Language/Swedish/Grammar/How-Often-or-Seldom-You-Do-Something
The Focus of this Lesson is How to Talk About How Often or Seldom You Do Something.
Jag tränar tre gånger i veckan.
'"I work out three times a week."'
In this lesson, we'll talk about how often or seldom we do something, and we'll do that by using a sentence structure that appears in this lesson's dialogue Let's have a look.
Examples from this dialogue:
- Jag tränar tre gånger i veckan. "I work out three times a week."
- Jag tränar typ två gånger om året. "I work out about two times a year."
In order to learn how to form this kind of sentence, we'll divide the sentence in two and study each part separately, which hopefully will make it more comprehensible. Before we do so, however, there are two things that need to be mentioned about this type of sentence as a whole. The first thing has to do with the word order of the sentence. This sentence follows a straight word order, meaning that it begins with the subject of the sentence, which is then followed by the first verb. Secondly, the verbs we'll use are in their present tense since they, among other things, are often used to talk about something that happens on a regular basis.
Let's now move on to examine the first part of the sentence more closely, namely, the part that describes the activity that is done often or seldom. In the sentences above, this part is jag tränar ("I work out"). Forming this part of the sentence is easy; we just need a personal pronoun, such as han, hon, or jag ("he," "she," or "I") or a noun in the form of a name, such as Anna or Carlos. This pronoun or noun is the sentence subject and will, therefore, introduce the sentence. Following the subject, we'll have to use a verb that describes the activity. Here are some examples of verbs in their present tense that can be used to describe common activities.
Swedish / English
handlar / "shop"
promenerar / "go for a walk"
tvättar / "do laundry"
Here are some examples of how the first part of the sentence can look.
Jag handlar... - "I shop..."
Han promenerar... - "He goes for a walk..."
Anna tvättar... - "Anna does the laundry..."
Secondly, we'll look at the second part of the sentence that describes the frequence of how often or seldom you do a certain activity. And we'll learn to say things like en gång i veckan ("once a week") or två gånger i veckan ("twice a week"). This, more specifically, means that we'll start with the number of times we do something, such as en gång ("once"), fem gånger ("five times"), or sjuhundra gånger ("seven-hundred times"). Here, it's important to remember that we use gång only when we do something once and gånger when we do something more than once. Following this, we give the time period during which the activity is performed. This time period is either created using the preposition om ("within"), together with the period, such as dagen ("the day") or året ("the year"); or else it's created using the preposition i ("in") and the period of time, such as veckan ("the week") or månanden ("the month"). Now, let's look at some examples.
...en gång i veckan. - "...once a week."
...två gånger i månaden. - "...twice a month."
...fem gånger om dagen. - "...five times a day."
Let's now put the two parts together to form some complete sentences.
For example:
- Jag handlar en gång i veckan."I shop once a week."
- Han promenerar två gånger i månaden."He goes for a walk twice a month."
Don't hesitate to look into these other pages after completing this lesson: Future Tense, Learn Swedish Sentense Structure. Subject, Verb and object., Conditional Tense & Questions.
Other Lessons[edit | edit source]
- Be Polite
- Present Tense
- Nouns
- How to Talk About the Weather
- Sentense Structure
- Definite Articles in Swedish
- Possessive Case in Swedish
- How to Talk About Your Daily Routine
- Time References
- How to Describe Someone's Appearance and Personality
- How to Get Someone's Attention
- Location
- How to express disagreement
- Questions