Learn about Swedish tenses
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Intro |
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| Michael: How many tenses are there In Swedish? |
| Jesper: And how do they work? |
| Michael: At SwedishClass101.com, we hear these questions often. |
| Consider the following situation. Sasha Lee is confused about the number of tenses in Swedish. She asks a befriended teacher, Jenny Johansson, "How many tenses are there in Swedish?" |
| Sasha Lee: Hur många tempus finns det på svenska? |
| Dialogue |
| Sasha Lee: Hur många tempus finns det på svenska? |
| Jenny Johansson: Det finns fem huvudsakliga tempus. |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Sasha Lee: Hur många tempus finns det på svenska? |
| Michael: "How many tenses are there in Swedish?" |
| Jenny Johansson: Det finns fem huvudsakliga tempus. |
| Michael: "There are 5 main tenses." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: In the dialogue, Jenny tells Sasha that there are five tenses, or |
| Jesper: fem tempus |
| Michael: in Swedish. What are these tenses? Let's go through them! The five main tenses of Swedish are present, preterite, perfect, pluperfect, and future tense. |
| Jesper: presens, preteritum, perfekt, pluskvamperfekt, and futurum. |
| Michael: Now, how do these tenses work? How do we use them? Well, let's briefly go through them one by one. Let's start with |
| Jesper: presens, |
| Michael: the present tense. The present tense is used similarly to the present tense in English, and, obviously, the most common use of it is to explain things that are happening "now" in present time. Let's look at an example. Let's use the verb for "listen," or |
| Jesper: lyssna |
| Michael: as an example. The infinite form of "to listen" is |
| Jesper: att lyssna. |
| Michael: To conjugate it into the present form, we simply add an "r" to the infinitive form: |
| Jesper: lyssnar. |
| Michael: So, to say "I listen," you would say: |
| Jesper: Jag lyssnar. |
| Michael: Let's move on to the the preterite form, or |
| Jesper: preteritum, |
| Michael: which is used for completed actions in the past. Unfortunately, there isn't one single way to change all verbs into the preterite tense as this can vary between different verb forms, but, for regular verbs, we often add "-de" to the infinitive form. This is the case for the verb "listen," which in its preterite tense is: |
| Jesper: "lyssnade." |
| Michael: "I listened" is therefore: |
| Jesper: "Jag lyssnade." |
| Michael: Moving on to the perfect tense, or |
| Jesper: perfekt, |
| Michael: where we have to combine the verb for "have" |
| Jesper: har |
| Michael: in its present tense, and then the verb in its supine verb form. How do we figure out the supine verb form? Well, in the case of the verb "listen," we simply add a "-t" to the infinitive form, like this: |
| Jesper: lyssnat. |
| Michael: Therefore, we find the perfect tense by adding this supine form to the verb "have." To say "I have listened" is: |
| Jesper: "Jag har lyssnat." |
| Michael: Tenses are truly something to learn slowly over time, so don't worry if you have to go through this a few times. The good news is that the next two tenses are comparatively easy. To figure out the pluperfect tense, or |
| Jesper: pluskvamperfekt, |
| Michael: we simply use the same supine form as we used for the perfect tense; |
| Jesper: lyssnat. |
| Michael: The only difference is that, this time, we say the verb for "have" in its past tense, that is, its preterite tense, which would be: |
| Jesper: hade. |
| Michael: Therefore, to say "I had listened," you simply say: |
| Jesper: Jag hade lyssnat. |
| Michael: Finally, for the future tense, or |
| Jesper: futurum, |
| Michael: which is used to describe things that will happen in the future. To use a verb in its future tense, we don't have to change the verb form from its infinitive form. Instead, we simply add the verb for "will," or |
| Jesper: ska |
| Michael: in front of it. So, to say "I will listen," you simply say: |
| Jesper: Jag ska lyssna. |
| Michael: Let's listen to these example sentences using "listen" again. Present tense: "I listen." |
| Jesper: Presens: Jag lyssnar. |
| Michael: Preterite: "I listened." |
| Jesper: Preteritum: Jag lyssnade. |
| Michael: Perfect: "I have listened." |
| Jesper: Perfekt: Jag har lyssnat. |
| Michael: Pluperfect: "I had listened." |
| Jesper: Pluskvamperfekt: Jag hade lyssnat. |
| Michael: Future: "I will listen." |
| Jesper: Futurum: Jag ska lyssna. |
| Practice Section |
| Jesper: Michael: Let's review. Respond to the prompts by speaking aloud. Then, repeat after Jesper focusing on pronunciation. |
| Do you remember how to say "How many tenses are there in Swedish?" |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Jesper: Hur många tempus finns det på svenska? |
| Michael: Listen again and repeat. |
| Jesper: Hur många tempus finns det på svenska? |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Jesper: Hur många tempus finns det på svenska? |
| Michael: And do you remember how to say "There are five main tenses." |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Jesper: Det finns fem huvudsakliga tempus. |
| Michael: Listen again and repeat. |
| Jesper: Det finns fem huvudsakliga tempus. |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Jesper: Det finns fem huvudsakliga tempus. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Jesper: Vi ses! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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