Past tense (strong verbs)

Level 1

Learn infinitive, past, and supine together: dricka–drack–druckit, skriva–skrev–skrivit, sova–sov–sovit.

How It Works

In Swedish, verbs are often divided into two main groups for the past tense: weak verbs and strong verbs.

  • Weak verbs form the past with a dental suffix, commonly -de or -te.
  • Strong verbs form the past without that weak suffix. Many show stem-vowel alternation, called ablaut, but some keep the same stem vowel.

There are recurring vowel patterns that help organize the verbs, but the class and actual forms of each verb still need to be learned. Luckily, many of them are very common.

Here are some examples of the vowel change:

  • dricka (to drink) → drack (drank)
  • skriva (to write) → skrev (wrote)
  • sjunga (to sing) → sjöng (sang)
  • bita (to bite) → bet (bit)

An important thing to remember is that the past tense form is the same for all subjects (jag, du, han, hon, vi, ni, de).
Jag drack. (I drank.)
De drack. (They drank.)

The Sova Example
Barnet sov i sängen is a strong-verb example even though the vowel is unchanged. Compare komma–kom–kommit, another unchanged-stem pattern. Losing the infinitive ending -a is not the same thing as changing the stem vowel.

Weak versus strong refers to inflection, not how forceful an action is. Some verbs have weak and strong alternatives or more irregular forms, so a dictionary’s principal forms are more reliable than trying to infer the whole paradigm from one ending.

Examples (5)

  1. Jag drack ett glas vatten.

    I drank a glass of water.

    Word by Word: I drank a glass water.

  2. Han skrev ett brev till sin vän.

    He wrote a letter to his friend.

    Word by Word: He wrote a letter to his friend.

  3. Vi sjöng en sång tillsammans.

    We sang a song together.

    Word by Word: We sang a song together.

  4. Barnet sov i sängen.

    The child slept in the bed.

    Word by Word: The child slept in the bed.

  5. Solen sken igår.

    The sun shone yesterday.

    Word by Word: The sun shone yesterday.

Common Mistakes

  • Adding a weak verb ending (-de/-te) to a strong verb.

    Jag drickade kaffe i morse.
    Jag drack kaffe i morse.

    The verb 'att dricka' (to drink) is a strong verb. It changes its vowel to 'drack' in the past tense and does not take a weak verb ending like '-de'.

How It Connects

Tap a pattern to see what it builds on and what it leads to.

Past tense (strong verbs)Level 1

Learn This First

To understand strong verbs, learners first need a grasp of general verb conjugation and the concept of tenses. It is also helpful to know the regular past tense formation (-de/-te) to recognize strong verbs as a distinct category that uses vowel changes instead of suffixes.

Learn Next

Patterns that build on this one.