Learn some common prefixes in Swedish
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Intro |
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| Michael: What are some prefixes In Swedish? |
| Jesper: And why are they useful to know? |
| Michael: At SwedishPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine this situation: Sasha Lee studies for her exam together with her classmate, Stefan Strom. She sees an unknown word, and asks, |
| "What does 'återuppstå' mean?" |
| Sasha Lee: Vad betyder "återuppstå"? |
| Dialogue |
| Sasha Lee: Vad betyder "återuppstå"? |
| Stefan Ström: Det betyder "to be resurrected." |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Sasha Lee: Vad betyder "återuppstå"? |
| Michael: "What does 'återuppstå' mean?" |
| Stefan Ström: Det betyder "to be resurrected." |
| Michael: "It means to be resurrected." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: In linguistics, a prefix is a word or letter that is placed before the stem of a word. Adding a prefix to a word changes the meaning of that word. For instance, if you want to form the opposite of "happy," or |
| Jesper: lycklig |
| Michael: without having to use the word "sad," you do it by adding a prefix. In English, we do that by saying, "unhappy," or in Swedish, |
| Jesper: olycklig |
| Michael: If you've noticed, the rules of adding a prefix in Swedish is similar to English. In our example, we used the prefix, |
| Jesper: o, |
| Michael: which is a prefix in Swedish added to a noun to express lack. Another word using this prefix is |
| Jesper: ogilla, |
| Michael: which means "dislike," the opposite of "like," or |
| Jesper: gilla |
| Michael: In the dialogue, the word Sasha Lee was asking about uses the prefix |
| Jesper: åter, |
| Michael: which is equivalent to the English prefix re-, and denotes something happening or coming back again. The root word here is |
| Jesper: uppstå, |
| Michael: which means "arise." Combined with a prefix that denotes the act of coming back again, we get |
| Jesper: återuppstå |
| Michael: or, "resurrection," which means to "come back to life." |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, you've learned that a prefix is a word or letter added before the stem of a word to form another word with a different meaning. |
| Expansion |
| Michael: We've learned earlier about the prefix, |
| Jesper: o, |
| Michael: which is added to a word to express lack or opposition. Another common prefix in Swedish is |
| Jesper: sam, |
| Michael: which came from the word |
| Jesper: samman |
| Michael: or "together." When you say, |
| Jesper: samtal, |
| Michael: it means to have a conversation together. The root word here, by the way, is |
| Jesper: tal, |
| Michael: which means "speech." And then there's the prefix |
| Jesper: stam, |
| Michael: which could mean "tribe" or "origin." This one is easy to remember because it closely resembles the English word "stem." And the word "origin" actually refers to somewhere something has "stemmed" from. One Swedish word using this prefix is |
| Jesper: stamfader, |
| Michael: which means "ancestor." |
| Practice Section |
| Michael: Let's review what we heard in this lesson. I will say the target sentence in English and then you should respond by saying the sentence out loud in Swedish. Jesper will then model the correct answer. Listen to him carefully, with the focus on pronunciation, and then repeat. |
| The first sentence is "What does 'återuppstå' mean?" |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Jesper: Vad betyder "återuppstå"? |
| Michael: Did you get it right? Listen to Jesper again and repeat. |
| Jesper: Vad betyder "återuppstå"? |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Jesper: Vad betyder "återuppstå"? |
| Michael: The second sentence is "It means to be resurrected." |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Jesper: Det betyder "to be resurrected." |
| Michael: How did you do this time? Again, listen to Jesper and repeat. |
| Jesper: Det betyder "to be resurrected." |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Jesper: Det betyder "to be resurrected." |
| Cultural Insight |
| Michael: Many prefixes used in Swedish have their origins from other languages. Let's take this word, for instance: |
| Jesper: astronom |
| Michael: This means "astronomer," someone who studies heavenly bodies. In Swedish, it uses the prefix |
| Jesper: astro, |
| Michael: which originated from a Greek term that means "celestial body." Another word is |
| Jesper: kontrafaktisk |
| Michael: or "contrafactual." This time, the prefix used is |
| Jesper: kontra, |
| Michael: which came from a Latin word meaning "against" or "contrary to." |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Jesper: Vi ses! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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