Swedish past tense: -te and -de endings

Okay, so we're now going to go through lesson two, where we're going to look at some irregular verbs. We're going to practice some old sentences and we're going to see if we can improve upon some of the stuff we learnt earlier. Without further ado, let's jump into the first slide. Before, we looked at verbs that were a-r verbs, like tala, prata.

And we said in the past tala, you could go back into the past by saying talade. So, for example, han talade becomes "he spoke".

Or, we said you could use the construction using "have". So, you could say "I have spoken". Do you remember how to say that? Jag har talat. You can of course also say jag har pratat, if you prefer to use prata for "speaking", but both verbs are perfectly fine.

So, those are examples of ar-verbs verbs because they end with ar: talar, pratar. But then of course we have another group of verbs that are er-verbs, verbs, that end with er. If you want to go back to the past with these verbs, it's a bit trickier. So, if you want to say, for example, "I bought it yesterday", "I bought it yesterday", you would say jag köpte den igår.

Now, köp is of course to buy, va? att köpa is to buy, jag köper, I am buying. So, if the verb that you are looking at ends with either k, the letter k, P, T, S or X, then it's going to be -te, like t-e at the end.

So this might sound a bit confusing. So let's look at a few examples. So one example is the one we just went through. So att köpa is to buy.

Jag köper is I am buying, and I bought is jag köpte. And the reason we add on the -te there is because we can see that the root of the verb, so if you look at köp, it ends with a P, and it's part of these verbs that we have here.

And so to go to the past, we're going to say köpte and we're going to add on the -te. The same thing is true for läste. So we have the S here, which is part of the root, the final letter. So we're going to add on -te at the end. So to say I read, you would say jag läste. So with this being said, you still should not focus too much on these rules, because it's very difficult to try to remember in the middle of a conversation.

Instead, it's much better to just get a feel for it by practicing. And of course, by practicing you will make mistakes, which is perfectly fine. And you will also notice how the person, when they when they repeat what you just said, if they correct it or if they say it in a different way, you'll be able to learn from that and bring that feedback back and then try again.

And then by doing this a few times, it becomes internalized.

Okay, so now could you give me the sentence "She read the book" in Swedish? And please pause if you don't have the time.

So, "she read the book" becomes hon läste boken. Hon läste boken. She read the book.

How about, "we did not think"? And the word for "think" was, of course, tänka. Att tänka is to think. So, how would you say "we did not think"? Vi tänkte inte. Of course you don't need the "did" in Swedish.

You can just say "we think not".

Vi tänkte inte. So, this is in the past, it would be something like literally "we thought not".

would be more of a direct translation.

Now you have other -er verbs that do not follow this. Obviously not all verbs end with these letters, so you do have other -er verbs, like for example, "to call".

So, do you remember how to say "call"?

Ringa. So, how would you say "she called me"?

Hon ringde mig. That's correct, hon ringde mig. And here it becomes -de. So this is the other form of going back to the past for -er verbs. Hon ringde mig.

And we can see that ring, this G here is not part of these letters here, so we can't use this little cheat code.

"She called me", hon ringde mig, so now it's going to end with a -de. How about, "he did it"? In order to say "he did it", you would actually say han gjorde det. And here it becomes slightly irregular, because the word gjorde, we haven't really covered that before, but we have covered the present form.

So we did cover gör. Att göra is to make or to do, and to go to the past, you would say han gjorde det.

So it's slightly irregular in terms of the spelling. You simply have to get used to those irregularities.

And then we have they lived there. They lived there.

And this becomes de bodde där. And, of course, we can't expect you to know this by hand, but you can try, and then if you commit a mistake, people can usually understand you. "They lived there" becomes de bodde där.

And to live is of course bo. You can also say leva, but leva is more like "live" in the literal sense, biological creature lives, "I lived" there and so forth. So, to to live is the opposite of dying, right? Whereas in Swedish, you have a different word for speaking about staying somewhere, in terms of where you're staying, where you're being housed, literally, is probably the closest translation.

And we said that word is bo, att bo. So, jag bor här is I am staying here, or I live here. And in the past, it becomes bodde with a d-d-e, and for this irregular form here, you actually have two d's.

And then, finally, we have more annoying bunch of words. Nobody likes irregular words, but the beauty with irregular words is that they are often not that many. If you can pick them up, you'll learn them quite quickly, And usually, you'll find that words that are used a lot tend to be irregular, so you'll hear them all the time.

So here you'll have, for example, "eat" becomes "ate" in English, right? In Swedish, you have "äta" and "åt", "jag åt", I ate. In English, you have "be" and "was", right? To be or not to be, that is the question.

And then you have "was" for the past tense. In Swedish, it's also irregular, so you have "vara", to be, and then you have "var" in the past. So, "I was here" is "jag var här".

"Go" in English, and then you have "went".

In Swedish, you have "gå" and "gick". "Jag gick", I went.

