Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

Hi everybody. Welcome to swedishpod101. It’s time for another class, another lesson in the Swedish language and I am Hanna talking to you from Sweden. Today, we are going to go through some very basic words and foundations. So let’s get started with the words.
1. Hej.
“Hello.”
Very basic, simple. You say Hej, it works for everybody whoever you meet. You say Hej and they will probably respond with another Hej back to you.
2. God morgon.
“Good morning.”
Bit more formal, nice and polite for the mornings. Means the same as in English. Means good morning.
3. God eftermiddag.
“Good afternoon.”
Same polite and nice but of course used in the afternoon and again, it’s the same meaning as in English. It means “good afternoon.”
God eftermiddag.
“Good afternoon.”
4. God natt.
“Good night.”
Most of the time it’s useful when you are going to sleep. So yeah, when you wish someone a nice night, goodnight sleep, this is what you say.
5. Vad heter du?
“What's your name?”
Very easy or not that formal in Sweden. So again, it’s the same meaning word by word. It means what’s your name? You ask what someone is called.
6. Jag heter Hanna.
“I'm Hanna.
Meaning is just my name is Hanna and I do of course recommend you to not say Hanna but use your own name instead. It might get a bit weird if you copy my name unless your name is Hanna of course.
7. Trevligt att träffas.
“Nice to meet you.”
Same meaning as in English. Again, always you can use this when you meet someone like when you introduce yourself but you could also use it when you say goodbye and you want to tell them that it was nice getting to know them, nice meeting them first time or every time. So it doesn’t – there is no wrong time for using this one when you want to tell someone that it was nice seeing them.
8. Hur mår du?
“How are you?”
Nice and easy short phrase. Sometimes in Sweden, we do respond like, ah, you know, it’s all good even though it’s not and sometimes if you know someone closer, they probably give you more thorough explanation, tell a little bit more about what’s going on in their life. So this can either be just a polite phrase or when you sincerely mean to you know find out more about what’s going on in someone’s life.
9. Jag mår bra, tack. Och du?
“I'm fine, thanks. And you?”
Yeah. So maybe this is the polite version of the answer. If everything is good or if everything is good. So this is just the most common way to respond if someone asks you like what’s going on, it’s all good, you know and don’t want to go too deep into whatever is going on in your life but it’s nice and polite and of course it ends with asking someone back how they are.
10. Snälla.
“Please.”
In Swedish, we use this word Snälla. It’s – the meaning of Snäll is nice, kind and sometimes we use the word for thanks instead like in the end of the sentence like,
“Can you pass me the salt please?”
We say tack “thanks” instead of this word.
But there, you can swap them. You can use either of the two and it’s still going to be nice way of asking someone to maybe help you or answer a question or something.
11. Tack.
“Thank you.”
Here we go with this word. Tack, “thank you” or “thanks.” I would say that it’s more like thanks. It’s the short, nice, not very formal way if you’re saying “thanks.”
I think maybe this is the most useful word in any language, don’t you think? Like every time someone helps you with the door or something, you can thank them and that’s one of the first things for me at least that I want to learn how to say in a language, thank people for helping me.
12. Varsågod.
“You're welcome.”
Maybe you help someone sometimes and they say thank you for helping them and holding a door or something, I guess in almost every country, it’s like the norm that you - maybe if someone is carrying a lot of stuff or someone elderly walks by, you hold the door for them and in Sweden, if they say thank you, you reply with this phrase for “you are welcome.”
So Varsågod.
“You're welcome.”
13. Ja.
“Yes.”
It’s just yes you know. When you want to say, you can add the “yes please” - Ja, snälla.
But it’s just “yes”, easy.
14. Nej.
“No.”
Also Nej. Short and easy. It’s just a word to say no. You can add the politer version saying, no thanks. Then you just say, Nej tack. So this is actually fun. You can combine the words in this lesson a lot to create more polite sentences.
15. Okej.
“Okay.”
