veta
How veta is used
Veta means to know a fact. To know a person or a place is känna, and to know a skill or a language is kunna. Jag vet inte, “I don't know”, is often shortened to vet inte in speech.
Meaning
know
In Swedish: ha kunskap om, känna till
Conjugation
| Infinitive | att veta | to know |
|---|---|---|
| Present | vet | jag vet |
| Past | visste | jag visste |
| Supine | vetat | used after har / hade |
| Perfect | har vetat | jag har vetat |
| Past perfect | hade vetat | jag hade vetat |
| Future | ska veta | or: kommer att veta |
| Conditional | skulle veta | jag skulle veta |
| Imperative | vet! | a command |
| Present participle | vetande | -ing, used as an adjective |
Passive (-s form)
| Infinitive | vetas |
|---|---|
| Present | vets |
| Past | visstes |
| Supine | vetats |
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 vet. See the four verb groups explained.
Practise veta
1 / 2Yesterday I … (veta). Which is the past tense?
veta in a sentence
- Jag vet inte var han bor.I don't know where he lives.
- Vet du vad klockan är?Do you know what time it is?
- hon kom till Sverige utan att vi visste om detshe came to Sweden without our knowing about it
- vi fick veta att tåget just hade gåttwe found out that the train had just gone
- jag vet inte när hon kommerI don't know when she is coming
- Hon vet hur man lagar en trasig bil.She knows how to fix a broken car.
- Vem vet?Who knows?
Expressions
- vet hut!watch it!, none of your cheek!
Questions
What does veta mean in English?
veta means “know”.
What is the past tense of veta?
The past tense of veta is visste (“jag visste”). The supine is vetat, used in “jag har vetat”.
What is the present tense of veta?
vet, the same for every person: jag vet, du vet, vi vet.
Similar words
Where the course teaches it
- The Swedish verb att veta (to know)Complete Swedish – Season 1
- An overview of Swedish noun pluralsComplete Swedish – Season 1
- Swedish past tense: -te and -de endingsComplete Swedish – Season 2
- Brukar: talking about usual habits in SwedishComplete Swedish – Season 2
- Swedish adjectives made from past participlesComplete Swedish – Season 2
Origin
From Old Swedish vita, from Old Norse vita, from Proto-Germanic *witaną, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“see”).
Nearby common words
veta is number 34 in our frequency list. These words come just before and after it.
- 30ni you
- 31ska will, be going to, (except not formal in tone, but a literal match for meaning) shall, is to; (in the past tense "skulle") were to; was to (Usually not sensible translations, but will provide the right intuition in some tricky cases – see below.)
- 32ett a, an, one
- 33av of, by
- 35hon she
- 36komma come, arrive
- 37vill want
- 38ja yes, well; all right
Learn veta in real Swedish, free
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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