resembles the English one.
“Sta” is like the “est” ending in English. But this one might not be the best example, come to think of it, because it’s irregular. Most single syllable adjectives take the ending ast(e), like dyr → dyrast(e) “most expensive”.
Multi-syllable adjectives (and adjectives ending in “isk”) form the superlative when “mest” comes before them – like English “most”. Most intelligent: Mes intelligent.
Sveriges största stad är Stockholm. “The biggest city in Sweden is Stockholm”. (Word-for-word: Sweden’s-biggest-city-is-Stockholm).
Swedish Comparisons of Equality
Göteborg är inte lika stort som Stockholm. “Gothenburg isn’t as big as Stockholm”. (Word-for-word it’s: Gothenburg-is-not-like-big-as-Stockholm).
Comparisons of equality are formed in Swedish by using: lika…(adjective)…som (literally equally…as).
Lika is a cognate of English “like” (in its use as an adverb.
Du är lika lång som Ella. “You are as tall as Ella”. Word-for-word: you-are-equally-tall-as-Ella.
Final Thoughts on Swedish
You may be getting the sense that Swedish is fairly similar to English in its grammar and to some extent in its Germanic vocabulary. English-speaking learners of Swedish are usually struck by just how similar they are, and how intuitive Swedish is for them.
The bigger challenges with Swedish seem to lie in pronunciation and prosody in the early stages, and in getting used to accents and dialectal variation at later stages. But all in all, people who learn Swedish overwhelmingly enjoy the process and their efforts are well-rewarded.
The Question of the Day: For speakers of Swedish, to what extent would you say that you speak Standard Swedish, and to what extent do you use you local dialect?
And to people who have studied Swedish, what’s your experience been like? What have you found easy, and what have you found challenging?
