Swedish question words: vad and hur

Okay. So, what was the word for "what"?

Vad. And for many of these question words, they usually begin with the same letter or a similar letter. So, here you have "what", and you have "vad". So, it's a similar letter, v and w, right? Uh when we said "how", we had "hur". And it's also the same letter: h.

And when we said "where", like "var" or "vart", we also had a v instead of a w. So, you should perhaps, if you're struggling to to think of uh the word, you should remember that they're usually very similar in terms of which letter that's being used. So, if you have a w in the English, it tends to be a v in the Swedish.

It's the same with "why". Do you remember how to say "why"?

So, we had this one a long time ago. It's "varför", "varför".

Okay. So, how do you say, "What are you doing?"? Vad gör du?

To say, "How is it there?", how is it there and you're asking about a place, now, before we say "there", do you remember how to say "here"?

Här. "Here" was "här". Once again, same letter: h, h, "here", "här". So, you have the same sort of structure in Swedish here. In English, you say "here" and "there", one with h, the other with t.

In Swedish, you say "här" and "där", "där".

"Där", so "där" means "there". So, they rhyme: "here", "there", "här", "där". So, that's one way of trying to remember the word, is that they rhyme. So, you have "här", "där". So, in this case, how do you say, "How is it there?"?

Hur är det där? How much does it cost? Now here we have another question of asking something. So, here we have "how", and do you remember how to say "how" in Swedish? So, "how" is hur, hur.

And now we need to know how to say "much", and this is a new word. To say "much", you would say mycket, mycket.

And to say "cost", you would say kostar, kostar. And that's the changed form, so kostar.

Att kosta. Kostar. So, how much does it cost? Try and see if you can get this right.

Hur mycket kostar det?

If you want to do it into a sentence start, from the sentence structure, you think: det kostar, "it costs", det kostar mycket, "it costs a lot" or "it costs much". And then if you want to make it a question, you say "how", so hur, and you have to switch the order, so hur mycket kostar det?

How much cost it?

"It costs 20 crowns." To say "20", you would say tjugo, tjugo. And "crowns", which is the currency in Sweden, you would say kronor, kronor. So, tjugi or tjugo, both are correct, tjugo kronor.

So, altogether, "it costs 20 crowns": Det kostar tjugo kronor. And if you want to learn all of the numbers, there's a separate series that you can look at where we go through those. Okay, so how do you say: "How much do you want?" And of course, you remember how to say want.

So how do you say, "How much do you want?" Hur mycket vill du ha? Now, you may wonder why do you put ha, that's have. Hur mycket vill du is how much do you want, hur mycket vill du.

Well, it sounds off in Swedish, hur mycket vill du. Do you want to what? How much do you want to eat? How much do you want to have? How much do you want to give? You have to finish the sentence.

So in Swedish, if you simply said, "How much do you want?" hur mycket vill du, people will be waiting for you to finish the sentence. In English, when we say, "How much do you want?" we're asking, "How much do you want to have?" So someone is giving you a tray of food, and they say, "How much do you want?" Hur mycket vill du ha?

They're actually asking you how much do you want to have or how much do you want to take. So in this case, we can say, "Hur mycket vill du ha?" Okay, so do you remember the word for car? We had this a long time ago. Car.

En bil. So, a car, en bil. So bilen, the car.

So in English, you don't say bil, you say car. However, you actually do have the word bil in English. You could say automobile. And that part in the end, the "bil" part, is bil. So if you think about that word, automobile, then you'll remember bil, which is the last part in the long English word.

Okay, so now try saying this long sentence, and you can take your time, you can pause, and think about it. "I want to have the car." That's the first part of the sentence. "I want to have the car." How much does it cost?

Jag vill ha bilen.

Hur mycket kostar den?

So, jag vill ha bilen, "I want to have the car", bilen. Hur mycket was "how much". "Does it cost?", kostar den. So, how would you say "how is it?" Hur är det?

So, this is actually an informal way sort of of asking someone how they feel. So, the regular way of saying that was of course hur mår du. Hur mår du? How are you? But if you ask "how is it?", hur är det, that's a sort of asking the same thing.

"How is the situation?" is basically what you're asking. How is it?

Hur är det? Okay. So, how do you say "I need 20 crowns"? "I need"...

So, to say "need", that would be att behöva, "to need". And it becomes behöver when you bend it, when you change the verb. So, "I need 20 crowns": Jag behöver tjugo kronor.

Okay, so how do you say, "how much do we have here?" "How much do we have here?" Hur mycket har vi här? Hur mycket har vi här? Att ha, vi har. And when you make it a question you don't say vi har, you switch the order.

So, hur mycket har vi här?

"We do not have much." Vi har inte mycket. Vi har inte mycket.