| Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
From: lchoqu%[email protected] (Lee Choquette)
Subject: Re: More Questions on LEARNING SWEDISH
Date: 22 Jul 93 13:53:19 MDT
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept
I'll post this for the benefit of anyone else who is contemplating
learning Swedish.
In article <[email protected]> [email protected] writes:
> [1] How many noun genders: 1, 2 or 3
Two, common (the indefinite article is "en") and neuter (the indefinite
article is "ett"). There used to be a masculine gender, but unless you
work with old documents you won't need to know it. Certainly you'd
never have to speak or write masculine gender, and if you ever read it
it's not too hard to figure out.
a dog a house a girl an animal
en hund ett hus en tjej ett djur
Some dialects, such as N�rpesm�l, use genders, but don't worry about
those until you're comfortable with standard Swedish.
> [2] How many cases? Nominative -Y or N
> Accusative -Y or N
> Vocative -Y or N
> Genitive -Y or N
> Dative -Y or N
> Ablative -Y or N
> Any others??
Just nominative for nouns. Possessive is handled by putting "s" on the
end, just as in English (but without the apostrophe), but it's not
called genitive because there used to be an actual genitive case. You
don't have to worry about any cases unless you read *really* old
documents.
a girl's dog
en tjejs hund
Pronouns, on the other hand, come in nominative, accusative, and
genitive (the nominative form is used for address, and the accusative
for the other uses you've listed).
Nominative Accusative Genitive
1st person sing jag mig min, mitt, mina
plural vi oss v�r, v�rt, v�ra
2nd person sing du dig din, ditt, dina
plural ni er er, ert, era
3rd person sing male han honom hans
sing female hon henne hennes
plural de dem deras
my dog my house I understand you You understand me
min hund mitt hus Jag f�rst�r dig Du f�rst�r mig
> [3] Are nouns/adjectives inflected, according to case?
No, but they are inflected according to gender and number (singular and
plural), and whether the noun is definite or indefinite ("a" vs "the"
in English).
Singular Plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
a dog the dog dogs the dogs
en hund hunden hundar hundarna
a big dog the big dog big dogs the big dogs
en stor hund den stora hunden stora hundar de stora hundarna
a red house the red house red houses the red houses
ett r�tt hus det r�da huset r�da hus de r�da husen
> [4] Are there continuous tenses of verbs (as well as simple ones),
> like in English? (e.g. I do, I am doing etc.)
> Is their use analogous to English use?
Swedish mostly uses the simple tense, but in certain circumstances you
might want to use a modal (helping) verb such as "h�lla p� med" and the
infinitive of the main verb.
> [5] Does Swedish use auxiliary verbs to form past/future/conditional
> tenses, or does it simply modify base verb endings??
>
> e.g. je fais, je ferais
> I do, I WOULD do (...no change to "do")
The main verb takes a different ending for the past tense, yet another
ending (supine) plus an auxiliary verb for the perfect tenses, and an
auxiliary verb plus the infinitive for conditional.
I'm mowing the lawn. I mowed the lawn yesterday.
Jag klippar gr�smattan. Jag klippte gr�smattan ig�r.
I have been mowing the lawn every month.
Jag har klippt gr�smattan varje m�nad.
I will mow the lawn tomorrow.
Jag kommer att klippa gr�smattan imorgon.
or
Jag ska klippa gr�smattan imorgon.
> [6] Is there a subjunctive?
> Has its use virtually died out like English/Dutch or
> is it still quite alive like French/German??
There is a subjunctive, but you don't have to use it anymore,
especially in spoken language, although you won't sound strange if you
use it in written language.
If I were a rich man...
Vore jag en rik man (lit., "Were I a rich man")...
or
Om jag var en rik man (lit., "If I was a rich man")...
> [7] Are there formal/informal differentiations (e.g. tu v. vous; du v. Sie etc.)
Not to the extent of some languages such as Russian. I'm not familiar
enough with French or German to know what they're like. In Swedish
you'd use the familiar with everyone except for old people, and maybe
if you were a store clerk, or one of the knights who say "Ni!"
> [8] Any other quirky formations, which are different to English?
> Separable verbs?
What are separable verbs?
> Inversion of subject & verb?
