Learn to talk about how often or seldom we do something
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Alisha:Hi Everyone! I’m Alisha, and welcome to SwedishPod101.com. This is Beginner season 1, lesson 23 - Celebrating New Year’s Eve in Sweden. |
| Satsuki:Hej allihopa! I’m Satsuki |
| Alisha:In this lesson, you’ll learn how to talk about how often or seldom we do something. |
| Satsuki:The conversation takes place at Lisa’s apartment, and it’s between Lisa and her friend Anna. |
| Alisha:They’ll be using informal Swedish since they know each other. |
| Satsuki:Let’s listen to the conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| Lisa Anna, hur firar du nyårafton? |
| Anna Jag firar alltid nyårsafton med mina vänner. |
| Lisa Jaså. |
| Anna Vi firar ofta hemma hos någon, men ibland går vi ut. |
| Lisa Jaha. Vad gör ni då? |
| Anna Vi äter alltid middag tillsammans. Efteråt dricker vi alltid Champagne och tittar på fyverkerierna. |
| Alisha: Let’s hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| Lisa Anna, hur firar du nyårafton? |
| Anna Jag firar alltid nyårsafton med mina vänner. |
| Lisa Jaså. |
| Anna Vi firar ofta hemma hos någon, men ibland går vi ut. |
| Lisa Jaha. Vad gör ni då? |
| Anna Vi äter alltid middag tillsammans. Efteråt dricker vi alltid Champagne och tittar på fyverkerierna. |
| Alisha: Now let’s hear it with the English translation. |
| Lisa Anna, hur firar du nyårafton? |
| Alisha:Anna, how do you celebrate New Year’s Eve? |
| Anna Jag firar alltid nyårsafton med mina vänner. |
| Alisha:I always celebrate New Year’s Eve together with my friends. |
| Lisa Jaså. |
| Alisha:Really? |
| Anna Vi firar ofta hemma hos någon, men ibland går vi ut. |
| Alisha:We often celebrate at someone’s place, but sometimes we go out. |
| Lisa Jaha. Vad gör ni då? |
| Alisha:I see. So what do you do? |
| Anna Vi äter alltid middag tillsammans. Efteråt dricker vi alltid Champagne och tittar på fyverkerierna. |
| Alisha:We always eat dinner together. Afterwards we always drink champagne and watch the fireworks. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Alisha:It sounds like Anna has fun new years’ celebrations with her friends! Is it common for Swedes to ring in the new year with friends rather than with family? |
| Satsuki:Yes, I would say that celebrating with friends is more common, especially for teenagers and younger adults. |
| Alisha:Anna mentioned that there is usually some kind of dinner - is there a typical new years eve dish? |
| Satsuki:Not really. Most people eat a nice meal, but I wouldn't say that there’s a standard dish that people always eat, like on Christmas Eve. |
| Alisha:Drinking champagne and watching the fireworks sounds like the nicest part of celebrating New Years Eve in Sweden! |
| Satsuki:Yes, I guess you could say that’s the focus of new year’s eve celebrations in Sweden. |
| Alisha:Sounds good! Now let’s move on to the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Alisha:Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| The first word we shall see is: |
| Satsuki:Nyårsafton [natural native speed] |
| Alisha:New Year's Eve |
| Satsuki:Nyårsafton [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Satsuki:Nyårsafton [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Satsuki:alltid [natural native speed] |
| Alisha:always |
| Satsuki:alltid [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Satsuki:alltid [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Satsuki:ofta [natural native speed] |
| Alisha:usually |
| Satsuki:ofta [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Satsuki:ofta [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Satsuki:hemma [natural native speed] |
| Alisha:home |
| Satsuki:hemma [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Satsuki:hemma [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Satsuki:hos [natural native speed] |
| Alisha:at/with |
| Satsuki:hos [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Satsuki:hos [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Satsuki:vänner [natural native speed] |
| Alisha:friends |
| Satsuki:vänner [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Satsuki:vänner [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Satsuki:ut [natural native speed] |
| Alisha:out |
| Satsuki:ut [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Satsuki:ut [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Satsuki:ibland [natural native speed] |
| Alisha:sometimes |
| Satsuki:ibland [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Satsuki:ibland [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Satsuki:efteråt [natural native speed] |
| Alisha:afterward |
| Satsuki:efteråt [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Satsuki:efteråt [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Satsuki:att dricka [natural native speed] |
| Alisha:to drink |
| Satsuki:att dricka [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Satsuki:att dricka [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Alisha:Let's have a closer look at the usuage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Satsuki:We’ll start with the adverb ‘ut’, which means “out”. |
