6. Asking Questions

Hey, kompis! Hey, friend! Welcome to episode 6 of the Learn Swedish with Katrin podcast. Hur mår du idag? How are you today? I'm doing great. We are so close to hitting a new milestone on Patreon, which makes me very happy. Hearing that this podcast and my other podcast, Slow Swedish with Katrin, are helping you learn always makes my day.

If you want to join the Patreon gang and unlock all the resources that go along with these episodes like transcripts, vocabulary lists, and exercises, go to patreon.com forward slash slow swedish.

or click the link in the show notes this week we are going to learn how to ask each other questions we're going to practice some closed yes-no questions, and some open-ended questions. We are going to use the verbs you have learned in the previous episodes to ask each other questions. And it's pretty straightforward. We'll begin with questions you can reply ja eller nej to. Yes or no. Let's start with the verb att heta.

To be called. Jag heter Katrin. I am called Katrin. Or my name is Katrin. If I want to ask... If your name is blank, I would simply put the verb first. Switch jag to du and ask. Heter du Peter? Jag heter Katrin. Heter du Anna? The next verb is att vara, to be. Jag är 31 år gammal. If I want to ask if you are a specific age, I switch jag to du and start with the verb. Är du? 20 år gammal. Jag är 31 år gammal. Är du 40 år gammal?

We learned the verb att ha, to have, when talking about our families. I have a mom and a dad. Jag becomes du and we start with the verb. Har du En mamma. Har du en syster? Jag har en bror. And finally, att kunna. To be able to. We use this verb as an alternative to... I speak Swedish. It translates to I am able to Swedish. Jag kan tyska. Kan du tyska? Kan du engelska? That's not too bad, right?

Just switch the pronoun and start with the verb and you've got yourself a yes or no question. Now it's time to spice it up a little. We're going to play around with the word in. You have heard it before. Inte means not in Swedish. There are two main ways we use inte when asking closed questions. One asks if you are not, and the other just makes the question a little more casual.

Some say it makes the question more polite, but I'd say it just makes it a little more indirect and relaxed. Let's take a look. Is your name Anna? If you add inte after the subject, so after du, It would sound like this. Heter du inte Anna? That means, is your name not Anna? Heter du inte Peter? Nej, jag heter inte Peter. Är du Are you 20 years old? Let's add INTE after the subject. Är du inte 20 år gammal? Är du inte 30 år gammal? Nej!

Jag är inte 30 år gammal. Har du en syster? Do you have a sister? It would sound like this. Har du inte en syster? Har du inte barnbarn? Nej, jag har inte barnbarn. Kan du engelska? If we want to ask if someone doesn't speak a language, we would say, Kan du inte engelska? Do you not know English? Kan du inte spanska? Nej, jag kan inte spanska. Now, this next part is what we call It means it's above the level of the course you are taking. It literally translates to overcourse. Too advanced.

But this is for those of you who value speaking like Swedes speak, learning the native lingo from the get-go, and... This is an important part of that. If it feels like too much right now, eh, that's fine. Let it go in through one ear and out the other. If we take the inte from after the subject, heter du inte, and move it before the subject,

right after the verb that becomes a statement waiting to be confirmed. It's like saying here's what I believe to be true is it true we have the same phrasing in English as well isn't your name aren't you from Don't you speak? Let's compare the different versions. Heter du inte Anna? Swedish compared to English

has a specific word for actually yes. When you want to contradict someone's negative statement, you say you instead of So if someone asks a question with the word INTE in it, and you want to say actually yes, you use JO. Heter du Anna? Ja, jag heter Anna. Nej, jag heter inte Anna. Heter du inte Anna? Nej, jag heter inte Anna. Jo, jag heter Anna. Heter inte du Anna? Jo, jag heter Anna. Nej, jag heter inte Anna.

If you just ask a closed question like Heter du Anna? You leave it completely open to a yes or a no. You aren't leaning. If you say, heter du inte? You're assuming the person is going to say, no, I don't. If you say, You're assuming the person is going to say, actually, yes, I do. Let's look at another verb. Kan svenska? Kan du svenska? Kan du inte svenska? Kan inte du svenska? Kan du svenska? Can be replied to with both yes and no. Ja, jag kan svenska. Nej, jag kan inte svenska.

Kan du inte svenska? Assumes the person does not speak Swedish and assumes the person will reply Nej, jag kan inte svenska. If the person wants to contradict your assumption, they have to say, Jo, jag kan svenska. Kan inte du svenska? assumes that the person does speak Swedish. It opens up for a jo, jag kan svenska reply. But you can also say, nej, jag kan inte svenska. So far, we have just worked with words we already know.

But here are six new words that can be added to these phrases for extra spice. You. Actually, yes. Jo, faktiskt, actually, faktiskt, visst Certainly. Visst. Också. To. Också. Heller. Either. Heller. Alls. At all. I already told you about jo. We use jo when the question includes an inte and we want to contradict the statement. Faktist and vist are two words that we can combine with you to strengthen it further. These are placed after the verb.

Jo jag kan svenska. Jo jag kan visst svenska. Jo jag kan faktiskt svenska. Vist has a, yeah, it is so, you're wrong kind of vibe. Faktist expresses a tiny bit of surprise. As if you're saying, I totally get that you would assume that I can't, but I actually can. Också means as well or too. This would be used in a question if you want to know if someone, for example, speaks the same language you speak.

Or if someone also has a sister. Har du också en syster? Också is placed after the subject, in the same spot as inte. But if you can't do something and you want to know if the other person can't do it either, you wouldn't use not to in English. Can you not to speak Swedish? Instead, you use the word either, which in Swedish is heller. Kan du inte heller? Do you not speak Swedish either? As in, I don't do you not either.

