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Swedish Nouns
Substantiv
What do we need to know about Swedish nouns and How to learn Swedish nouns?
Part of Speech
Noun / Substantiv
Singularis / Singular
Pluralis / Plural
Indefinite form (of noun)
Definite form (of noun)
Article (grammatical)
Gender (grammatical)
Common Gender – Utrum
Neuter Gender – Neutrum
Agreement (grammatical) / Kongruens
Before speaking further about nouns, we must clarify noun/substantive terminology. The noun in the Swedish language is called substantiv. As the name suggests, substantiv, “substance” refers to a material thing. Everything that we see, touch, and think about, even abstract, immaterial things, belong to the category of the noun word group, or as it is also called, “Parts of Speech”.
Nouns in Swedish have articles, similar to many other European languages, and English also has articles that are used with a noun. In English, we have indefinite articles “a” and “an” We use “a” with nouns that start with consonants, for example, a book, and the article “an” with nouns that begin with vowels, for example, an apple. English also has the definite article “the” which applies to all nouns regardless of how the word starts, for example, the book and the apple.
Similarly, there are indefinite and definite articles in Swedish. En and ett are indefinite articles, and den, det, and de are definite articles. Yet, there is also a different implementation of these articles.
Unlike the English language, Swedish articles ( en and ett ) have nothing to do with the first letter of the word, and neither there are easy rules to remember. There are indeed rules for which words are going to have an en or ett article, but it is not really for beginners. You have to remember them by heart at your early stage of learning. When you have gained a certain amount of vocabulary, then it will be easier for you to see the patterns, and then it will be easier for you to remember those rules, or “suggested rules”.
How to use articles in Swedish?
Swedish nouns that have the article “en” are called “en-words”, and nouns that have the article “ett” are “ett-words”. The “en-words” are also called “utrum”, Common Gender, and the “ett-words” are called “neutrum”, Neuter Gender.
The vast majority of Swedish nouns are “utrum” (en-words), so you need to mainly remember the “neutrums”( ett-words), and the rest you can assume to be “utrum“.
When to use En and when to use Ett article?
How to know if it’s ett or en in Swedish? As mentioned earlier, if you are at the early stage of your Swedish learning, it is recommended to learn the articles by heart. Yet, if you indeed want to have some rules, here below you can see a webinar going through all these rules. But keep in mind, there are no rules without exceptions.
Main confusion with Swedish nouns
One of the main challenges with the Swedish noun is to understand the difference between the indefinite and the definite form of substantive. If you look at the translation for “bil” and “bilen”, you may end up getting the same answer for both, “car”. To be correct, “bil” is “a car” (indefinite form), and “bilen” is “the car” (definite form).
In addition, we have to understand that, as in any other language, Swedish nouns can refer to just one thing or person, singular or many, plural.
Equally, we have a plural of “a car”, which is “cars”, “bilar” and “the cars”, “bilarna”
In other words, when you learn a Swedish noun, you need to know what article it has (en or ett) and you have to know 4 forms of that Swedish noun:
- Singular indefinite form
- Singular definite form
- Plural indefinite form
- Plural definite form
Why do you need to know the article "en" or "ett" when you learn a Swedish noun?
What is the point of learning the articles? You need to know whether a Swedish noun is “en-word” or “ett-word” to “describe” that noun by adding an adjective. If I want to say a “little child” and a “little car” the adjective (little) is going to be affected based on the article of the noun. It is called “agreement” in grammatical terms. We know that a “child” is an ett-word “ett barn” and a “car” is an en-word, “en bil“. So in Swedish a “little child” and a “little car” will be:
- ett litet barn
- en liten bil
The four forms of Swedish Nouns
What is important to know when you are learning Swedish nouns?
When you learn a new noun and you find that word in the dictionary, make sure that word belongs to the “part of speech” you are looking for. In this case, it is a noun, so we need explicitly to see that it is written “SUBSTANTIV” or “subst”. If you write down the noun on the paper or memorize it for yourself, make sure that you get the singular indefinite form. That is the main form you want to learn. You can memorize or write it as the Swedish dictionaries usually do:
bil
(~en, ~ar)
In this case “bil” is a “car”, ( ~en ) indicates that this noun is en-word ( utrum ), and (~ar) indicates the plural ending of this noun. Keep in mind that “bil” and “bilar” are indefinite forms. “bil” is singular indefinite and “bilar” is plural indefinite.
