Swedish verb· top 500 most common

be

ask, pray, beg, request

Meaning

ask; pray; beg; request

In Swedish: begära

Conjugation

Conjugation of be (ask)
Infinitive	att be	to ask
Present	ber	jag ber
Past	bad	jag bad
Supine	bett	used after har / hade
Perfect	har bett	jag har bett
Past perfect	hade bett	jag hade bett
Future	ska be	or: kommer att be
Conditional	skulle be	jag skulle be
Imperative	be!	a command
Present participle	bedjande	-ing, used as an adjective
Past participle	bedd	used like an adjective, and agrees like one

Passive (-s form)

Passive of be
Infinitive	bes
Present	bs
Past	bads
Supine	betts

Group 4: strong and irregular verbs. Strong verbs change their vowel and have a supine in -it (skriva, skrev, skrivit); irregular ones such as göra and ha follow no pattern. Both have to be learned one by one. Swedish verbs don't change for person: jag, du, hon, vi and de all use ber. See the four verb groups explained.

Practise be

1 / 2

Yesterday I … (be). Which is the past tense?

be in a sentence

han bad att få återkomma
he said he would get in touch later
be myndigheterna om stöd
request the authorities for help
be om ursäkt
apologize
be till Gud
pray to God
Han bad om ett glas vatten
He asked for a glass of water
Jag vill be om en tjänst
I want to ask you a favor
Han bad honom lämna rummet
He asked him to leave the room
De satt i kyrkan och bad
They sat in church, praying

Questions

What does be mean in English?

be means “ask, pray”.

What is the past tense of be?

The past tense of be is bad (“jag bad”). The supine is bett, used in “jag har bett”.

What is the present tense of be?

ber, the same for every person: jag ber, du ber, vi ber.

Similar words

bedjavädja

Origin

From older bedja, from Old Swedish biþia, from Old Norse biðja, from Proto-Germanic *bidjaną, from Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰedʰ-.

Nearby common words

be is number 241 in our frequency list. These words come just before and after it.

236värld world
237äta eat
238vilken who, which
239kille fellow, guy, bloke
242visa show
243polis police, policeman
244fru wife, Mrs.
245verka seem, work

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Sources: Folkets lexikon (CC BY-SA 2.5) and Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0), edited by Lingolib. Recording: Wikimedia Commons. Browse the dictionary