Swedish Adjectives

Adjectives are words that are used to describe or provide extra information about a noun or pronoun. In this lesson you'll learn how to use adjectives in the Swedish language, as well as some common Swedish adjectives. Useful sentence templates to use with adjectives are also shown.

Online flashcards and a quiz are included to help you learn these adjectives.

Regular Adjectives

Swedish adjectives have different endings, based on the noun they modify. For example, the adjective grön, which means green has the following forms:

grön when used with nouns that use the indefinite article “en”
grönt when used with nouns that use the indefinite article “ett”
gröna when used with plural nouns or nouns with the definite article.

Examples

en grön kopp
a green cup

ett grönt hus
a green house

gröna hus
green houses

det gröna huset
the green house

Irregular Adjectives

The Swedish adjective for small is irregular.

liten when used with nouns that use the indefinite article “en”
litet when used with nouns that use the indefinite article “ett”
små when used with plural nouns or plural nouns with the definite article
lilla when used with singular nouns with the definite article

Examples

ett litet hus
a small house

det lilla huset
the small house

de små husen
the small houses

Comparative and Superlative

The comparative and superlative forms of adjectives are used when comparing one thing to another. For the comparative form, the suffix are is added to the end of the adjective. for the superlative form, the suffix ast is added to the end of the adjective.

Similar to English, mer and mest can be used instead for adjectives of more than three syllables.

	grön	green
comparative	grönare	greener
superlative	grönast	greenest

Note: When the superlative form precedes a noun, an e is added to the end.

Examples

Jag springer snabbare än dig.	I run faster than you.
Jag är snabbast av alla.	I am the fastest of all.
Hon har den snabbaste bilen.	She has the fastest car.

Irregular Comparisons

Several adjectives in Swedish have irregular comparative and superlative forms. The following table shows these irregular adjectives.

	comparative	superlative	English
bra	bättre	bäst	good
god	bättre	bäst	good
dålig	värre	värst	bad
gammal	äldre	äldst	old
liten	mindre	minst	small
låg	lägre	lägst	low
många	fler	flest	many
stor	större	störst	big/great
ung	yngre	yngst	young

Swedish Phrases

Here are some common sentence templates to use with adjectives. Practice combining these with the adjectives included in this lesson to help you improve your Swedish communication skills.

Jag är [adjective].	I am [adjective].
Är du [adjective]?	Are you [adjective]? (singular)
Är ni [adjective]?	Are you [adjective]? (plural)
Hon är [adjective].	She is [adjective].
Är hon [adjective].	Is she [adjective].
De är inte [adjective].	They are not [adjective].
Det är ganska [adjective].	It is quite [adjective].
Det är verkligen [adjective].	It is really [adjective].
Det är mycket [adjective].	It is very [adjective].
Det är så [adjective].	It is so [adjective].

Swedish Vocabulary

Here are some very common Swedish adjectives.

arg	angry
bra	good
bred	wide
dålig	bad
enkel	simple
fel	wrong
gammal	old
het	hot
hård	hard
hög	high, loud, tall
högljud	noisy
intressant	interesting
kall	cold
kort	short (not long)
ledsen	sad
liten	small, little, short (not tall)
ljus	bright, light
lycklig	happy
låg	low
lång	long
långsam	slow
lätt	light (not heavy)
mjuk	soft
mörk	dark
ny	new
ojämn	rough
rätt	right (correct)
slät	smooth
smal	narrow, slim
snabb	fast
stor	big
svår	hard (difficult)
tjock	thick
torr	dry
trevlig	nice
trång	narrow, tight, cramped
trött	tired
tunn	thin
tyst	quiet, silent
ung	young
vacker	beautiful
våt	wet
varm	hot, warm

Flashcards

Here are some flashcards to help you learn these common Swedish adjectives.

Practice

Practice writing sentences with the Swedish adjectives included in this lesson.

Here is a text area where you can practice writing Swedish.

Ja och Nej

Here is a small section from the story "Yes and No" by Helena Nyblom. Listen to it while reading it to help you improve your Swedish comprehension.

Ja och Nej	Yes and No
Han var en svartskäggig och svartögd man, stor och stark och skicklig till allt arbete. Ett gott förstånd hade han också, och hans ord var att lita på, men hans vilja var så hård som stångjärnet i hans smedjor, ja, ännu hårdare. Ty när stångjärnet blev glödgat och hamrarna började dansa på det, kunde till och med de hårdaste stänger böja sig, men hade Rolf en gång sagt: Jag vill! eller: Jag vill icke! så kunde ingen mänsklig makt förmå honom att ändra beslut.	He was a black-bearded and black-eyed man, big and strong and accomplished all the work. A good sense he had, too, and his word was to be trusted, but his will was so hard as rod iron in his smithy, yes, even harder. For when the iron rod was annealed and hammers began to dance on it, could even with the toughest closing bow down, but had Rolf once said: I want to! or: I don't want to! so could not a human power cause him to change his decision.

Ja och Nej

Yes and No

Han var en svartskäggig och svartögd man, stor och stark och skicklig till allt arbete. Ett gott förstånd hade han också, och hans ord var att lita på, men hans vilja var så hård som stångjärnet i hans smedjor, ja, ännu hårdare. Ty när stångjärnet blev glödgat och hamrarna började dansa på det, kunde till och med de hårdaste stänger böja sig, men hade Rolf en gång sagt: Jag vill! eller: Jag vill icke! så kunde ingen mänsklig makt förmå honom att ändra beslut.

He was a black-bearded and black-eyed man, big and strong and accomplished all the work. A good sense he had, too, and his word was to be trusted, but his will was so hard as rod iron in his smithy, yes, even harder. For when the iron rod was annealed and hammers began to dance on it, could even with the toughest closing bow down, but had Rolf once said: I want to! or: I don't want to! so could not a human power cause him to change his decision.

Quiz

Take this quiz to see how well you know the Swedish adjectives introduced in this lesson.

Verbs Adverbs