The Swedish verb forms
The imperative
The infinitive
The present tense
The past
The supine and the past participle
The future tense

Passive and reflexive verbs
The passive
Reflexive verbs

The verb groups
Note on the verbs selected as examples
Group 1 (-ar verbs)
Group 2 A and 2 B (-er verbs)
Group 3 (-r verbs)
Group 4 (irregular verbs)

In old Indo-European languages like Latin and Greek each verb could have a hundred different forms or more. One single verb could at the same time show when something happened, who did it or who did what to whom, whether the action was completed or not, and if it actually had happened at all. And all that just by adding a specific ending and/or slightly changing the stem of the verb.

In English and in Swedish there is fortunately very little left of this, even though English, in contrast to Swedish, in some cases still has a separate ending if it is a ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘it’ doing something: "I sing" ("jag sjunger"), but "she sings" ("hon sjunger"). Instead of inflecting the verb, that is modifying it through a change of vowels or through various endings or other ways, these two languages - like many other modern languages - mainly use "helping" verbs (auxiliary verbs) to show the exact meaning of the verb:

I speak. I will speak. I have spoken.
Jag tálar. Jag ska tála. Jag har tálat.

The Swedish verb groups

Verbs are traditionally divided into groups, based on the time aspect, the ‘tense’, of the verb. (‘Tense’ is derived from the Latin word ‘tempus’, which means just ‘time’.) In the sentence "I spoke", the word ‘spoke’ is a past form of the verb ‘speak’, while "I will have spoken" points to an action that will have been completed sometime in the future. (Please note that not all forms of a verb carry this temporal meaning.)

The Swedish verb system is somewhat more complex than the English. Depending on which ending a verb takes in some tenses, it is referred to one of four groups. The fourth group consists of irregular verbs, of which many are very common. 

There is an easier and more effective and entertaining way of learning the verb forms, though: By reading Swedish texts, newspaper articles, comic strips, and novels written in an everyday language (translations of Agatha Christie crime novels or love-stories by Barbara Cartland or whatever you personally prefer), you will soon meet all the common verbs - they are actually not that many - in a meaningful context, you will see their function in different sentences, how they are used in idiomatic phrases, and you will not have to spend time on the numerous verb forms that theoretically exist but are rarely used. The first pages of such a book in Swedish may naturally take some time to tackle, but it will not be long before you will be able to recognize and understand an amazingly large number of words. With a basic knowledge of the verb system in Swedish it will be even easier.

Att vára éller [att] ínte vára, det är frå´gan.
To be or not [to] be, that is the question.

Difference in use of the infinitive

In some cases English prefers or requires a verb with the ending -ing (e.g. after prepositions, that is "direction/position" words like ‘on’, ‘under’, ‘with’, ‘to’), where Swedish would use the infinitive:

I’m looking forward to [here used as a preposition] going to Stockholm.

Jag ser fram emót att résa till Stóckhólm.
I look forward towards to go/travel to Stockholm.

He has problems (with) getting up in the mornings.

Han har svå´rt att klíva upp på mórgnarna.
He has difficult to step up on the mornings.

The endings of the verbs in the present are, to be more specific:

• Group 1: -ar (or -[a]r, since the a technically speaking is a part of the stem of the verb and not the ending)
• Group 2A and 2B: -er
• Group 3: -r
• Group 4: The verbs in this often - but not always - end in -er and -r as well.

It may be comforting to know that the third group is quite small and only comprises a couple of the more frequent verbs.

Progressive expressions

The ‘on-going’ (progressive) -ing form in English can in Swedish often be expressed by adding an additional verb:

Jag spélar fótbóll. Jag hå´ller på att spéla fótbóll.
I play football. I hold on (i.e.I am busy with) to play football.

Vi títtar på tv. Vi sítter och títtar på tv.
We watch on TV. We sit and watch on TV.

Han lágar mat. Han står och lágar mat.
He cooks food. He stands and cooks food.

Hon sóver. Hon lígger och sóver.
She sleeps/is asleep. She lies and sleeps.

This way of showing that the action is progressive can also be used in other tenses in Swedish.

