Swedish verb· top 100 most common

se

see, look, watch, notice/seː/

Meaning

see; look; watch; notice; see, look; view; perceive

In Swedish: uppfatta med ögonen; titta på, betrakta

Conjugation

Conjugation of se (see)
Infinitive	att se	to see
Present	ser	jag ser
Past	såg	jag såg
Supine	sett	used after har / hade
Perfect	har sett	jag har sett
Past perfect	hade sett	jag hade sett
Future	ska se	or: kommer att se
Conditional	skulle se	jag skulle se
Imperative	se!	a command
Present participle	seende	-ing, used as an adjective
Past participle	sedd	used like an adjective, and agrees like one

Passive (-s form)

Passive of se
Infinitive	ses
Present	ses
Past	sågs
Supine	setts

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 ser. See the four verb groups explained.

Practise se

1 / 2

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

se in a sentence

se på film
watch a film
se på fotboll
watch football
hon fick se en häst
she caught sight of a horse
Se efter om posten har kommit!
See whether the post has come!
där ser du hur det går
that shows you what happens
jag ser saken på ett annat sätt
I see things differently
Han sa att han var blind, men han kan se
He said he was blind, but he can see
Han såg på igelkotten
He looked at the hedgehog

Expressions

se fram emot
look forward to

Questions

What does se mean in English?

se means “see, look”.

What is the past tense of se?

The past tense of se is såg (“jag såg”). The supine is sett, used in “jag har sett”.

What is the present tense of se?

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

Similar words

beskådaobserveraskådainsebetrakta

Where the course teaches it

Origin

From Old Swedish sēa, sē, sīa, from Old Norse séa, sjá, from Proto-Germanic *sehwaną.

Nearby common words

se is number 45 in our frequency list. These words come just before and after it.

41bara only, just
42min my
43hur how
44ta take; to grab and move to oneself, to bring (along); to carry
46honom him, him; oblique of han
47där there, where
48måste must
49din your, yours (common gender, singular), you (vocative determiner used before a singular common gender noun)

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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