| Alisha:Okay! |
| Satsuki:This is often used with the verb ‘gå’, meaning “go” to say things like ‘ska vi gå ut och promenera’ - “should we go out for walk?” or ‘gå ut härifrån’ - “get out of here”. |
| Alisha:Okay, but in the conversation, when Anna says “sometimes we go out”, she’s not really talking about going out for a walk, is she? |
| Satsuki:That’s right. Anna does use the adverb ‘ut’ meaning “out” with the verb ‘gå’ - “go” - but she doesn't explicitly state where they are going. |
| Alisha:But she’s talking about going out to a nightclub or a bar, right? |
| Satsuki:Yes, she is. Swedes often say things like ‘ska vi gå ut’, “should we go out”, when they are talking about going to a nightclub or a bar. |
| Alisha:Got it. What’s the next word? |
| Satsuki:Next is the preposition ‘hos’. |
| Alisha:It’s the English preposition “at”, and it’s used to specify a certain place that belongs to someone, like someone’s home, house or apartment. Can it be used in any other way? |
| Satsuki:Yes, it can also be used to talk about a place nearby. |
| Alisha:I see. |
| Satsuki:And in that case, the preposition ‘hos’ better correspond to “with”. |
| Alisha:Do you have any examples? |
| Satsuki:Of course! In Swedish, you would use the preposition ‘hos’ in the sentence “I have been at Lisa’s place” - ‘jag har varit hos Lisa’ as well as in the sentence “stay here with me”- ‘stanna här hos mig’. |
| Alisha:That made it easier to understand! Now, let’s move on to the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
| Alisha:In this lesson, you’ll learn how to talk about how often or seldom we do things. Satsuki, where do we begin? |
| Satsuki:Well, to talk about how frequently something happens, we need to look at the time adverbs from the dialogue. |
| Alisha:Are you talking about “sometimes”, “usually” and “always”? |
| Satsuki:Yes! “Sometimes” is ‘ibland’, “usually” is ‘ofta’ and “always” is ‘alltid’. Listeners, repeat after me. |
| Satsuki:‘ibland’, ‘ofta’ and ‘alltid’. |
| Alisha:Okay so now that we know these time adverbs, what do we do with them? |
| Satsuki:We will now learn how to use them, or more precisely, where to put them in a sentence. |
| Alisha:Okay. Where do they go? |
| Satsuki:Well, that depends on the clause that we want to place the time adverb in. |
| Alisha:A clause can be a sentence or just part of a sentence. |
| Satsuki:For example, ‘jag har ätit pannkakor’, “I have eaten pancakes” is both a sentence and a clause. ‘hon pluggar och han städar’ meaning “she is studying and he is cleaning” is also a sentence, but it consists of two clauses. |
| Alisha:What were the clauses? |
| Satsuki:‘hon pluggar’, “she is studying”, is a clause and ‘och han städar’, “and he is cleaning”, is also a clause. |
| Alisha:Now I understand! |
| Satsuki:Great! There are two types of clauses, main clauses and subordinate clauses. |
| Alisha:The difference is that main clauses can stand on their own, while subordinate clauses always appear with a main clause in a sentence. While this is a bit tricky to get your head around, the good news is that in this lesson, we are only going to learn where we should place time adverbs in main clauses. We can leave the subordinate clauses for another time. |
| Satsuki:That’s right. So for main clauses that start with a subject, the time adverb is placed after the first verb of the sentence. |
| Alisha:Give us an example, please. |
| Satsuki:Okay. In the dialogue, Anna said, "I always celebrate new years eve with my friends”. This was ‘Jag firar alltid nyårsafton med mina vänner’. Here, the time adverb ‘alltid’, “always”, is placed after the verb ‘firar’ which means “celebrate”, and is the first and only verb in the sentence. |
| Alisha:Let’s have the listeners practice that sentence. |
| Satsuki:Listeners repeat after me! ‘Jag firar alltid nyårsafton med mina vänner’. [pause] |
| Alisha:The next example is when Anna said "We often celebrate at someone’s place...” |
| Satsuki:That was ‘Vi firar ofta hemma hos någon...’ And as you might have noticed already, the time adverb ‘ofta’, meaning “usually”, is again placed after the first verb ‘firar’, which means “celebrate”. |
| Alisha:Listeners, repeat after Satsuki! |
| Satsuki:‘Vi firar ofta hemma hos någon...’ [pause] |
| Alisha:Okay, we are almost done, there’s just one last thing we need to mention. |
| Satsuki:Yes. For the time adverbs ‘ofta’, “usually”, and ‘ibland’, “sometimes”, you also have the option to put them at the beginning of the sentence. |
| Alisha:But bear in mind that doing this changes the word order of a sentence, which means that subject of a sentence is placed after the verb, or the first verb of the sentence. How would that sound? |
| Satsuki:Well, instead of saying ‘vi firar ofta hemma hos någon’, you can instead say ‘ofta friar vi hemma hos någon’. It might seem a bit complicated, but if you want some more examples, you can take a look at the lesson notes. |
| Alisha:Great! I think we are done for this lesson, but we’ll see you all next time. |
| Satsuki:Yes, great work everyone! Hej då! |
| Alisha:Bye! |
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