Another example is with an ett-word (neutrum):
In this case “barn” is a “child”, ( ~et ) indicates that this noun is an ett-word (neutrum), and (=) indicates the plural ending is the same is the singular form. You can compare: “one child” is “ett barn” and “two children” is “två barn”.
In some rare cases, a Swedish noun can belong to both utrum and neutrum. In other words, it can be both en-word and ett-word. For example:
The abbreviation “el.” stands for “eller” which means in English conjunction “or“.
Swedish noun groups/declensions
Swedish nouns consist of five declensions, so-called 5 groups. The nature of these groups and criteria upon which the nouns are assigned to a certain group are the articles, “en-word”, utrum, or “ett-words”, neutrum. The first 3 groups / declinations, are utrum (en-words), and the group 4-5 is about neutrum (ett-words).
Here are five Swedish declensions that in a simplified way can be summarized as following:
- utrum (en-word) ending with “a”
- utrum (en-word) ending with a consonant
- utrum (en-word) ending with a consonant, so-called “borrowed words“.
- neutrum (ett-word) ending with a vowel
- neutrum (ett-word) ending with a consonant
Why to learn Swedish noun groups?
Of course, you might ask yourself, what benefit do you get when you learn the Swedish noun declension? Do you really need it? The straight answer is, that by knowing the groups, you will be able to predict the 3 other forms that we mentioned already, i.e. “singular definite“, “plural indefinite” and “plural definite.
Swedish declensions
| SINGULAR | PLURAL | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OBESTÄMD/ INDEFINITE | BESTÄMD/DEFINITE | OBESTÄMD/INDEFINITE | BESTÄMD/DEFINITE | |
| 1 | EN BLOMMA | BLOMMAN | BLOMMOR | BLOMMORNA |
| 2 | EN TIDNING | TIDNINGEN | TIDNINGAR | TIDNINGARNA |
| 3 | EN FAMILJ | FAMILJEN | FAMILJER | FAMILJERNA |
| 4 | ETT ARBETE | ARBETET | ARBETEN | ARBETENA |
| 5 | ETT TÅG | TÅGET | TÅG | TÅGEN |
We have already taken “a car” as an example, which in Swedish is “en bil“. If I know that “en bil” belongs to the second declension, so to say the second group, then I can predict that:
- “en bil” as singular definite will be “bilen“
- “en bil” as plural indefinite will be “bilar“
- “en bil” as plural definite will be “bilarna“
The reason why we can predict, it is because it follows the same pattern. This pattern we can define as “en-words” ending with a consonant.
Plural endings of Swedish nouns
Plural endings of En-words
| En-words (Common Gender) | Plural Rule | Example Singular | Example Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| -or | Words ending in -a | en väska | två väskor |
| en klocka | två klockor | ||
| -ar | Words ending in -ing or -ning | en tidning | två tidningar |
| Words ending in a vowel (drop -e and add -ar) | en pojke | två pojkar | |
| Words ending in unstressed -el, -er, -en (drop -e) | en cykel | två cyklar | |
| en vinter | två vintrar | ||
| en öken | två öknar | ||
| -er | Foreign words | en restaurang | två restauranger |
| en text | två texter | ||
| Words ending in -are | en lärare | två lärare | |
| en läkare | två läkare | ||
| Irregular | Irregular nouns | en bok | två böcker |
| en stad | två städer | ||
| -ar | Short words | en båt | två båtar |
Plural endings of Ett-words
| Ett-words (Neuter Gender) | Plural Rule | Example Singular | Example Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| -er | Foreign words | ett bageri | två bagerier |
| -n | Words ending in a vowel (a, o, u, å, e, i, y, ä, ö) | ett äpple | två äpplen |
| ett kvitto | två kvitton | ||
| Unchanged | Words ending in a consonant | ett ägg | två ägg |
| ett bord | två bord |
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