If you want to ask if someone doesn't speak Swedish in addition to not speaking some other language, you need to place heller after svenska. Do you also not speak Swedish? But we're getting too far down the rabbit hole now. Back to the words. The last one is... At all. Which in Swedish is alls. Kan du inte svenska alls? Do you not speak Swedish at all? Jag kan inte tyska. I don't speak German at all. But it can also be used right after inte. Inte alls. That just strengthens the inte.

My name is not Katrin. Jag heter inte Katrin. Becomes My name is not at all Katrin. Jag heter inte alls Katrin. In this case, alls is to inte what vist is to you.

Let's look at some example sentences before we move on to the Swedish question words. Jag heter Katrin. Heter du också Katrin? Nej! Jag heter faktiskt inte Katrin. Heter inte du Sara? Jo. Jag heter Sara. Är inte du tolv år gammal? Nej, jag är inte alls tolv år gammal. Har du en syster? Nej, jag har inte en syster. Har inte du ett barn? Jo, jag har faktiskt två barn. Jag är 31 år gammal. Är du också 31 år gammal? Ja, faktiskt! Kan inte du mycket spanska? Nej, jag kan inte alls spanska.

Vaknar inte du klockan elva på förmiddagen? Nej, jag vaknar inte alls klockan elva. Älskar du inte mig? Jo, jag älskar visst dig! Well done, everyone! Who knew an episode on just asking questions would be so massive? The more I dive into the Swedish language to explain it to you guys... the more I realize how much

I personally take for granted. I don't reflect over any of these rules or exceptions and twists and turns and subtle differences I'm trying to teach you. And I mean, why would I? Our brains...

have enough to worry about, we don't have to overthink our native languages, but still, it's fascinating. Now, let's take a look at our most common question words in Swedish. What? Where? Varifrån? Varifrån? Varför? Why? Varför? När? When? När? Hur? How? Hur? Hur många? Hur många? Hur mycket? Hur mycket? Vem? Whom? Vem? Vilken? Vilket? Vilka? Which? The last one, which, had three different versions.

Vilken, vilket and vilka. What is the difference between these? If you listen to episode 3 and 4, you should be able to make a pretty educated guess.

That's right. Vilken, the round one, is for N-words. En mobil. Vilken mobil? Vilket, the spiky one, is for ett-words. Ett barn, vilket barn, and vilka barn. is for all the plurals. Now Let's use the verbs and nouns we have learned in the past couple of weeks to form questions and answer them. Kommer du från Sverige? Nej. Varifrån kommer du? Jag kommer från Ukraina. Älskar du tennis? Ja. Vad älskar du? Jag älskar fotboll. Bor inte du i USA? Jag bor faktiskt i USA. Var bor du? Jag bor i USA.

Vilket språk kan du? Jag kan tyska. Jag kan inte engelska. Vilka språk kan du? Jag kan engelska, tyska och franska. Varför vaknar du klockan fem? Därför att jag börjar jobba klockan sex. Vaknar du klockan 7? Nej, jag vaknar klockan 8. Hur många syskon har du? Jag har två syskon. När vill du äta middag? Jag vill äta klockan sex. Hur brukar du sova? Jag sover bra! Brukar du sova bra? Nej, inte alls. Vem är... Peter. Peter är min sambo. Är Peter din man? Nej, han är inte min man. Vilken bok

läser du? Jag läser Harry Potter. Läser du? Harry Potter. Nej, jag läser Sagan om ringen. Varför dricker du inte kaffe? Jag gillar inte kaffe! Gillar du inte kaffe? Jo, jag gillar visst kaffe. Hur mycket kaffe dricker du? Jag dricker inte kaffe! Varifrån kommer din man? Han kommer från Mexiko. Kommer din man från Mexiko? Nej, han kommer faktiskt från Chile. När duschar du? Jag duschar alltid på kvällen. Duschar du inte på morgonen? Jo, ibland.

Here you can see that there are some slight variations to keep track of. In almost all questions, you can remove the question word at the front. And you'll still have a decent yes-no question left, even if it sometimes is a bit odd. But basically... We are just adding the question word to the front of the closed question. The exception to this rule is vilken vilket and vilka. Because vilken vilket and vilka

Need a noun to go along with them before we add the verb. Vad läser du? What are you reading? Which book are you reading? You could say, which are you reading? But you would have had to specify what you're talking about before asking a question like that. Vilken bok läser du? Jag vill ha den gula stolen. Vilken vill du ha?

And last but not least, there is one more new phrase we use to answer the question Varför? which means why. And you could actually reply to why with a few different phrases. Let's take a look. Because. Därför att. För att. Because in order to. För att. På grund av eftersom, since. Därför att is often shortened to just för att. but för att also means in order to. PGA is a super common abbreviation in Swedish and it means på grund av.

which translates to because of. Jag kom till Sverige på grund av min man. I came to Sweden because of my husband. I sometimes say PGA even when speaking, which is super informal, but meh.

fine to do. As you can see, this week we have very little new vocabulary, which is perfect. That means you can take some extra time to go over the vocabulary from previous episodes while you practice asking and answering questions in Swedish. Your homework this week is to go to the comment section on Patreon and ask us fellow patrons a question. And of course, to answer any questions that other patrons have asked.

feel free to get creative or simply use the vocabulary you already know. At the time of preparing this episode, we are 23 members away from our first 100. That is a huge milestone considering that this podcast started only six weeks ago. I'm so grateful to every single one of you, and I hope those of you who are not on Patreon yet consider joining this week. I promise we will do something fun together once we reach 100 members.

Go to patreon.com forward slash slow swedish and join the Learn Swedish with Katrin tier for only $10 per month. You can also click the link in the show notes. Tusen tack! För att ni har lyssnat. A thousand thanks for listening. Talk to you next week. Hej då!