Then you have "get" and "got". And you can see even in English, they're all irregular, there's not a pattern that we can detect really, and the same thing is true in Swedish. So you have "get", which is "få", and "fått", which is the past. "Jag har fått pengar", I have gotten money, or received money.

You have "see", which becomes "saw" in English. "I saw him yesterday". And in Swedish, you have "se" and "såg". "Jag såg honom igår". And then finally "know". Do you remember how to say the word "know" in Swedish?

It's "veta", "veta", which of course then becomes "jag vet". And in the past, you would say "visste", "jag visste". So these are some really good ones. The reason for that is because they occur a lot in the language. and people use them a lot.

So for the irregular ones, if you know these and and another sort of list of verbs that are not that many in number, you would be able to cover most of the irregular ones that are used in a day-to-day basis, or at least the most important ones that are consistently used.

Okay, so now we're going to repeat some of the lessons that we've had in the past, just to see how well you remember everything. How do you say, "I speak"?

Jag talar. How about, "He speaks now"?

Han talar nu. Of course "nu" is "now". "They eat now"?

De äter nu. How about, "She spoke yesterday"?

Hon talade igår. Of course, we're using that form. We can also say, "Hon har talat igår", which was which would be, "She has spoken yesterday".

"We spoke yesterday about you". And to say "about" in Swedish, you would, of course, say "om". You would say "om". So how do you say that, "We spoke yesterday about you"?

Vi talade igår om dig. Vi talade igår om dig.

"Did you present"?

Presenterade du? And the "did" there is not really necessary, so every time that in English just forget about it, and just imagine you didn't have that help word. Instead it would just be "You present?": "Presenterade du?" "Have you presented already"? So, you use the have form.

Har du presenterat redan? And "redan", of course, is "already" in Swedish. You can also put that word earlier, so you could say, "Har du redan presenterat?" I go tomorrow.

Jag går imorgon.

Of course, tomorrow is "imorgon". And if you just have "morgon", do you remember what that means, "morgon"?

That's, of course, morning. But if you say "imorgon", then it's tomorrow. How about, I will go tomorrow?

Jag ska gå imorgon. Jag ska gå imorgon. You can also say "jag kommer att gå imorgon", uh but I would say perhaps "ska" is just slightly more common, although both are very common, to be honest.

We have spoken.

Vi har talat. Or "vi har pratat", depending on which one you prefer.

We have a house and a car.

Vi har ett hus och en bil. And here again, we see the difference between um a word that has "en" and one that has "ett". And there's no way of really knowing, and we said the words that have "en", they're more common, generally speaking. So if you're unsure, you should opt to say "en" if you're not sure.

But once again, those things you will become accustomed to if you keep on practicing, hopefully.

Vi har ett hus och en bil.

Our house is bigger than our car.

Vårt hus är större än vår bil. So to say "than", you would say "än". And, of course, "our car" - "vår bil". And the reason we have "vårt" there is because, of course, "house" is "ett". So you would actually say "vårt hus", not "vår hus". But, once again, those are really slight things.

You will pick them up the more you practice, hopefully. "Can I speak with him?" Kan jag tala med honom? "Him" is of course "honom". In everyday speech, you'll find people say: "Kan jag tala med han?" and say "he" instead of "him".

That's technically incorrect. People will often do this and they will just say: "Kan jag tala med han?" instead of "honom". But it's actually not proper. It's not the worst mistake in the world, but to be proper, we would say "honom" - "him".

"Are you a student?" Är du student? or Är du en student? You can often opt out not to mention the "en". So you can just A lot of times in spoken Swedish, you would just say: "Är du student?" But of course you can say: "Är du en student?" It wouldn't be incorrect.

"Yes, we are all students." Ja, vi är alla studenter. So we have the plural again: "studenter", "en student", "flera studenter" - many students - "flera studenter".

Do you want to eat now or tomorrow? Vill ni äta nu eller i morgon? And of course, the "you" there can be "du" for one person, or for plural, as in this case, you would use "ni". Vill ni äta nu eller i morgon?

We have already eaten. And here, you would use the "have" form, so you would say "We have already eaten". So this is, once again, we see that "äta" has the structure where it's irregular. It's an -er verb, "jag äter". And they were a bit more complicated to work with in the past. So to say "we have already eaten", we would say: Vi har redan ätit.

And, of course, you can use the other form, not the "have" form, but the irregular form that we learned earlier. And, for example, you could say "Jag åt redan" would be "I ate already". So you wouldn't use the "I have eaten" form, you would say "I ate already". Jag åt redan.

Do you have money?

Har du pengar?

Once again, the "do" we disregard.

No, I don't have a lot of money.

Nej, jag har inte mycket pengar. And, of course, to negate, we simply say "inte" so it becomes "no", like you didn't do that specific thing. So you would say "I don't have a lot of money": Nej, jag har inte mycket pengar.