Yes, this happens all the time, not only with questions, but also when
you put another word in front of the subject.
You are coming home. Are you coming home?
Du kommer hem. Kommer du hem?
I came home. Today I came home.
Jag kom hem. Idag kom jag hem (lit., "Today came I home").
> Anything else??
Yes, lots. :-)
Don't let me scare you off, though. It's not that bad. Just plunge in
and don't worry too much about speaking perfectly right at first. I
still haven't got the word melody right, partly because the
finlandssvenskar I converse with haven't got it right, either. :-)
--
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . Lee Choquette . . . . . Never put off until tomorrow what . . . .
. . . [email protected] . . . you can do today. There might be . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a law against it by that time. . . . .
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
From: [email protected] (Tor Slettnes)
Subject: Re: More Questions on LEARNING SWEDISH
Sender: [email protected] (Tor Slettnes)
Organization: Netcom, Sacramento
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1993 22:43:12 GMT
[email protected] (Brendan Walsh) writes:
[1] How many noun genders: 1, 2 or 3
2 in Swedish & Danish, 3 in Norwegian
[2] How many cases? Nominative -Y or N
Accusative -Y or N
Vocative -Y or N
Genitive -Y or N
Dative -Y or N
Ablative -Y or N
Any others??
Just like English: Nominative and sort-of-genitive. Also Akkusative in
pronouns (him, her, us, them), and occatinally Dative is found in
certain regions..
[3] Are nouns/adjectives inflected, according to case?
Well, there isn't much of a case system. But no, not very much
inflected between Nom. and Gen. Gen. is obtained merely by adding an
's' usually.
[4] Are there continuous tenses of verbs (as well as simple ones),
like in English? (e.g. I do, I am doing etc.)
Is their use analogous to English use?
Don't know about Swedish, but in Norwegian there is one ("Han kom
syklende" -- "He came bicycling" (by bike)). It is not used the same
way or as often as in English, in fact, don't worry about it.
[5] Does Swedish use auxiliary verbs to form past/future/conditional
tenses, or does it simply modify base verb endings??
e.g. je fais, je ferais
I do, I WOULD do (...no change to "do")
Auxiliary. Same as English.
[6] Is there a subjunctive?
Has its use virtually died out like English/Dutch or
is it still quite alive like French/German??
It only exists in certain old expressions (at least in Norw..), often
in religious use ("Skje din vilje..").
[7] Are there formal/informal differentiations (e.g. tu v. vous;
du v. Sie etc.)
Dying out... Some very old and very stiff persons may still use it..
:-)
[8] Any other quirky formations, which are different to English?
Separable verbs?
Inversion of subject & verb?
Anything else??
Separable verbs: No, not like German.
Inversion of subject and verb:
In the case where you in English would say:
"If you don't go out, you won't see the sun"
The Norwegian equivalent (The Swedish would be simlar) would be:
"If you don't go out, will you not see the sun"
("Hvis du ikke gaar ut, vil du ikke se sola")
Also in questions and negating sentences, the word "Do"
is not used as in English. You don't say:
"I don't like lutefisk" or "Do you like lutefisk?"
but
"I like not lutefisk", "Like you lutefisk?"
Anything else:
Can't think of much. There is no word for "the", instead
nouns have endings to represent a particular object.
Not "the sun", but "sun-a".
Hope this is all accurate for Swedish as well...
-tor
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
From: [email protected] (Ahrvid Engholm)
Subject: Re: More Questions on LEARNING SWEDISH
Sender: [email protected] (Usenet)
Organization: Stacken Computer Club, Stockholm, Sweden
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1993 05:46:38 GMT
In article <[email protected]> lchoqu%[email protected] (Lee Choquette) writes:
>I'll post this for the benefit of anyone else who is contemplating learning
>Swedish.
/.../
>a dog a house a girl an animal
>en hund ett hus en tjej ett djur
You must have had a very modernistic teacher. I'd say "tjej" is slang,
or at least half-slang. "Flicka" is the word to use if you don't want
to sound "slangish".
> > [8] Any other quirky formations, which are different to English?
> > Separable verbs?
>What are separable verbs?
Like in German, I guess. Like "Detta kommer att sl� an" (This will be a
sucess), but you could also say "Detta �r ansl�ende" (This is
remarkable).
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