coll. - Learn Swedish - Level 2: Absolute Beginner

Welcome to Absolute Beginner Swedish! This e-book with audio lessons is a completely new way to learn Swedish fast! Start speaking Swedish in minutes with the powerful learning methods you will master in this book.

Using this e-book is simple. The book is a collection of language learning lessons. Each lesson consists of the following: several audio files, explanation of the lesson, the transcript of the dialog, the Swedish translation of the dialog, key vocabulary, sample sentences, and a detailed explanation of important grammar.

The Lesson Track is a completely new way to learn Swedish! The core of this new approach is a radio talk show format which is fun, new and entertaining. Two teachers will guide you through the dialog-centric lesson. You'll learn about language, culture, current events and more. Best of all, you'll start speaking Swedish after just one lesson!

Get ready to utterly shock and amaze your friends and family, colleagues, and teachers with the powerful information you learn in this book.

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Lesson Track

Lesson Review Track

Lesson Dialog Track

Learn Swedish with our site! You're running late for your first class at a Swedish school, and it's because you can't find a single pen in the house. What happened to them all?! You can't write any notes in Swedish unless you find one...maybe you left them in your car?

In this Lower Beginner lesson, you'll learn how to express ownership, from an informal conversation between family members. Visit us at our site, where you will find many more fantastic Swedish lessons and learning resources! Leave us a message while you are there!

Formal Swedish
Anna: Mamma, har du sett min biologibok?
Kerstin: Den ligger p kksbordet.
Anna: Dr r den ju! Har du sett mitt pennskrin?
Kerstin: Nej. Jens kanske har tagit det.
Anna: Va? Inte nu igen!
Kerstin: Jo. Jag sg honom med det i morse.

Formal English
Anna: Mom, have you seen my biology book?
Kerstin: It's on the kitchen table.
Anna: There it is! Have you seen my pencil case?
Kerstin: No. Maybe Jens has taken it.
Anna: What? Not again!
Kerstin: Yes. I saw him with it this morning.

Swedish / English / Class
mamma / mamma, mom / noun
att se / to see / verb
min / my / pronoun
mitt / my / pronoun
biologibok / biology book / noun
att ligga / to be, to lay / verb
pennskrin / pencil case / noun
dr / there / demonstrative pronoun
att ta / to take / verb
vad / what / adverb

mamma ( mamma, mom )
Min mamma jobbar som lrare.
"My mother works as a teacher."

att se ( to see )
Det r underbart att se dig igen.
"It is wonderful to see you again."

min ( my )
Jag har tappat min plnbok.
"I have lost my wallet."

mitt ( my )
Vlkomna till mitt hem.
"Welcome to my home."
Hej, mitt namn r Thomas.
"Hi, my name is Thomas."

biologibok ( biology book )
Jag mste kpa en ny biologibok.
"I have to buy a new biology book."

att ligga ( to be, to lay )
Mina nycklar ligger p stolen.
"My keys are on the chair."

pennskrin ( pencil case )
Roberto har kpt ett nytt pennskrin.
"Roberto has bought a new pen box."

dr ( there )
Dr gr en grupp tyskar.
"There goes a group of Germans."

att ta ( to take )
Det r svrt att ta dig p allvar.
"It is difficult to take you seriously."

vad ( what )
Vad r klockan nu?
"What is the time now?"
Vad r din destination?
"What's your destination?"

The Focus of This Lesson is to Learn How to Express Ownership
Har du sett mitt pennskrin?
"Have you seen my pencil box?"

The purpose of this lesson is to learn how to express ownership. Expressing ownership can of course be done in many different ways. But in this lesson, we'll focus on how to use the pronouns min and mitt correctly. Both min and mitt were used by Anna in this lesson's dialog when expressing ownership. Let's have a look.

Examples from this dialogue:

1. Mamma, har du sett min biologibok?
   "Mom, have you seen my biology book?"
2. Har du sett mitt pennskrin?
   "Have you seen my pencil case?"

As you might have noticed from the sentences presented above, both the pronouns min and mitt correspond to the English pronoun "my." This leads us to the question: Why do we sometimes use min and sometimes mitt if they both correspond to "my"? The difference between min and mitt has to do with the noun that they are referring to. In Swedish, nouns are either common gender nouns or neuter gender nouns. Common gender nouns are sometimes referred to as en-nouns since the prefix en- precedes them.

Examples of en-nouns or common gender nouns are:

1. en biologibok
   "a biology book"
2. en mamma
   "a mom"
3. en hund
   "a dog"

Neuter gender nouns are, on the other hand, sometimes referred to as ett-nouns since the prefix ett precedes them.

Examples of ett-nouns or neuter gender nouns are:

1. ett pennskrin
   "a pencil case"
2. ett hus
   "a house"
3. ett barn
   "a child"

In Swedish there are, unfortunately, no rules for how to tell the common gender nouns and the neuter gender nouns apart. So a good thing to do is to always try to memorize the nouns that you learn as either an ett-noun or en-noun.

Now let's return to how to express ownership with the help of min and mitt. We'll use a simple sentence structure such as Det r min/mitt + [noun] ("It's my [noun]") to exemplify how to express ownership, depending on whether it's a common or neuter gender noun in its singular indefinite form you are actually referring to. We'll look at how to do that when we want to refer to common gender nouns (en-nouns) such as en biologibok ("a biology book"), en mamma ("a mom"), and en hund ("a dog"). Because we want to refer to common gender nouns (en-noun), we have to use the pronoun min. Let's look at some examples:

1. Det r min biologibok.
   "It's my biology book."
2. Det r min mamma.
   "It's my mom."
3. Det r min hund.
   "It's my dog."

Now, if we instead want to express ownership by referring to a neuter gender noun such as ett pennskrin ("a pencil case"), ett hus ("a house"), and ett barn ("a child"), you'll have to use the pronoun mitt ("my"). Let's illustrate this with some examples:

1. Det r mitt pennskrin.
   "It's my pencil case."
2. Det r mitt hus.
   "It's my house."
3. Det r mitt barn.
   "It's my child."

Education in Sweden

The Swedish education system consists of nine years of compulsory comprehensive school, or grundskola as it's referred to in Swedish. After grundskolan, you have the Swedish counterpart of high school, which in Swedish is known as