Learn how to change the third declension indefinite nouns from singular to plural
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Elin: Hej allihopa! I’m Elin. |
| Becky: Hi everyone, I’m Becky. Welcome back to SwedishPod101.com. This is Upper Beginner, Season 1, Lesson 6 - What’s Your Swedish Weight Loss Secret? In this lesson, you’ll learn how to switch indefinite singular nouns into their plurals, in the third declension. |
| Elin: The conversation takes place in the break room at Emma’s office. |
| Becky: It’s between Emma and her employee Anna, and they are using informal Swedish. |
| Elin: Great! Let's listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Emma: Anna, varför äter du inte? Du har knappt rört din lunch. |
| Anna: Jag prövar en ny diet. |
| Emma: En diet? Det kommer aldrig att funka! |
| Anna: Inte? |
| Emma: Jag har prövat flera dieter när jag var yngre och det funkade aldrig. |
| Anna: Okej men vad ska jag göra då? Jag vill gå ner i vikt! |
| Emma: Börja motionera, det funkar alltid. |
| Anna: Jag borde väl det... |
| Becky: Let’s hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| Emma: Anna, varför äter du inte? Du har knappt rört din lunch. |
| Anna: Jag prövar en ny diet. |
| Emma: En diet? Det kommer aldrig att funka! |
| Anna: Inte? |
| Emma: Jag har prövat flera dieter när jag var yngre och det funkade aldrig. |
| Anna: Okej men vad ska jag göra då? Jag vill gå ner i vikt! |
| Emma: Börja motionera, det funkar alltid. |
| Anna: Jag borde väl det... |
| Becky: Now let's hear it with the English translation. |
| Emma: Anna, varför äter du inte? Du har knappt rört din lunch. |
| Emma: Anna, why are you not eating? You’ve barely touched your lunch. |
| Anna: Jag prövar en ny diet. |
| Anna: I’m trying a new diet. |
| Emma: En diet? Det kommer aldrig att funka! |
| Emma: A diet? It will never work! |
| Anna: Inte? |
| Anna: No? |
| Emma: Jag har prövat flera dieter när jag var yngre och det funkade aldrig. |
| Emma: I’ve tried several diets when I was younger and they never worked. |
| Anna: Okej men vad ska jag göra då? Jag vill gå ner i vikt! |
| Anna: Okay, but what should I do then? I want to lose weight! |
| Emma: Börja motionera, det funkar alltid. |
| Emma: Start exercising, it always works. |
| Anna: Jag borde väl det... |
| Anna: I guess I should... |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Becky: It sounds like Anna is really eager to lose some weight. Tell me Elin, are Swedes very conscious about their weight? |
| Elin: Hmm, that’s not an easy question to answer, but I would say that Swedes in general are quite conscious about their weight, and they spend a lot of money each year on various diet methods and health products. |
| Becky: That must mean that they’re pretty healthy then? |
| Elin: Not necessarily. In fact, more Swedes are actually overweight today than a couple of years ago. |
| Becky: I see. How about exercise, do Swedes exercise a lot? |
| Elin: Well, it differs from person to person, but research shows that about half of the Swedish population exercises more than twice a week, but one in five Swedes exercise less than once every three months. |
| Becky: And what kinds of exercise do they do? |
| Elin: Well, walking, cycling, and running are all popular. |
| Becky: Okay. Now, let’s move on to the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Becky: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| The first word we shall see is... |
| Elin: inte [natural native speed] |
| Becky: not |
| Elin: inte [slowly - broken down by syllable] inte [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next |
| Elin: knappt [natural native speed] |
| Becky: barely |
| Elin: knappt [slowly - broken down by syllable] knappt [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next |
| Elin: att röra [natural native speed] |
| Becky: to touch |
| Elin: att röra [slowly - broken down by syllable] att röra [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next |
| Elin: lunch [natural native speed] |
| Becky: lunch |
| Elin: lunch [slowly - broken down by syllable] lunch [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next |
| Elin: att pröva [natural native speed] |
| Becky: to try |
| Elin: att pröva [slowly - broken down by syllable] att pröva [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next |
| Elin: diet [natural native speed] |
| Becky: diet |
| Elin: diet [slowly - broken down by syllable] diet [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next |
| Elin: att funka [natural native speed] |
| Becky: to work |
| Elin: att funka [slowly - broken down by syllable] att funka [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next |
| Elin: aldrig [natural native speed] |
| Becky: never |
| Elin: aldrig [slowly - broken down by syllable] aldrig [natural native speed] |
| Becky: Next |
| Elin: att motionera [natural native speed] |
| Becky: to exercise |
| Elin: att motionera [slowly - broken down by syllable] att motionera [natural native speed] |
| Becky: And last... |
| Elin: att gå ner i vikt [natural native speed] |
| Becky: to lose weight |
| Elin: att gå ner i vikt [slowly - broken down by syllable] att gå ner i vikt [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Becky: Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Elin: Let’s have a look at the verb “att funka”. |
