Basic Swedish: A Grammar and Workbook combines an accessible basic reference grammar and related exercises in one volume, and covers most of the topics that students might expect to deal with in their first year of learning Swedish.
Each of the 25 units discusses one or more grammar topics, with examples that are subsequently practised in the exercises that follow.
The book introduces the contemporary language against a backdrop of Swedish culture, society, geography, customs and history. Each unit ends with a cultural text that outlines an aspect of Swedish culture and exemplifies and consolidates the grammar topic examined in the unit.
Features include:
- clear grammatical explanations with examples in Swedish and English
- vocabulary based on a major corpus of written Swedish in order to guarantee authenticity and relevance
- cross-references to other units
- over 100 exercises with a key to all the correct answers
- full vocabulary list at the end of the book.
The book is suitable both for independent study and for class use. It can be used by absolute beginners and those who have advanced a little further.
Preface - 1 What makes Swedish familiar? … and a few challenges - 2 Pronunciation - 3 Nouns – gender - 4 Introduction to verbs (present tense) and personal pronouns - 5 Word order – statements and questions - 6 Nouns – s-genitives and plurals - 7 Numerals, time expressions, days and months - 8 Word order – position of elements in the main clause - 9 Pronouns – personal, possessive and indefinite - 10 Demonstrative pronouns - 11 Verbs – infinitives; two-verb constructions; future forms; imperatives - 12 Word order – short answers; postponing the subject - 13 Adjectives – indefinite forms and indeclinable adjectives- 14 Nouns – forms of articles and article use - 15 Prepositions of place – på/i, vid, hos, etc. - 16 Adjectives – definite forms Types I and II - 17 Comparison of adjectives - 18 Word order – the main and subordinate clause; conjunctions; ‘that’ - 19 Verb conjugations I, II, III – past and perfect tenses - 20 Verb conjugation IV – past and perfect tenses - 21 Adverbs and adjectives; form and comparison of adverbs - 22 Adverbs – location and direction - 23 Word order – main and subordinate clauses;
position of the clausal adverbial; relative clauses - 24 Verbs– the–s form, deponents and –s passives - 25 Word formation – introduction - Key to exercises - Glossary of grammatical terms - Vocabulary list
Biography
Dr Ian Hinchliffe is a translator based in Sweden and has previously taught Swedish at universities in the UK, as well as in Norway.
Dr Philip Holmes was Reader Emeritus in Scandinavian Studies at the University of Hull and a translator and language editor up to his death in 2019.