The past is formed by adding the ending -de or -te to the basic form (the imperative); the -te ending is used after any of the voiceless consonants p, t, k, and s. (Some irregular verbs form the past by changing their vowel instead.)

Jag árbétade [basic form: arbeta] hårt fö´rra véckan.
I worked/was working hard previous the week [i.e. last week].

Jag lä´ste [basic form: läs] en ny bok várje dag únder seméstern.
I read a new book every day during the vacation.

In these two sentences the word ‘closed’ is a form of the verb which in English is called the past participle. Combined with the auxiliary verb ‘have’ (as above) it forms the perfect tense, and with the same "help" verb in the past you have the past perfect (pluperfect) form: "I had closed the door."

‘Perfect’ is derived from a Latin word for ‘complete(d), finished’, which fairly well describes the primary function of the perfect tense, namely to show that a certain action or state is completed in relation to present time. That sounds more complicated than it is. The pluperfect refers to an action or state that was completed in relation to an event in the past "The door was [past] closed; he had closed [pluperfect] the door." The usage of the perfect and the pluperfect tenses is on the whole the same in English and Swedish.

Now, Swedish has actually two forms for the English past participle: The supine and the past participle.

The supine

The supine, which is made by adding a -t to the basic form (the imperative), is always used after the auxiliary verb ‘have’:

Jag har stängt dö´rren.
I have closed the door.

The past participle

The past participle is composed by adding -d, -t, or -dd to the basic form (depending on the final letter). It is used like an adjective, and takes endings similar to the adjectives:
 

With an en word:	Pósten är stängd idág. The post office is closed today.
With an ett word:	Allt är stängt. Everything is closed.
With a word in the plural:	Till och med affä´rerna är stä´ngda. To and with (i.e. even) the shops/stores are closed.
After an identifying word:	De ["dom"] stä´ngda dö´rrarna The closed doors

Note

Some verbs exist only in compound forms in the past participle, often with a preposition (a 'direction' word: in, out, from, to etc.) as a prefix. The meaning of the verb is then also many times changed. See the list below, where the prefixes have been put within square brackets for the sake of clarity.

Please note that the Swedish and English variants of the future are not synonymous, and that the chart below only gives a rough outline of the usage of the future in Swedish. It is not always easy to tell why one way of expressing a future action is favored instead of another. But since they all convey a clear future sense, you will not have any problems in making yourself understood, regardless of which variant you choose. 

	Future construction	Swedish	English
1	kómmer att + infinitive: neutral, ‘pure’ future [very common]	Jag kómmer att studéra. I come to study.	I will study.
2	ska (formal: skall) + infinitive: future (neutral, intention)	Jag ska studéra. I will study.	I am going to study.
3	tä´nker + infinitive: showing intention	Jag tä´nker studéra. I think/intend [to] study.	I am going to study.
4	using the present tense: future (neutral, intention) [very common]	Jag å´ker till Stóckhólm nä´sta vécka. I go to Stockholm next week.	I will go to Stockholm next week.

The car has been repaired.
They were killed in an accident.
We have not been informed by anyone.

This passive construction is very simple to make in Swedish: You just add an -s to the other endings of the verb. The main exception is the present tense, where the final -r disappears before the -s.

Bílen reparérades (instead of: Han reparérade bílen).
The car was repaired. (He repaired the car.)

Skólan ska stä´ngas (instead of: Réktorn ska stä´nga skólan).
The school is going to be closed. (The headmaster is going to close the school.)

In everyday Swedish an active construction is often preferred to the passive: "De ska stä´nga skólan" ("They are going to close the school"). It is also very common to use a construction with 'bli' (become) instead, without any significant change in meaning:

Bílen blev reparérad.

Active verbs with a passive ending

There are a few verbs, which, in spite of having this -s form characteristic for the passive, always have an active function. Three of the most common are:

fínnas (to be, exist): "Finns det nå´gon mjölk kvar?" ("Is there any milk left?")
hóppas (to hope): "Jag hóppas det" ("I hope it", that is "I hope so.")
mínnas (to remember): "Jag minns ínte" ("I remember not.")

The use of verbs with reflexive pronouns is more frequent in Swedish than in English.

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Copyright Urban Sikeborg,
Stockholm 1997-1998.