How Swedish words change: nouns, verbs & adjectives
Swedish rarely adds a separate little word — it changes the word's ending. “The girl” is flickan; “I ran” is jag sprang; “bigger” is större. Here's the whole system, one part of speech at a time.
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Nouns
a / the / plural
1. Two genders: en-words and ett-words
Every noun is an en-word (~75%) or an ett-word. It decides the “a” word and the “the” ending, which is a suffix, not a separate word:
| “a / an” | “the” | English |
|---|---|---|
| en flicka | flickan | a girl → the girl |
| en bil | bilen | a car → the car |
| ett hus | huset | a house → the house |
| ett barn | barnet | a child → the child |
2. The five plural patterns
| # | Plural | Example | Typical of |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | -or | flicka → flickor | en-words ending in -a |
| 2 | -ar | dag → dagar | many en-words |
| 3 | -er | tid → tider | en/ett-words, loanwords |
| 4 | -n | äpple → äpplen | ett-words ending in a vowel |
| 5 | — (no change) | barn → barn | ett-words ending in a consonant |
Add -na (or -a/-n) for “the … (plural)”: flickorna, dagarna, barnen, husen. A few common nouns change their vowel: land → länder, bok → böcker, hand → händer, öga → ögon.
Verbs
infinitive · present · past · supine
Good news: Swedish verbs don't change for person — jag/du/han/vi/de springer are all just springer. You mainly learn four forms, which fall into four groups:
| Group | Infinitive | Present | Past | Supine (perfect) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (-ar) | tala | talar | talade | talat |
| 2 (-er) | ringa | ringer | ringde | ringt |
| 3 (short) | bo | bor | bodde | bott |
| 4 (strong) | springa | springer | sprang | sprungit |
The supine is the “have …” form: jag har talat (I have spoken), hon har sprungit (she has run). Group 4 verbs are irregular and change their vowel — but they're the common ones, so you meet them fast: vara → är → var → varit, gå → går → gick → gått.
Adjectives
agreement · comparison
1. Agreement with the noun
An adjective takes an ending to match the noun's gender and number:
| with… | form | example |
|---|---|---|
| en-word | (base) | en stor bil — a big car |
| ett-word | + t | ett stort hus — a big house |
| plural / definite | + a | stora bilar · den stora bilen |
2. Comparative & superlative
Usually -are and -ast; a few very common ones are irregular:
| base | comparative | superlative | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| snabb | snabbare | snabbast | fast → faster → fastest |
| stor | större | störst | big (irregular) |
| bra | bättre | bäst | good (irregular) |
| liten | mindre | minst | small (irregular) |
In VocabFreak, every Swedish noun, verb and adjective card has a 🔤 Word forms button showing its full set — so you learn the whole word, not just the dictionary form. The forms come from Wiktionary's inflection data, so they're the real thing.
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