Personal Pronouns & 'to be' / 'to have'
Personal Pronouns & 'to be' / 'to have'
Swedish pronouns split English's single 'it' into two gendered forms, but the payoff is huge: Swedish verbs never change for person, so once you learn one form of 'to be' or 'to have', you know all of them.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
Verbs don't conjugate by person — one form fits all
jag är, du är, han/hon är, vi är, ni är, de är
I am, you are, he/she is, we are, you are, they are
This is the single biggest gift Swedish gives a beginner: unlike English, which changes "to be" five different ways (am/is/are/was/were), a Swedish verb has exactly one present-tense form, no matter who's doing the action. är means "am", "is", and "are" all at once — you never conjugate for jag vs. du vs. de. The same is true for every other verb in every tense: learn one form, use it for every pronoun.
den vs. det: two ways to say "it"
den (for en-words) / det (for ett-words)
it (for common-gender nouns) / it (for neuter nouns)
English has one "it" for every inanimate noun. Swedish nouns split into two grammatical genders (en-words and ett-words — covered fully in the articles lesson), and the pronoun "it" must match: den bok → "it" replacing en bok (a book) is den, while det hus → "it" replacing ett hus (a house) is det. As a rule of thumb while this is new, det also works as a general, gender-neutral "it" in many everyday sentences (Det är bra — "It's good"), so you're rarely stuck choosing.
"de" (they) is spoken as "dom"
de (written) → dom (spoken)
they
Written and spoken Swedish diverge here in a way that trips up learners who study only from text: the pronoun de (they) — and also dem (them) — is almost always pronounced "dom" in speech, and increasingly even written that way informally (texting, social media). Expect to hear "dom", read de, and not worry that they're different words.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
- English
- I
- English
- you (singular)
- English
- he
- English
- she
- English
- it (common gender)
- English
- it (neuter) / general "it"
- English
- we
- English
- you (plural)
- English
- they
- English
- I am
- English
- you are
- English
- I have
- English
- you have