Learn how to ask "Who?"
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| 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 "When" questions in Swedish. |
| This time, we are going to ask "Who" questions. |
| You want to ask your friend who the girl just behind him is. |
| Here, the question you can ask is Vem är hon bakom dig? “Who is she behind you?” |
| [slowly] Vem är hon bakom dig? |
| So let’s break this down. |
| First we had- |
| Vem, which is the basic translation of "Who" in Swedish. |
| är which is "are," the present tense of the verb att vara, which we have already studied. |
| hon means "she." |
| And finally bakom dig which is "behind you." |
| dig is the object pronoun for "you." |
| All together it is Vem är hon bakom dig? |
| So in Swedish, "Who" is mainly translated as vem. |
| But, if you want to ask "Who are these people?" You will have to say vem in plural form: Vilka är dessa människor? So vem turns into vilka in plural form. |
| Another question formula with vem that is used a lot is vems. In this case, the meaning is different as it can be translated to "Whose." |
| So if you want to ask "Whose pencil is it?" you will have to say Vems penna är det? |
| If we break down this question, it is- |
| vems which is "whose" and |
| penna which is “pencil”. |
| Then we have är which is the present tense of the verb att vara, which you should know. |
| And finally, det, which means "it." |
| Now it’s time for Elin’s Insights. |
| If someone that you didn't expect is knocking at your door in Sweden, the question you can ask is Vem är det? before opening the door. |
| This literally means "Who is it?". |
| When someone you didn’t expect enters a room it’s common for Swedes to say hallå?, raising their intonation to indicate it’s a question, like this: “hallå?” |
| In this lesson, we learned how to ask "Who" questions in Swedish. |
| Next lesson will be our last of this absolute beginner series. |
| We will deal with the last question word varför. Want to know what it means? I’ll be telling you in the next Svenska på 3 minuter lesson. |
| På återseende! |
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