As with many Swedish words, förtidsröstning is a compound word – a word made up of two or more words merging to form a new one.

The first half of the word, förtid, is itself a compound word made up of the words för (before) and tid (time), and usually refers to something happening prematurely or in advance, before the time it was supposed to happen. 

Someone can, for example åldras i förtid (age prematurely), and people who had to stop working earlier than expected due to an illness were previously known as förtidspensionärer (early retirees). You wouldn’t say that a child born prematurely was född i förtid, though. Instead, you’d say they were för tidigt född (literally: born too early).

• Don’t miss any of our Swedish words and expressions of the day by downloading our new app (available on Apple and Android) and then selecting the Swedish Word of the Day in your Notification options via the User button

It’s similar to the word förskott, which often refers to some sort of bill or money paid out in advance, such as förskott på lön (salary paid out in advance of work) or förskottshyra (rent paid in advance). You’ll also see this word in the phrase ta inte ut segern i förskott, which essentially means you shouldn’t start celebrating a win or victory before the match or battle is over.

There are a number of other words which start with för and mean variations of something happening in advance. One of these is på förhand, which you might see in the phrase tack på förhand (thanks in advance). Another is i förväg, for example in the phrase det kan man inte veta i förväg (it’s not possible to know that in advance). 

There’s also förrän, which is more accurately translated as “before” or “until”: jag kommer inte kunna träffas förrän klockan 12 (I won’t be able to meet you before 12 o’clock). An interesting quirk of förrän is that you can only use it in negative phrases. To use the example above, if you could meet the person in question before 12 o’clock, you’d say innan/före klockan 12 instead.

Now, let’s look at the second half of the word förtidsröstning, röstning. This comes from the verb att rösta, to vote, plus the suffix -ning, which gives us the noun form of the verb, voting. A suffix is a letter or group of letters, like -ly, -ing, or -ness in English, which is added onto the end of a word to form a new word.

If you think this -ning suffix in Swedish looks familiar, that’s because it has the same Proto-Germanic root as the English suffix -ing, which is also often used to turn verbs into nouns.

Why is there an s between förtid and röstning, I hear you ask? That’s because if the first part of a compound word is itself a compound word (förtid, in this case), you need to add an s between it and the second part of the compound word.

Make sure to remember the two dots on the ö in rösta, too. Jag har rostat means “I have toasted” or “I have rusted”, not “I have voted”.

Rösta in turn comes from the noun röst, which can mean both a vote and a voice. You’ll see it in the word röstkort, the voting card issued to people who have rösträtt (the right to vote), but you won’t see it in the word for a voting booth or polling station – this is a valbås (literally: election booth) or vallokal (election venue).

There is also a large number of compound words which include the word röst, like brevröst (postal vote), blankröst (blank vote), stödröst (a support or tactical vote, where you vote for a different party than the one you actually support, such as voting for a minor party in the same bloc in order to prevent them dropping out of parliament), and personröst, where you vote for a specific candidate rather than just voting for a party.

Although voting by post is another way of voting in advance, you wouldn’t describe this as förtidsröstning, you’d call it a brevröst instead. Förtidsröstning is specifically used to describe going to an election booth before the election and voting in person there.

Example sentences:

Man kan förtidsrösta i EU-valet från 22 maj i en förtidsröstningslokal*.

You can vote in advance for the EU election from May 22nd in an advance voting station.

Vad händer med alla förtidsröster sen? De skickas till en vallokal på valdagen och räknas tillsammans med de andra rösterna.

What happens to all the early votes afterwards? They are sent to the polling station on election day and are counted together with the other votes.

(*There’s an s here between förtidsröstning and lokal for two reasons: firstly, the first part of the word is itself a compound word, and secondly, it’s common to add the s after an -ing or –ning suffix, too. They’re also added after words ending in -itet or -tion in compound words, but there aren’t any examples of those in this article.)

Villa, Volvo, Vovve: The Local’s Word Guide to Swedish Life, written by The Local’s journalists, is available to order. Head to lysforlag.com/vvv to read more about it. It is also possible to buy your copy from Amazon US, Amazon UK, Bokus or Adlibris.