The Swedish verb att sälja (to sell)

We are ready to take on lesson three. In this lesson we are repeating some old stuff like we always do. We're also going to take a look at certain verbs that you can use when you want to sell. So we've previously covered how to buy. If you remember the word for buying, how do you say "to buy" in Swedish?

att köpa. So now we're going to look at the equivalent term, the other term for essentially the other side of that transaction, which is to sell.

Before we can do that, let's look at a few words that we've already covered, which you should know. So we're going to start out with this word here: "an address" in English. How do you say that in Swedish?

So you would say en adress. It's spelled a bit different, but it's generally the same word, just pronounced in a Swedish way.

"A store": en affär, or you could say butik. Now butik is a bit easier if you want to transfer knowledge from English because we do have the word "boutique" in English, a boutique firm, a boutique shop. So you could think of that word, and then you'll arrive at butik.

You can also say affär, which means roughly the same thing, so it's a store or a shop. But affär is a bit more generic because you can also use it for other purposes. So to make a business transaction, you would say göra en affär, "to make an affär". to make business basically, to to make a deal. So affär can be used in a more versatile manner.

Affärsman is a businessman, so affär is the equivalent of business in some context.

How do you say food?

Mat. Mat. What about book, or a book? En bok. And a night? En natt.

And of course we're keeping the a form, the indefinite form, not the "the" form, we want the a or an, so a night is en natt. And the reason for that is, in Swedish, as we've learnt, some words have ett, some words have en. Usually you would start with en for for most words, but uh for a big portion of the words you need to say ett, and there's no way of memorizing, so you just need to get used to it and then you will get that feel for it.

Uh so when you're learning the word we also repeat whether or not you're going to say en or ett before. A day? En dag. Okay so now that we've repeated that we can also repeat how to say "sell", or we could talk about how to sell.

So, here we have our typical schema, so, to sell is att sälja. So how do you think you would say "I sell"?

Jag säljer. And then of course if you know this you can say the rest: Du säljer, han säljer, hon säljer, den or det säljer, ni säljer, de säljer, och vi säljer. At the end you have "and". and vi säljer.

Okay, let's practice. How would you say "he sells it"?

Han säljer den. So den because it's a very specific thing that we're selling, uh but it is also possible to say det depending on what's being sold. But generally speaking, if you're talking about a physical thing that you can point at, you would say den. han säljer den.

How much do you sell in a day? In English it would be "in a day", in Swedish you would say "on a day". So how much do you sell on a day?

Hur mycket säljer du på en dag?

Hur mycket säljer du på en dag?

"We will buy it if you are selling it." And of course to say "if" you don't remember, see if you can figure it out.

So to say "if", you would say "om".

So how would you say the whole sentence, "We will buy it if you are selling it"?

Vi ska köpa den om du säljer den. Vi ska köpa den om du säljer den.

So "we will buy it" or "we are going to buy it", ska has that feel. Vi kommer att köpa den, you could also say, which roughly says the same thing. But here we're using ska, so vi ska köpa den om du säljer den.

They will buy it if you are still selling it. So to say "still" in Swedish, you would say fortfarande, fortfarande. See if you can repeat that: fortfarande.

So with that being said, how would you say "They will buy it if you are still selling it"?

De köper den, or you would say perhaps, "De ska köpa den", which would be more "They will buy it".

But if you want to skip, you can skip. De köper den om du fortfarande säljer den. They will buy it if you are still selling it. De köper den om du fortfarande säljer den.

Or, de ska köpa den om du fortfarande säljer den.

They are going to buy it if you are still selling it, or they will buy it if you're still selling it. But in this case, we removed the "ska", but you can choose to put it in there. Or in Swedish, you can just use this regular form and remove the "ska", and just say "De köper den om du fortfarande säljer den".

It costs too much.

Den kostar för mycket.

Or you could say "Det kostar för mycket" also, depending on the context. A lot of the times, it actually doesn't make a big difference. In some in some cases, it does, but generally speaking, you can opt for "den".

Den kostar för mycket, especially if you're talking about something that's physical that you can grab hold of.

It costs nothing.

It costs nothing.

Den kostar ingenting. So "nothing" is ingenting, "no thing", literally, "no thing". It costs nothing.

"How much does this cost?" Imagine you're in a store and you're asking somebody about a specific thing, how much it costs, "How much does this cost?" So you would say hur for "how".

Thus, hur mycket kostar den or denna? When you say denna, that's like something you can almost grasp that is this specific thing. Like you're, literally, not point forward, but you're pointing literally where you can touch the thing, this specific thing, not that thing, but this specific thing. You can say denna to make it even more specific that you're talking about this thing that's near you.

But of course, you could also say hur mycket kostar den? "How much does it cost?" And then regardless if it's close to you or not, people can understand that you're referring to that specific object.

Okay. So, "You can buy it for me." "You can buy it for me," and use the plural form of "you".

So here, you can actually say för to say "for" in Swedish, but there's a difference actually in terms of what you're trying to say. So I would translate this sentence to: Ni kan köpa den till mig. Åh, ni kan köpa den till mig. Which would be the same as saying, "You can buy this "for me", literally "to me".

But when you say "till mig" in Swedish, that essentially means this is being bought, I want this, this is mine.

Whereas if you were to say "Ni kan köpa den för mig" and use the word that's very similar to "for", it's "för" in Swedish, the meaning would change a little bit. So it would become like "You can buy it on behalf of me." Like, you can buy that thing on behalf of me.

So it's like, in place of you, you can go and buy it. So there's a subtle difference there. Generally speaking, you can just exchange those two words in most circumstances, and it wouldn't sound off at all. But there is a subtle difference there in terms of what it actually means.

So if you want to use the word that is the most similar to English, you would say "för", "Ni kan köpa den för mig." And that's 100% normal Swedish. The subtlety lies in that what you're really saying is "You can buy it on behalf of me," whereas here it would be "to me", which you wouldn't really say in English, but that's the literal translation.

"Why can't you buy it to me?" using "to" again. So, "Why can't you buy it to me?" Or in English, you would say "for me".

Varför kan du inte köpa den till mig?

So "varför" is "why", varför kan du inte köpa den till mig? Or you can say: Varför kan du inte köpa den för mig? But if you're saying "för mig", then there's a understanding that it's on behalf of you.