How Swedish compound words work
What the lesson covers
This lesson introduces a key feature of the Swedish language: forming new words by combining existing ones into a single, continuous term without spaces, a process often handled with spaces in English. Learners practice deciphering the meaning of these compound Swedish words by breaking them down into their constituent parts, exploring examples such as "arbetsorganisation" (work organization), "matbord" (dinner table), "husbil" (RV), and "dagbok" (diary).
Vocabulary in this lesson
21 words. Inside Lingolib each one is tappable in the transcript and saved to your library with one tap.
- arbetsorganisation
- work organization
- arbete
- work
- arbetar
- working
- organisation
- organization
- projektorganisation
- project organization
- affärsprojekt
- business project
- affär
- business
- matbord
- dinner table
- husbil
- mobile home
- hus
- house
- bil
- car
- polisbil
- police car
- polis
- police
- dagbok
- diary
- dag
- day
- bok
- book
- vägarbete
- roadwork
- väg
- road
- affärsman
- businessman
- grupparbete
- group work
- grupp
- group
How the lesson starts
The opening of the lesson transcript. The rest is in the course, synced to the video.
So we're going to do something a bit different in this lesson. We are going to look at a few words and then I want you to try to guess the meaning of those words.
And the reason why you should be able to guess the meaning, or the meanings of these words, is because they are essentially combinations of words. So in Swedish you can create new words by connecting them together. And of course you can do something similar in English, but in Swedish you don't separate the words, you combine them into one long word.
So for example, in Swedish you can say arbetsorganisation.
And if you look at that, it looks like a very long word, arbetsorganisation. But it's actually two different words that are fused together into one word. So in English you would separate these with a space between them. So you can see the first word, arbets, which of course relates to, as you might guess, work.
The video plays beside a transcript that follows it line by line. Swedish words are underlined; tap one and the video pauses, the meaning appears, and the word goes into your library. At the end there is a five-question quiz written from this exact lesson, and every word can be practised out loud.