| Becky: Which means “to work”. |
| Elin: Yes and it was introduced in this lesson’s dialog by Emma. |
| Becky: When she said, “it will never work”. |
| Elin: Which was “det kommer aldrig att funka”. |
| Becky: What’s so special about this word, Elin? |
| Elin: Well, in Swedish you usually use the verb “att funka” in colloquial language, but in writing, “att fungera” is more suitable. |
| Becky: Keep that in mind, listeners. Okay, what do we have next? |
| Elin: Next we have the phrase “att gå ner i vikt”, which means “to lose weight”. |
| Becky: I’m a bit confused about this sentence, because it included the Swedish verb for “to walk” or “to go”. |
| Elin: That’s right, “att gå ner i vikt” literally translates to “to go down in weight”. |
| Becky: I guess that’s just a phrase you have to memorize. |
| Elin: Yes, I think so. |
| Becky: And with that, let’s move on to the grammar. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Elin: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to switch indefinite singular nouns into their plurals, in the third declension. |
| Becky: Ok. What can you tell us about the third declension? |
| Elin: The nouns belonging to the third declension are often common gender nouns that have been borrowed from languages such as French and Latin. |
| Becky: Is there any way to identify these nouns? |
| Elin: Well, one thing that might help you identify them, is the fact that many of the common gender nouns end in a stressed syllable. That means that they usually take the ending –er, “e”,”r”, in their indefinite plural form. |
| Becky: Okay, do you have an example? |
| Elin: Sure! In this lesson, we had the common gender noun “diet” meaning “diet”. And to change this from its indefinite singular form to its indefinite plural from, you simply add the ending –er. |
| Becky: So how would you say “a diet” and “diets” in Swedish? |
| Elin: “Diet”, “dieter”. |
| Becky: Let’s get our listeners to practice that. Repeat after Elin, everyone! |
| Elin: “Diet” [pause], “dieter”[pause]. |
| Becky: Are there any other common gender nouns ending in a stressed syllable that follow the same pattern? |
| Elin: Yes, there’s the Swedish word “bank”, which means “a bank”. |
| Becky: So to change it to its indefinite plural form you simply just add the ending –er. |
| Elin: That’s right. “Bank” becomes “banker”. Listeners, repeat after me please! |
| Elin: That’s right. “Bank” [pause],“banker”[pause]. |
| Becky: So is there anything else we need to know about the third declension? |
| Elin: Yes, there’s quite a lot actually, and I don’t think we’ll be able to cover it all, but everything is included in the lesson notes. |
| Becky: So make sure you check those, listeners. What else do we have? |
| Elin: There are also some nouns that belong to the third declension that are borrowed from Latin, and end in –um “u”, “m”, in their indefinite singular form. |
| Becky: Okay, and how do we change these into their indefinite plural form? |
| Elin: So for words like “museum” meaning “a museum” and “labratorium”, “a laboratory” that belong to this sub-group, you simply drop the final –um and add –er, “e”, “r”, to make them into their indefinite plural form. |
| Becky: Ok. So how does “a museum” change to “museums” in Swedish? |
| Elin: “museum” becomes “museer”. Listeners, repeat after me! |
| Elin: “museum”[pause] ,“museer”[pause]. |
| Becky: And how about “a laboratory” ? |
| Elin: “labratorium”, becomes “labratorier”. |
| Becky: Listeners, repeat after Elin. |
| Elin: “labratorium”[pause], “labratorier”[pause]. |
| Becky: Great! What do we have next? |
| Elin: We also have some nouns that belong to the third declension, that not only take the ending –er in their indefinite plural forms, but also change the stem of their vowel. |
| Becky: What are some examples of nouns that follow this pattern? |
| Elin: You have nouns like “natt” meaning “a night” and “hand” meaning “a hand”. |
| Becky: So in order to change them from their indefinite singular form to their indefinite plural form, we need to add the ending –er, and also change their stem vowel. |
| Elin: That’s right. So for the noun “natt” meaning “night”, you add the –er to the ending and change the stem vowel “a” to an “ä”. So “natt” becomes “nätter” meaning “nights”. |
| Becky: Okay listeners, repeat after Elin! |
| Elin: “Natt”[pause],“nätter”[pause]. |
| Becky: Okay, and how about “hands”? |
| Elin: For “hand” meaning “a hand” you follow the same pattern. So you add the ending –er, and change the stem vowel from “a” to “ä”. So “hand” becomes “händer”. |
| Becky: Listeners, repeat after Elin! |
| Elin: “Hand”[pause], “händer”[pause]. |
| Becky: Hmm, I’m feeling a little overwhelmed right now! |
| Elin: That’s understandable; we’ve covered quite a lot in this lesson. So we’ll leave it there. But remember, there’s more information about the third declension and how to change these nouns from their indefinite singular to their indefinite plural in the lesson notes! |
| Becky: So make sure you check those out, listeners! |
Outro |
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| Becky: Okay that’s it for this lesson. Thanks for listening everyone. |
| Elin: Hej då! |
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