Swedish words ending in -ens

So let's look at another group of words that exist in English and also in Swedish. The words that end with -ence, a lot of them you can switch over to Swedish. So: ambivalence, competence, evidence, tolerance, preference. Now these words, as well as difference and frequency... Even though frequency is not -ence word, it in Swedish it will sort of change the same way, so I've included it as well.

So "sequence" would also work because it ends with -ence: sequence. But frequency, we'll see that it sort of takes on the same ending, so for that purpose I've included it as well. So ambivalence, in Swedish you remove the the n-c-e, the and then you add on n-s. So you remove the ambivalence, this -nce, and you get -ns instead. So, how would you pronounce that?

Ambivalens.

So to pronounce that you would get ambivalens.

So competence, how would you say that in Swedish?

Kompetens. Kompetens. What about evidence?

Evidens. And here I should say that even though it does mean evidence, evidens is used not very often in everyday speech. You would use another word instead: proof, bevis, is probably what you would use, but evidens is correct, and probably used more in research and evidens.

but it is correct, it's just considered a more, less common, perhaps more formal, more fancy word in Swedish. "tolerance" tolerans tolerans So you remove the n-c-e, the "a" you keep, so you have tolerans, and you add the n-s.

What about "preference"?

preferens And "difference"?

differens And here, it doesn't mean "difference" like in English, like the difference between this and that. You wouldn't say differensen mellan denna och den. So differens is very specific, almost exclusively like in mathematics, when you have the difference between, when you have a minus, one number minus the other, you get the difference, you get the differens.

If you're unsure and you can't remember the other word for "difference", which would be skillnad, skillnad. If you can't remember that word, and you say differens, people will understand what you mean, so. And then "frequency" would be frekvens frekvens So it's a bit different.

Same with differens and frekvens.

Okay, so with these we can actually make adjectives, and adjectives are things that you describe something. It's big, it's beautiful, it's warm, it's ugly. Words that we use to describe the properties of something, attributes of something, then we have these adjectives. So from "ambivalence", you can say in English, you can say "ambivalent".

And suddenly you can describe yourself, so in English you could say I am ambivalent. To say that in Swedish you do the same thing, you add t. So it becomes ambivalent. So how do you say, "I'm ambivalent"?

Jag är ambivalent.

How do you say, "She is competent"?

Hon är kompetent. Kompetent.

What about, "She is not competent"?

Hon är inte kompetent.

What about, "He is not competent"?

Han är inte kompetent.

Evident would be evidence, but once again, not very commonly used in everyday speech. So how would you say "tolerant"?

Tolerant. So what about, "You are tolerant", one person?

Du är tolerant. So how did you say "a person" in Swedish, a person?

En person. En person.

And even though we've taught you to say sh, that's what you'll hear most commonly, person. But there are some dialects in Swedish where you would say the r and the s just the way they're spelled. So if you say that, it's actually fine. So if you say "en person", that's actually perfectly fine in a specific dialect in Swedish.

So most commonly, you would hear person.

She is a competent person.

Hon är en kompetent person.

They are a tolerant folk. And folk is the same spelling, but with a Swedish pronunciation.

De är ett tolerant folk, folk.

Folk is very commonly used in Swedish, very commonly.

We were ambivalent yesterday.

Vi var ambivalenta igår. So here you may notice that became ambivalenta, we added an a in the end, and that's because it's plural. So when something is plural in standard Swedish, most places where people speak Swedish in in in Sweden, you would have to add on the a in the end.

So vi var ambivalenta igår. Vi var ambivalenta igår, yesterday igår.

But in certain dialects once again, you can actually get away with not putting an a there and you can say vi var ambivalent igår. That's a very specific dialect of Swedish. How frequent do you come here?

Hur frekvent kommer du hit?

So hur frekvent kommer du hit would be correct grammatically. However, it's a strange way of saying it. In Swedish they would say often instead, and that's the common way of saying frequent. So, how often do you come here? Hur ofta ofta kommer du hit?

But if you're unsure and you can't remember often is ofta, then you can use frekvent, and people will understand what you're saying even if it's not the most common way of saying it.