So this one you kind of already know if you know the English version and I’ve heard that okay is one of the most common words in the world these days. It’s used in a lot of languages almost the same pronunciation. Almost the same spelling as well. So, okay. That one always works.
16. Ursäkta mig.
“Excuse me.”
When you want to maybe walk by someone, if someone is standing in your way like maybe accidentally blocking a door or something, you just want to politely ask them if you can step by or if they could move to the side, then you use this one. Also, if you want to get attention, you use this like “excuse me” to get some attention, maybe in a restaurant or something like that.
17. Förlåt.
“I'm sorry.”
Maybe almost as useful as knowing how to say thanks. You can say this, “I am sorry” and this is maybe more on an emotional level than the phrase for excuse me and it’s a bit similar to English. There are two, I think, that you use. This is more like serious, maybe deeper level. Maybe you hurt someone or it doesn’t have to be like the super emotional but maybe you accidentally hurt someone, then you say sorry.
18. Vad är klockan?
“What time is it?”
So in Sweden, we don’t use the AM, PM but we use the 1, 2, 3, 4, and then we say 13, 14, 15 hours for the afternoon time and so that’s also a good thing to remember when asking about time that maybe someone would tell you, oh, it’s 14:00. Then they actually mean 2 PM. So that’s good fact to have when you ask for the time so that you understand what they tell you.
19. Var är toaletten?
“Where is the restroom?”
Good one to know. You all, I guess you’ve sometimes been somewhere and you really needed a restroom. I think that’s like part of being human and then asking for it in the right language can actually be crucial not to have an accident. So actually as you might have heard when I said it, it’s quite similar to the word toilet. So toalet. So you can probably use toilet and get around but so it’s good to know how to ask for this.
20. Vänta ett ögonblick.
“Wait a moment.”
Maybe in a restaurant or in a store, if you order something or buy something, they just need to fix something before they can help you. Then, this is what they will tell you to just wait a moment and hopefully it’s just a moment and not longer.
21. Hur mycket kostar det här?
“How much is this?”
So except for getting food and maybe the next step, next thing you need to solve when you’re traveling is to buy some things, do some shopping and then of course, in Sweden, we don’t haggle. So when you ask for the price, you’ll get what you’re expected to pay. There are a few exceptions to this like a few markets where you can haggle and discuss the price but most places, it’s just fixed. So when you ask for it, you’ll get the answer you need.
22. Kan jag få notan, tack?
“Could I get the check please?”
This is for asking to pay. In a restaurant, you can just raise your hand and ask for the check and you’ll be able to pay.
Kan jag få notan, tack?
“Could I get the check please?”
23. Hjälp!
“Help!”
I hope you don’t have to use this one anytime at all because it might mean that you’re in a tricky situation but if you do end up in one, it’s, of course, useful to be able to scream for help, quite similar to the English one. Hjälp! So just Hjälp! And hopefully someone will run over and help you with whatever it is that you’ve gotten yourself into. Actually Swedes can be a bit – maybe they won’t approach you if you look like you don’t need help. So if you, like, pretend that you are okay. So it’s actually good to ask for it if you need it.
24. Vi ses senare.
“See you later.”
This is – it can either mean that you will see each other later but you can also just use it to be nice like you know, hope to see you later but you just say, see you later as if you will actually see them but it’s kind of a nice way of saying that you hope to see them later.
So Vi ses senare or as you would usually say – actually in Swedish, you would say,
Vi ses sen. Sen instead of senare. So that’s the shorter version. Bit more of slang but you can maybe start with the correct one.
25. Hej då!
“Goodbye.”
Short and easy version of the Hej that we used to say hello. You add a little part in the end and you can use this for anyone. It’s also like doesn’t matter if they are older or younger or anything like that. We use the same word.
And this was the end of the lesson, Top 25 Phrases in Swedish. I hope you learned some of them already and that you’ll take your time to go out and practice, short, easy phrases that will make you sound a bit more nice and Swedish people of course like everybody appreciates when you use some of their language. I hope you’re still having fun with the language, I am.
Hej då! “Bye-bye.”

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