Swedish uses man to make general statements the way English sometimes uses one, as in man ska äta for one should eat. This lesson also revisits må bra (to feel good) and sharpens the distinction between stationary här/där and motion-based hit/dit.
Vocabulary in this lesson
Transcript
The full transcript of this free lesson. Swedish lines have their English translation underneath.
Okay, so let's look at a couple of examples using "kommer".
"I am coming home now." Jag kommer hem nu. And of course, "now" was "nu". "No, I am not going to eat now." Nej, jag kommer inte att äta nu.
So you put the "inte" after the changed verb. Nej, jag kommer inte att äta nu. In Swedish, you have a type of sentence structure which is not that common in English. So for instance, in English, you could say: "One... one needs to think about such a thing." And if you say that, it sounds perhaps a bit...
it sounds a bit fancy or a bit formal. People wouldn't speak in this manner. Instead, when you want to talk about something in general in English, you would say "you". So, you might say, exactly as I did here, "you might say", instead of saying "a person might say" or "one might say". But in Swedish, it is extremely common to use this "one", as in "one might say", "one should do", and so forth.
So in Swedish, to say that, you would say "man". "Man". M-a-n, "man". Of course it's the same word for "man". So it's literally, you're saying, "Man should not do this.
Man should not eat." talking about a man. However, nobody thinks of it in that manner. Instead, when you use "man", it's thought of as "one". So, "Man ska äta." What do you think that would mean, "Man ska äta"?
"One should eat." "One will eat." In this context, "one should eat" makes more sense. So given that, how do you think you would say, "one is going to feel good here"?
And if you're unsure about "feeling good", try to remember how to say, "how are you?" in Swedish. Because saying, "how are you?" in Swedish, you would have to say, "how are you feeling?" or "how do you feel?" So, altogether, how do you think you would say, "one is going to feel good here"?
Man kommer att må bra här. And if you didn't get that, that's perfectly fine because this sentence was a bit complicated. Man kommer att må bra här. One is going to feel good here. So, "må bra". So if you're unsure about "feel", think about hur mår du?
And let that be the anchor every time you want to remember how to say "feel". You think, "Oh, wait a minute, I've seen that before because I know how to say hur mår du?" "How are you?" Literally, "how are you feeling? How do you feel?" So "må" is "to feel".
"Jag mår" - "I feel". And of course, "bra" is "good".
Like "jag mår bra" - "I feel good".
So how would you say this, then? "Can one come here?" So, you might have said kan man komma här? If you said that, of course, that would be expected because that's, so far, that's what we've learned.
However, in Swedish, you have two different "here"s. So when you want to say "here", in English you only have one, but in Swedish, just to make things more confusing, you have two. So, once again, it relates to motion. So, for instance, when somebody says "can one come here?", you would say kan man komma hit?
Hit. So "hit" is "here", but it relates to motion. So if something is moving, like "Can I come here? Can I go there?", and so forth.
"Can I run there?" Everything that has to do with motion: you're getting somewhere, or going somewhere, running somewhere, swimming somewhere. As long as it has something to do with motion, then you need to use hit and not här.
Här is used for stationary things. So how would you say, for instance, "I am here"?
Jag är här. So "I am here" would be "Jag är här". If you want to say "He comes here", how would you say that?
Han kommer hit.
So you don't say här, you say hit because komma has to do with motion. Han kommer hit, he comes here. When it comes to "there", you also have two words, and they also rhyme. So, if you want to say "there" as in something that's not moving, you would say där.
Där. So how would you say "She is there"?
Hon är där. So how would you say, for instance, "Who is there?" a question. And to say "who", you would say vem.
So "Who is there?" would be "Vem är där?" "Who is there?", Vem är där? So, in Swedish you have two ways of saying "there". So you have där, just like här, they it rhymes, där, and it means "there".
And to say "there" and you're talking about motion, how do you think you would say that following sort of the same logic with the letters? If här becomes hit when it's about motion, what do you think där would become?
Där would become dit, and dit has to do with motion, so when you want to say "he goes there", you would use dit: "Han går dit". Okay, so how do you say this sentence now: "Yes, one can come there"?
Ja, man kan komma dit.