En or ett? Swedish noun genders explained

Swedish has two genders, called utrum (common gender) and neutrum (neuter). In practice, you meet them as two little words: en and ett, the Swedish "a" or "an". About three in four nouns are en-words, so en is the safer guess. Every noun still has to be learned with its gender, because there is no way to see it from the meaning alone.

The indefinite article

There is no plural indefinite article. Bilar simply means "cars", and hus means "houses".

The definite form is a suffix

Swedish does not put "the" in front of the noun. It attaches it to the end:

En-words usually add -en (or -n after a vowel), and ett-words add -et (or -t after a vowel). So the gender is audible in the ending, and you will start to hear it before you can explain it. The plural forms are covered in noun plurals and definite forms.

Adjectives agree with the noun

An adjective takes the same gender as its noun when it stands after "is", "are" or "a".

• en-word: the basic form, stor.
• ett-word: add -t, so stort.
• plural, or after "the": add -a, so stora.

Double definiteness

When an adjective comes before a noun with "the", Swedish uses a separate word den, det or de and the suffix: den stora bilen, det stora huset, de stora husen. Learners often drop one of the two markers. Both are needed in standard Swedish.

Which nouns are which?

There are no perfect rules, but a few patterns help.

• en-words: most living beings (en man, en katt), and nouns ending in -a (en flicka), -are (en lärare), -het (en möjlighet) and -ning (en undervisning).
• ett-words: many nouns for things and nouns ending in -um (ett museum), plus ett land, ett hus, ett barn, ett vatten.

Common mistakes

• Guessing from English. A table is ett bord, but a chair is en stol. The gender is not logical.
• Mixing the adjective ending. Wrong: ett stor hus. Right: ett stort hus.
• Forgetting the second marker. Wrong: stora bilen. Right: den stora bilen.
• Using en as a default for everything. It is the best guess, but not always correct. Learn ett words with ett from the start.

A practical tip

Say the noun with its article every time you learn it. En bok, ett bord, en stol, ett fönster. After a few hundred words, ett will start to feel right for the words that need it, in the same way that you feel the difference between "a" and "an" in English.

Practice

The article shows the gender, and the adjective follows it. Choose the correct form.

Next, see how Swedish builds sentences in verb-second word order.