Swedish word order with time expressions

"Tomorrow, we have a presentation." How would you say that? Imorgon har vi en presentation. Imorgon har vi en presentation. And what about if you just want to say, "We have a presentation tomorrow"?

Vi har en presentation imorgon. And that's the normal sentence structure. Okay. So to say, "We go now", how do we say that? "We go now"?

Vi går nu. So it's important you don't say "vi gå nu", because gå is att gå, it's the dictionary form. Here we need to change the form: vi går nu. We go now. What about "Now we go", which is a very common thing to say in Swedish? "Now we go".

Nu går vi. We switch the order because of the "now", just like we did for "yesterday" and "tomorrow". The word "now" is modifying our sentence, so we need to switch the order if we're going to put it in the beginning.

To say "we ate", you would say vi åt. Vi åt. So that's the past tense. "We ate", it's also "we were eating". Vi åt. How do you say, "We ate food"?

Vi åt mat. So "food" is mat. We had this very early on, mat. "We ate the food." "We ate the food." Vi åt maten.

Maten. "The food we ate yesterday." So here it's a sentence structure you wouldn't find in English as as much. to say this, you take the food in the beginning, right? So now, because we changed the order and we put the food in the beginning, we have to change the order.

How would you guess, "The food we ate yesterday"? How do you think you would say that?

Maten åt vi igår. So this means the same as "We ate the food yesterday", Maten åt vi igår, but you choose to put maten in the beginning. And because you chose to use maten in the beginning, then you can't say vi åt, you have to say åt vi, so you have to switch the order.

So it's not just time that can modify the sentence like this. If we take the object there and we put it in the beginning, then we have to do the exact same thing, we have to switch the order.

So how do you say to live?

att leva, att leva So given that, how would you say she lives?

Hon lever.

What about she lives in London? London is pronounced London.

Hon lever i London. Now this sounds off, because Swedish people, when they talk about living somewhere, they don't use the word "live", leva. When we're talking about where you where you stay, where you lodge, where you inhabit, or dwelling, they have a different word, and that word is bor, bor.

So you would say, Hon bor i London, and that means she stays in London, she lives meaning she's staying at that place. That's where she sleeps, that's where her home is. So you would say something like "she dwells in London" or "she inhabits a place in London", right? So "bor" has to do with living, but living in a house, living in an apartment, something like this.

If you want to talk about living as a thing of biology, to live, then it's "leva". But live in terms of where do you stay, if that's what you're trying to say, where do you stay, then you need to say "bor". "Hon bor i London." Okay? So now, if you use the place and you put it in the beginning, okay?

And you say, "In London, she lives." You can say this in Swedish. You just have to be careful with the sentence structure. So how do you think you would say this, "In London, she lives"?

I London bor hon. I London bor hon. So you can't say, "I London hon bor." You have to say, "I London bor hon." So how do you say yesterday?

Igår.

How do you say "I was"?

Jag var.

"I was at home"?

Jag var hemma. What was the word "to speak"?

Att tala.

What about "you speak"?

Du talar. "Can you speak"?

Kan du tala?

"Can you speak slowly"? To say "slowly", you would say: långsamt. Långsamt.

Good. "Lång" means long, so in a long way, sort of. So långsamt, långsamt. It's one word. So how do you say, can you speak slowly?

Kan du tala långsamt? Kan du tala långsamt?

To say "I am slow", and it doesn't mean that you're intellectually challenged or something, it means you're simply slow, you're not fast. How do you say "I am slow"? And here, you need to remove the "t". So we saw "slowly" became "långsamt".

To say "I am slow", you'd say: "Jag är långsam". That means "I'm slow", meaning in terms of the speed, how fast I'm moving. So to say "jag är långsam", that would mean "I am slow". So what we can see here is a pattern. You see that "slow" is "långsam", "slowly" became "långsamt". So what's the pattern here?

You add on the "t" if you want to produce this "slowly", "quickly", so the "-ly" you add on a "t" in Swedish. How does one say "to eat" in Swedish? Att äta. What about "they eat"?

De äter.

"They eat slowly"?

De äter långsamt.

"He is slower than Johan"?

Han är långsammare än Johan. And you probably could get away with saying also "han är mer långsam än Johan" in this particular case.

What about "she is fast"? And to say "fast", you would say "snabb".

Hon är snabb.