Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Swedish Verbs

 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages Post Reply
Kuros
Newbie
United States
Joined 6149 days ago
16 posts - 16 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 1 of 7
05 June 2010 at 10:08am | IP Logged 
Hello everyone,

I decided to take a break from Spanish for a couple of weeks since I'm going to be
doing an intense immersion program this summer, and to pick my study of Swedish back up
for a bit.

It's amazing how easy Swedish grammar seems after the gazillion conjugations of
Spanish, but I'm a bit confused about something...

Is there a way to tell which conjugation a Swedish verb uses from looking at the
infinitive? For example:

kalla is a member of the first group, so the present tense is kallar.
ställa is a member of the second, so the present tense is ställer
And then we have, for example, skriva, whose present tense is skriver, but past is
skrev, whereas the past for ställa is ställde.

It doesn't seem possible to tell from the infinitive which way you should conjugate the
verb. Do they each just need to be memorized on a case by case basis?

Thanks!

Edited by Kuros on 05 June 2010 at 10:37am
1 person has voted this message useful



OlafP
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5438 days ago
261 posts - 667 votes 
Speaks: German*, French, English

 
 Message 2 of 7
05 June 2010 at 5:42pm | IP Logged 
Kuros wrote:
It doesn't seem possible to tell from the infinitive which way you should conjugate the verb.


That is true, but you can derive it from the supinum, which is the form you use to build the perfect tense with ha.

kallat -> kallar
ställt -> ställer

There are quite a few special cases for the 2nd group (stem ends on a consonant), which turns this approach into rocket science. The minimum you need to know is the infinitive, the past, and the supinum. The other forms (present, present/past participle, and imperative) can be derived from that, except for irregular verbs förstås.

Kuros wrote:
Do they each just need to be memorized on a case by case basis?


That's how I learn verbs: infinitive / present / past / supinum

kalla / kallar / kallade / kallat
ställa / ställer / ställde / ställt

I want to have the present available immediately. The imperative and the present participle occur less often, so it should be fine to take a fraction of a second to derive them until you just know them anyway. The past participle is quite simple to find if you know the rest.


Edited by OlafP on 05 June 2010 at 5:48pm
2 persons have voted this message useful



chirel
Triglot
Senior Member
Finland
Joined 5313 days ago
125 posts - 159 votes 
Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish
Studies: French

 
 Message 3 of 7
05 June 2010 at 7:08pm | IP Logged 
I found learning swedihs verbs at school quite easy, because when you string them like OlafP suggest and recite
this string to yourself it becomes a song, which makes it easier to remember the verbs. Even the ones that were
being called irregular weren't really. With this method I found four or five smaller groups that followed quite
regular umlaut-rules (the same changes in vovels). That left me with only a handfull of verbs I actually had to
memorise.
2 persons have voted this message useful



tracker465
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5355 days ago
355 posts - 496 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch

 
 Message 4 of 7
06 June 2010 at 1:25am | IP Logged 
chirel wrote:
Even the ones thatI were
being called irregular weren't really. With this method I found four or five smaller groups that followed quite
regular umlaut-rules (the same changes in vovels). That left me with only a handfull of verbs I actually had to
memorise.


I have never studied Swedish, but I am curious about something, and perhaps the answer may be of some use to the original poster's question as well. I unfortunately forget the correct name for this rule/law, but in English, German and Dutch there are many irregular verbs which are conjugated in practically the same manner (i.e. English Sink, Sank, Sunk, German sinken, sank, gesunken, etc). I assume when you are talking about the umlaut-rules above, perhaps they are also corresponding with the other Germanic tongues? If so, maybe this might help the original poster with his conjugation questions as well?
3 persons have voted this message useful



chirel
Triglot
Senior Member
Finland
Joined 5313 days ago
125 posts - 159 votes 
Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish
Studies: French

 
 Message 5 of 7
06 June 2010 at 6:38am | IP Logged 
tracker465 wrote:
chirel wrote:
Even the ones thatI were
being called irregular weren't really. With this method I found four or five smaller groups that followed quite
regular umlaut-rules (the same changes in vovels). That left me with only a handfull of verbs I actually had to
memorise.


I assume when you are talking about the umlaut-rules above, perhaps they are also corresponding with the other
Germanic tongues?


Hi, good point. I've never checked whether the vovels are the same, but it's the same phenomenon, so I assume
they mostly are. I did learn English and German too at school and all these verbs seemed very logical to me, so
maybe it helped to learn them all at the same time.
1 person has voted this message useful



OlafP
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5438 days ago
261 posts - 667 votes 
Speaks: German*, French, English

 
 Message 6 of 7
06 June 2010 at 12:50pm | IP Logged 
tracker465 wrote:
I assume when you are talking about the umlaut-rules above, perhaps they are also corresponding with the other Germanic tongues?


The vowel changes in Swedish and German are indeed the same in some (many?) cases. I've realised that before without paying close attention to it. Now I just went through a list of strong Swedish verbs and found that most of them are strong in German as well. Of course, it only makes sense to compare verbs which can be recognised as having a similar stem. It turned out that my caution was justified, because even if there is a vowel change, it often is not the same. Whether you look at umlauts or "normal" vowels doesn't make any difference.


Examples for the same vowel change:

infinitive / past (1st person singular preterite) / past participle

to ask, to beg
sv: be / bad / bett
de: bitten / bat / gebeten

to drink
sv: dricka / drack / druckit
de: trinken / trank / getrunken

to find
sv: finna / fann / funnit
de: finden / fand / gefunden


Counter-examples:
to break
sv: bryta / bröt / brutit
de: brechen / brach / gebrochen

to freeze
sv: frysa / frös / frusit
de: frieren / fror / gefroren

to knit
sv: knyta / knöt / knutit
de: knüpfen / knüpfte / geknüpft


So it can be a help but also a source of errors if you know one language and learn the other. If one of them is your native language it is probably less of a problem, because if there is a different vowel change in the other language it kind of sticks out and is easy to remember. That at least is my experience.

3 persons have voted this message useful



chirel
Triglot
Senior Member
Finland
Joined 5313 days ago
125 posts - 159 votes 
Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish
Studies: French

 
 Message 7 of 7
06 June 2010 at 12:55pm | IP Logged 
Based on your counter-examples I'd say that the risk for a learner to mix them up isn't that great because even the
infinitive is so different. The situation would be complitely different, if it was similar and the other forms were so
different. The only real problem would be knyta/knüpfen, in my opinion.


1 person has voted this message useful



If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.3591 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.