Adjectives

Adjectives must agree in gender and number with the nouns they describe. In Swedish, adjectives are placed directly before the noun, as in English. There are two types of adjectives: strong and weak. Strong adjectives are used after the indefinite article and the words någon (a, some, any), ingen (no), en annan (another), vilken (what a), and all (all); as well as after the verbs to be and to become (vara and bli). Weak adjectives are used with the definite article, demonstratives, possessive adjectives or a possessive noun.

Strong (Indefinite): The basic rule for strong adjectives is to add -t for neuter nouns and -a for plural nouns. There is no ending for adjectives that modify common nouns.

	common	neuter	plural
basic rule	en fin bil a beautiful car	ett fint hus a beautiful house	fina bilar beautiful cars
ending in vowel + d	god	gott	goda
ending in consonant + d	ond	ont	onda
ending long vowel	blå	blått	blåa
ending in -er or -el	vacker	vackert	vackra
ending in -en	egen	eget	egna
gammal is irregular	gammal	gammalt	gamla
liten is irregular	liten	litet	små

Weak (Definite): The basic rule for weak adjectives is to add -a for all nouns. Note that the noun has the definite article attached to the end and the words den, det or de preceding the adjective. The adjective liten is completely irregular in the singular and plural. With adjectives follow possessives or demonstratives, the definite article is not attached to the end of the noun.

	common	neuter	plural
basic rule	den fina bilen the beautiful car	det fina huset the beautiful house	de fina bilarna the beautiful cars
liten is irregular	den lilla bilen the small car	det lilla huset the small house	de små bilarna the small cars