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[align=center]Chapter 1:
How to introduce yourself[/align]
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S
ome foreigners have claimed that Swedes in general are rather reserved and stiff in comparison to their own fellow countrymen. This alleged cultural feature is not a personal quality, however; you will soon find out that the Swedes are as passionate, wonderful or silly as most other people you know.
SENTENCES TO STUDY
Hej! Jag héter …… och kómmer från …… Vad héter du?
Hello! I am called … and come from … What are called you?
Jag héter ……
I am called …
Var kómmer du ifrån? / Várifrå´n kómmer du?
Where come you from? / Wherefrom come you?
Jag är från … och studérar svenska hä´r. Jóbbar du i Stóckhólm?
I am from … and study Swedish here. Work you in Stockholm?
Nej, jag árbétar ínte hä´r; jag ä´r óckså studént.
No, I work not here; I am too/also student.[/align]
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NOTES
1. Personal pronouns
‘Jag’ (I) and ‘du’ (you) are pronouns, words denoting persons that perform an action. In English ‘you’ can refer either to one individual or to several persons; in Swedish you use separate forms, depending on the num¬ber of people you are addressing. The Swedish so-called personal pronouns are:[/align]
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1. Swedes usually address each other with the pronoun ‘du’, regardless of what position they might have or if they meet for the first time; in fact, the formal ‘Ni’ are nowadays considered old-fashioned and is mainly used when talking to older people. The English habit of frequently inserting the name of the person you are talking to is not common in Swedish and can sometimes be felt too intimate.
2. The ‘o’ in ‘hon’ is pronounced like ‘oo’ in ‘good’.
3. There are two words for ‘it’ in Swedish. This is because Swedish, unlike English, still define animals and things in terms of gender, and is in this respect similar to the German with its ‘der, die, das’ and the French ‘le, la’. Whether one should use ‘den’ or ‘det’ is decided by what gender the word it refers to has. In the general and neutral meaning ‘it’ has in phrases like ‘it is cold today’, ‘det’ is used: ‘Det ä´r kallt idág.’
4. The words for ‘they’ and ‘them’ is normally spelled ‘de’ and ‘dem’ respectively, but are almost always pronounced ‘dom’.[/align]
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2. Verbs – Doing-or-Being Words
‘Heter’, ‘kommer’, ‘är’, ‘studerar’, ‘jobbar’ and ‘arbetar’ are verbs, words that show what someone/something is or does or what is happening. While English has two different endings for regular verbs depending on who is performing the action – I read, you read, but he/she/it reads – Swedish very conveniently uses only one form, regardless of person: Jag kómmer, du kómmer, hon kómmer, vi kommer etc. Most regular verbs use the ending -er, -ar or -r when they are in the present tense, that is describe an action taking place now: ‘hon studérar’ = ‘she studies/is studying’.
3. Från/Ifrån
‘Från’ is usually changed to ‘ifrå´n’ (literally ‘in-from’) when it stands after the word it is referring to or at the end of a clause or a sentence.
Some countries and parts of the world with their names in Swedish
Read more about the pronunciation of Swedish in Chapter 8![/align]
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[align=left] Chapter 2:
Greetings and goodbyes
I
t has been said that the first impressions last. If that is true, it may be valuable to know how to greet somebody in a proper way (Swedes are not, for instance, very given to cheek-kissing). Here is a list of some salutary phrases in Swedish. Try to find a couple you think could be useful and memorize them.
SALUTARY PHRASES
NOTE
‘Tj’ is pronounced a bit sharper than the English ‘sh’ sound – as in ‘shut’, but with the middle part of the tongue pressed more towards the palate (cp. German ‘ch’ in ‘ich’).
If you just have been introduced to someone you might add:
NOTE
Like in English some consonants change sound when they are followed by certain vowels (café - city; guest - gist). These so-called soft vowels are in Swedish: e, i y, ä, ö. The ‘g’ in ‘angenämt’, which preceeds the soft vowel ‘e’, is therefore pronounced like ‘y’ in ‘yes’, not like ‘g’ in ‘good’. Read more about the rules for pro¬nounciation in chapter 8!
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ضوابط المشاركة
- لا تستطيع إضافة مواضيع جديدة
- لا تستطيع الرد على المواضيع
- لا تستطيع إرفاق ملفات
- لا تستطيع تعديل مشاركاتك
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قوانين المنتدى
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