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LEARNING SWEDISH

Modal verbs: When to use ‘vill’ and ‘ska’ in Swedish

A common mistake for English speakers just starting out in their Swedish journey is translating the English word ‘will’ into Swedish as ‘vill’. Why is this wrong, and what word should you use instead?

Published: 14 February 2024 15:52 CET
Modal verbs: When to use ‘vill’ and ‘ska’ in Swedish
Learning the correct modal verb to use in a given situation can make a big difference to your Swedish. Photo: Ali Lorestani/TT

Both vill and ska in Swedish are modal verbs – auxiliary verbs used to show possibility, intent, ability, or necessity.

An auxiliary verb, also known as a helper verb, is followed by a verb in the infinitive form, which in Swedish usually means you leave the -r off the end of the verb.

Before I lose you entirely with explanations of Swedish grammar, let’s look at some examples.

The most common modal verbs in Swedish are kunna (can/to be able to), vilja (want/to want to), ska (shall/will, to be going to), måste (must/to have to), bör (should/ought to), få (may, to be allowed to) and töras (dare/to dare to).

Let’s use jag __ sjunga as an example, switching out the verb after jag each time and translating each sentence into English.

First off, let’s look at the difference between kan and får when translated into English. Now, both of these could be translated into English as ‘can’, but in Swedish they have different meanings.

For example, if you’re talking about your ability to do something, you would use the verb kan in Swedish. Jag kan inte sjunga would mean that you do not possess the ability to sing.

Jag får inte sjunga on the other hand, means that you do not have the permission to sing – maybe you’re in a library or some other place where you need to be quiet, and there’s some rule saying you’re not allowed to sing.

  • Jag kan sjunga 
  • I can sing
  • Jag får sjunga 
  • I may/am allowed to sing

If you said to someone jag kan inte sjunga här, it would imply that you had lost the ability to sing wherever you were, rather than the fact that there was some sort of rule forbidding it.

Another example would be asking kan jag gå på toaletten? (Can I go to the toilet?) To a Swede, this sounds like you’re asking if you’re physically able to walk to the bathroom, rather than if you’re allowed to. This distinction used to be a lot clearer in English, too, but now may and can are both acceptable ways of asking for permission to do something.

The next pair of modal verbs worth looking at in Swedish are vill and ska.

Jag vill sjunga would mean that you want to sing – a good way to remember this is to think of having a will to do something, like in the phrase “where there’s a will there’s a way”.

If you were at some sort of event and wanted to tell people you will sing – if you’re going up on stage to sing, for example – you would say jag ska sjunga – where ska is used in the same way as the somewhat outdated English word ‘shall’.

  • Jag vill sjunga 
  • I want to sing
  • Jag ska sjunga 
  • I will/shall sing

Finally, we have måste, bör and törs – which can be translated as must/to have to, should/ought to and dare/dare to.

Jag måste sjunga (I must sing) implies that something or someone is forcing you to sing, whether that’s a person, some sort of innate urge to break out into song, or the fact that you’re a singer who is about to get on stage for a sold-out show.

Jag bör sjunga (I should sing) sounds like a recommendation or suggestion, although granted it sounds a bit arrogant in this specific example – oh, you’re hosting a charity concert? I should sing! It’s often used when giving advice, too: du bör äta frukost (you should eat breakfast), or hans tröja är sliten, han bör köpa en ny (his shirt is old/worn out, he should buy a new one).

Finally, jag törs sjunga (I dare sing) implies that you were scared of singing but have built up the courage to do it. Det är många i publiken… Törs du sjunga? (There are lots of people in the audience… Do you dare sing?)

  • Jag måste sjunga 
  • I have to sing
  • Jag bör sjunga 
  • I should sing
  • Jag törs sjunga 
  • I dare sing

Obviously, there are different tenses and different combinations of modal verbs which can also complicate matters, but this article is already getting quite long so we’ll stop here for now.

Did you find this Swedish grammar explainer useful? Let us know if you’d like more similar content in the comments below.

Member comments

  5. This is a very useful section. I follow it daily and understanding the nuances of the language
    Much appreciate !

  7. Keep em coming! Don’t think my Swedish will ever be ‘great’…. men som jag brukar säga ‘varje vecka blir det bättre och bättre’….hoppas jag 🙂

  8. Really glad to hear this article has been useful for you all – let me know if there are any other topics you find confusing or difficult in Swedish and we’ll see if we can explain them in a new article.

    Becky Waterton, The Local Sweden

  10. Very useful.
    Here is a challenging topic for me. Verb location T.E.
    Because I am out of milk, I am going shopping. Eftersom jar har slut på mjölk går jag och handlar.
    I am going shopping because I am out of milk. Jag går och handlar eftersom jag har slut på mjölk.

