Swedish verb· top 500 most common

sova

sleep, be asleep/²soːva/

Meaning

sleep, be asleep

In Swedish: vara försänkt i sömn, slumra

Conjugation

Conjugation of sova (sleep)
Infinitive	att sova	to sleep
Present	sover	jag sover
Past	sov	jag sov
Supine	sovit	used after har / hade
Perfect	har sovit	jag har sovit
Past perfect	hade sovit	jag hade sovit
Future	ska sova	or: kommer att sova
Conditional	skulle sova	jag skulle sova
Imperative	sov!	a command
Present participle	sovande	-ing, used as an adjective

Passive (-s form)

Passive of sova
Infinitive	sovas
Present	sovs
Past	sovs
Supine	sovits

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 sover. See the four verb groups explained.

Practise sova

1 / 2

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

sova in a sentence

hon sov gott hela natten
she slept soundly the whole night through
God natt och sov gott!
Good night and sleep well!
Sov gott, vakna torrt!
Sleep well, wake up dry!
Sover du?
Are you asleep?

Words built with sova

sovrum bedroom

Questions

What does sova mean in English?

sova means “sleep, be asleep”.

What is the past tense of sova?

The past tense of sova is sov (“jag sov”). The supine is sovit, used in “jag har sovit”.

What is the present tense of sova?

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

Similar words

sussaknoppaslafata sig en lurkvartaslumraslaggakinesa

Where the course teaches it

Få versus kan: permission in Swedish
Complete Swedish – Season 1

Origin

From Old Swedish sova, from Old Norse sofa, from Proto-Germanic *swefaną, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *swep- (“sleep”).

Nearby common words

sova is number 377 in our frequency list. These words come just before and after it.

373person person
374annars otherwise, else
375dog died
376åker arable land, field
378hittad found
379inne inside, in
380ord word
381tur trip, luck

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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