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Lesson Transcript

Hej, jag heter Elin. Hi everybody! I’m Elin.
Welcome to SwedishPod101.com’s “Svenska på 3 minuter”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Swedish.
In the last lesson, we learned how to ask "What" questions in Swedish.
This time, we are going to ask "Where" questions.
Imagine you want to ask where your friend is now. You will ask him Var är du? This is how to say "Where are you?" in Swedish.
[slowly] Var är du?
So let’s break down this question.
First we had-
Var, which is the basic translation of "Where" in Swedish.
Är, which is "are", the present tense form of the verb att vara which we have already studied.
Finally du, which is the word for "you"
So, altogether it is Var är du?, "Where are you?"
In Swedish, "Where" is translated as var
So for example, if you want to ask "Where do you live?" You will say Var bor du?
As in English, the question word is placed in the first position, then the verb, and then the subject.
Compared to var is just as easy, short, and practical. It shouldn’t be complicated at all asking questions with var. Just remember that it is the first word in the sentence.
So let’s look at some questions that feature var.
Say you want to ask where you are going with your friends. It’s as easy as saying, Var ska vi?
Where are we going?
[slowly]Var ska vi?
You might remember ska from one of our previous lessons.
You may also ask where someone is from by saying, Var är du ifrån?
Which translates as “Where are you from?"
[slowly]Var är du ifrån?
Now it’s time for Elin’s insights.
If they forget where they left something, Swedes tend to ask themselves where they left it. Say your friend forgot where she left her keys. She would say, var la jag nycklarna? “Where did I put the keys?”
It’s funny to hear people mumbling to themselves, but the sentence itself can also be turned into a practical question. Just switch the pronoun to ask someone where they left something. Say you want to know where your friend put the remote control. Just ask:
var la du fjärrkontrollen? “where did you put the remote control?”
Before ending this lesson, let’s look at one more usage for var. Let’s say that you are lost somewhere in Sweden and you want to know where the bus stop is. To ask a stranger, simply stop them by saying Ursäkta “Excuse me”, a word we learned in one of the first lessons. Then ask Vet du var närmsta busshållplats är? “Do you know where the closest bus stop is?”
Of course you can substitute närmsta busshållplats with any other place like “The Opera” Operan. The sentence wouldn’t change at all. Vet du var operan är?
Simple as that.
In this lesson, we learned how to correctly use the Swedish word for "Where", Var.
Now you can avoid getting lost!
In the next lesson we’ll learn more about asking questions, this time using "When" in Swedish.
I’ll be waiting for you in the next Svenska på tre minuter lesson.
Vi ses!

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