    (in my limited Swedish)

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LEARNING SWEDISH

How positive are Swedes towards foreign accents?

Swedes respond most positively to people speaking Swedish with English, Finnish and German accents, according to a new study from Sweden's Institute for Language and Folklore that took an in-depth look at a dozen foreign accents.

Published: 2 May 2024 15:29 CEST
How positive are Swedes towards foreign accents?

The study asked Swedes to identify the accents of 12 different people speaking Swedish, before rating the speakers on their trustworthiness, friendliness, ambition, confidence, appeal and whether they were ordentlig, a Swedish word which describes something similar to being “proper” or an upstanding citizen. 

These qualities were then ranked from one (not at all) to six (a lot), before being combined into a total score for each speaker.

Respondents were not told if they had guessed the accent of a speaker correctly or incorrectly before ranking them.

Speakers of Swedish with an English accent had the highest score on this scale: 3.86, although this is still low considering that the highest possible score was six. The English speaker spoke British English and has lived in Sweden for 41 years.

Finns came just behind on 3.85, with Germans coming third with a score of 3.79.

These three accents were also considered to be the easiest to understand, no matter how strong or weak the accents were considered to be.

In fourth place with a score of 3.62 was a female speaker with a förortsaccent, which is not an accent at all but rather a dialect of Swedish spoken in the often immigrant-heavy suburbs (förorter) of large cities. Although some aspects of förortssvenska have been influenced by languages spoken by people who have immigrated to these parts of Sweden from abroad, many speakers of förortssvenska were born in Sweden and have lived their entire lives here.

Next up were Somali, Arabic and Turkish accents, with scores of 3.32, 3.29 and 3.24 respectively. Polish, Persian and Spanish accents followed with scores of 3.23, 3.21 and 3.15, with a Bosnian accent the lowest placing foreign accent at 3.06.

The lowest result in the study overall was for a male speaker with a förortsaccent, with a score of just 2.95.

Women ranked more highly than men

Interestingly, female speakers made up four of the top five, although the most positively rated accent (English) was a male speaker. There was also only one woman in the bottom five (the Spanish speaker) suggesting that Swedes are more positive towards women with foreign accents than men.

The respondents were also asked to guess what level of education the speakers had, where they could choose between junior high school or equivalent (grundskola), senior high school or equivalent (gymnasium), post-secondary school education that was not university-level, and university-level studies.

Accents from closer countries scored more highly

As a general rule, Swedes assumed that people from countries which are closer geographically had a higher level of education than those who were from further away. English came top again, followed by German and Finnish, while a male speaker of förortssvenska came last, with the speaker with a Bosnian accent coming second to last.

In general, speakers of the accents which scored highly in terms of positive associations were also assumed to have a higher level of education, and the same can be said for the accents which had the most negative ratings.

There is a caveat, however. The positively-rated accents – English, Finnish and German – were those which speakers were best at identifying. Almost 90 percent of Swedes in the study recognised an Finnish accent, with just under 85 percent recognising an English accent and slightly under 70 percent recognising a German one.

This means that in these cases, respondents were judging these specific accents, and may have been influenced by prior contact with speakers of Swedish from these countries such as friends, coworkers or public figures, or commonly held assumptions about them.

That was also the case for the male förortsaccent, which was the fourth-most recognised accent – just over 40 percent of listeners identified it correctly.

For the other accents, listeners were unsure of their guesses, even those who guessed correctly. Only one in twenty listeners could recognise the Turkish accent, for example.

This means that assumptions made about speakers with less easily identified accents may be due to other factors than their nationality, such as the strength of their accent and their gender.

Indeed, the most common incorrect guess when a listener could not identify an accent was Arabic, often bringing with it negative ratings in the other categories.

Political views also make a difference

The study also looked at whether certain traits or beliefs in the listening Swedes affected how they ranked each speaker.

Men rated each speaker more negatively than the average score given by all listeners, while women rated them more positively.

There were also clear differences when it comes to politics, with right-wing voters more likely to have a negative opinion of foreign accents.

Listeners who identified as Sweden Democrats or Moderates rated almost all accents significantly lower than the average (Sweden Democrats rated English and Finnish roughly the same as average listeners, and Moderates rated German accents roughly the same as the average).

Christian Democrats and Liberals rated the accents similar to the average result for all listeners, while left-bloc voters belonging to the Centre Party, Social Democrats, Green Party and Left Party rated almost all accents significantly higher than the average. 

The groups with the most positive attitude towards people speaking Swedish with an accent were women, the highly educated, voters in the left-wing bloc and, to a lesser extent, older people and people who earn less than 25,000 kronor a month.

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