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Swedish grammar A1: beginner

The complete guide from A1 to B1: the rules, examples to listen to, the usual mistakes.

Level A1 covers the grammar of first exchanges in Swedish: saying who one is and where one lives, asking and answering, naming and describing people and things, saying what one can, wants and must do, placing an event in time and space, and telling what will happen, what happened and what has happened. Most of it rests on two facts: the finite verb has one form for every person, and in a main clause it is the second element.

What A1 holds

  • the present, the infinitive and the four verb groups: jag bor, att bo; talar, läser, bor, dricker;
  • the word order of the main clause, questions, short answers and a first subordinate clause after the main clause;
  • the noun with its gender, its definite ending and its five plural declensions: en bil, bilen, bilar, bilarna;
  • the pronouns, the possessives and the indefinite adjective with its agreement: ett stort hus, stora hus;
  • the auxiliaries, the future with ska, the preteritum, the imperative and a first perfekt.

What is new for an English speaker

  • the verb second: after a time or place word at the front, the subject comes after the verb, I dag arbetar jag (“Today I am working”);
  • inte after the finite verb, with no auxiliary like “do”: Jag förstår inte frågan (“I don’t understand the question”);
  • two genders, en and ett, and the definite article as an ending on the noun: huset (“the house”);
  • one verb form for every person and no progressive: Hon läser is “she reads” and “she is reading”;
  • the perfekt and the preteritum, with the perfekt never used with a finished time: Jag har ätit, but I går åt jag fisk.

The usual difficulties

  • the gender of each noun, which the form of the noun seldom shows, and its plural;
  • the agreement of the adjective: en ny bil, ett nytt hus, nya bilar;
  • the choice between words English does not distinguish: var and vart, hemma and hem, går and åker, i and på.

  1. The present

    The Swedish present has one form for every person: jag talar, hon talar, de talar.

  2. Word order and questions

    The order of the elements in a Swedish main clause is fixed by one rule: the finite verb is the second element.

  3. Nouns and articles

    A Swedish noun is either an en-word (common gender) or an ett-word (neuter gender).

  4. Negation

    The negative word inte and the sentence adverbs have one place in a Swedish main clause: directly after the finite verb, or after the subject when the subject follows the verb.

  5. The infinitive and the auxiliaries

    The infinitive is the dictionary form of the verb.

  6. Pronouns and possession

    Swedish personal pronouns have a subject form and an object form, as English pronouns do.

  7. Adjectives

    A Swedish adjective agrees with its noun in gender and number, both after är and before the noun.

  8. Time and place

    Swedish expresses time and place with short prepositions, i, på, om, till, chosen differently from their English equivalents, and distinguishes a position from a direction in several adverbs.

  9. The future

    Swedish has no future tense of its own.

  10. The preteritum

    The preteritum is the Swedish simple past: it tells what happened at a time that is over.

  11. The imperative

    The imperative is the form of the verb used for orders, instructions, requests and invitations.

  12. The perfekt

    The perfekt tells that something has happened, with no time named or within a time that is not over.

Contents · Swedish grammar