Study guide: Swedish Pronouns and Possessives

📋 Course Outline

1. Pronouns and Personal Forms
2. Choosing De and Dem
3. Gender-Neutral Hen
4. Possessive Pronouns
5. Reflexive Possessives
6. Reflexive Pronouns and Verbs
7. Course Assessment and Practice

📖 1. Pronouns and Personal Forms

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Pronoun: A pronoun can replace a noun, stand before a noun, or replace a clause or part of a clause.

★ Must-know

• Swedish personal pronouns have subject forms jag, du, han, hon, hen, den, det, man, vi, ni, de and object forms mig, dig, honom, henne, hen, den, det, en, oss, er, dem.

Further detail

• The pronouns de and dem are both pronounced dom.

📖 2. Choosing De and Dem

★ Must-know

📌 In formal Swedish writing, de is used as a subject and dem as an object or after a preposition; either form is accepted before a relative clause. - Språkrådet, Språkrådet rekommenderar, 2023

Further detail

• To choose between de and dem when uncertain, replace the pronoun with han or honom, or jag or mig, and choose the matching form.

• De can also be the plural definite article, as in de härliga sommarkvällarna.

📌 Dom can be used in texts with an informal, everyday style and to represent spoken language. - Språkrådet, Språkrådet rekommenderar, 2023

💡 Memory Hook

De is the subject; dem is the object.

📖 3. Gender-Neutral Hen

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Hen: A gender-neutral Swedish pronoun used when a person's gender is unknown or when a person does not want to or cannot categorize themselves as a man or a woman.

📝 Essential Points

• The object form of hen is hen, and its possessive form is hens.

• Hen was included in SAOL in 2015.

📖 4. Possessive Pronouns

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Possessive pronoun: A pronoun that indicates who or what owns or has something and usually inflects according to the noun it accompanies.

★ Must-know

• Swedish possessive forms are:
  • jag: min, mitt, mina
  • du: din, ditt, dina
  • han: hans
  • hon: hennes
  • hen: hens
  • den/det: dess
  • man: ens
  • vi: vår, vårt, våra
  • ni: er, ert, era
  • de: deras

Further detail

📌 After a possessive pronoun, the noun is in the indefinite form, while an adjective is in the definite form, as in mina föräldrar and min snälla pappa.

• Dess is used mostly in formal contexts.

📖 5. Reflexive Possessives

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Reflexive possessive pronoun: A pronoun, sin, sitt or sina, that refers back to the subject of the clause and is used for an object, not for a subject.

★ Must-know

📌 In Han älskar sin flickvän, sin refers to his own girlfriend, whereas in Han älskar hans flickvän, hans refers to another male person's girlfriend.

Further detail

• 🔄 Choose the possessive form by checking reference:
  1. Identify the clause's subject.
  2. Check whether the possessed object refers back to that subject.
  3. Use sin, sitt or sina if it refers back; otherwise use the relevant non-reflexive possessive.

💡 Memory Hook

Sin points back to the subject; hans, hennes, and deras point elsewhere.

📖 6. Reflexive Pronouns and Verbs

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Reflexive verb: A verb whose subject and object are the same person, as in Han tvättar sig.

📝 Essential Points

• Swedish reflexive pronouns are jag—mig, du—dig, han/hon/hen/den/det/man—sig, vi—oss, ni—er and de—sig.

📌 A verb that is reflexive in a learner's first language need not be reflexive in Swedish, and a verb that is not reflexive in that language may be reflexive in Swedish.

📌 A learner can check a dictionary to determine whether a Swedish verb is reflexive.

💡 Memory Hook

Han tvättar sig: the subject washes himself; han tvättar honom: he washes someone else.

📖 7. Course Assessment and Practice

★ Must-know

• Chapter 1 assesses:
  • possessive pronouns
  • reflexive possessive pronouns sin/sitt/sina
  • different forms of man
  • the perfect participle

Further detail

• The four grammar lessons are followed by an examination shared with the vocabulary examination, and the grammar in Språkporten is tested.

📌 Students are asked to review the Canvas materials marked före before each lesson, prepare the lesson documents, and complete and correct the exercises marked efter after each lesson.

📊 Synthesis Tables

Swedish Possessive Forms