Swedish verb· top 500 most common

kalla

call, summon, call (for)Also the plural of kall./²kalːa/

Meaning

call; summon; call (for)

In Swedish: uppmana att komma

Conjugation

Conjugation of kalla (call)
Infinitive	att kalla	to call
Present	kallar	jag kallar
Past	kallade	jag kallade
Supine	kallat	used after har / hade
Perfect	har kallat	jag har kallat
Past perfect	hade kallat	jag hade kallat
Future	ska kalla	or: kommer att kalla
Conditional	skulle kalla	jag skulle kalla
Imperative	kalla!	a command
Present participle	kallande	-ing, used as an adjective
Past participle	kallad	used like an adjective, and agrees like one

Passive (-s form)

Passive of kalla
Infinitive	kallas
Present	kallas
Past	kallades
Supine	kallats

Group 1: -ar verbs. Present -ar, past -ade, supine -at. The largest and most regular group. Swedish verbs don't change for person: jag, du, hon, vi and de all use kallar. See the four verb groups explained.

Practise kalla

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

kalla in a sentence

kalla på polis
summon the police
kalla till sammanträde
call a meeting
han kallas (för) Lillen
he is called Lillen

Expressions

så kallad (s k)
so-called

Questions

What does kalla mean in English?

kalla means “call, summon”.

What is the past tense of kalla?

The past tense of kalla is kallade (“jag kallade”). The supine is kallat, used in “jag har kallat”.

What is the present tense of kalla?

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

Origin

From Old Swedish kalla, from Old Norse kalla, from Proto-Germanic *kalzōną.

Nearby common words

kalla is number 293 in our frequency list. These words come just before and after it.

289fram forward, up
290liten small, short
291minut minute, minutia, sundry
292först first, at first
294annat something else, another, something else
295leta look
296jo yes, sure, well
297sätta place, put

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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