En-Words (Utrum)
Swedish nouns are divided into two genders: Utrum (which contains about 75-80% of all nouns) and Neutrum. The ones being utrum words get the article en, the neuter words the article ett. Today we are talking about the first gender, which furthermore can be divided into 4 groups.
| indef. sing. | def. sing. | indef. plural | def. plural | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| G1 | -a | -n | -or | -orna |
| en tröja | tröjan | tröjor | tröjorna | |
| a sweater | the sweater | sweaters | the sweaters | |
| G2 | -consonant/-e | -(e)n | -ar | -arna |
| en kjol | kjolen | kjolar | kjolarna | |
| a skirt | the skirt | skirts | the skirts | |
| en pojke | pojken | pojkar | pojkarna | |
| a boy | the boy | boys | the boys | |
| G3 | -consonant | -en | -er | -erna |
| en student | studenten | studenter | studenterna | |
| a student | the student | students | the students | |
| G4 | -are/-er | -n | – | -na |
| en lärare | läraren | lärare | lärarna | |
| a teacher | the teacher | teachers | the teachers | |
| en musiker | musikern | musiker | musikerna | |
| a musician | the musician | musicians | the musicians |
Swedish and all the other Germanic Scandinavian languages use a suffix to construct the different forms. First we would have the stem, then the suffix for plural (if not singular) and lastly we attach the suffix to construct the definite form. Important to remember is that words that end with a vowel get -n and words that end on a consonant -en.
Example: tröja-n, kjol-en
The plural suffix is in all groups always a -na.
Example: tröj-or-na
Words that end with -el (cykel), -er (vinter) and -en (öken) loose in plural the -e-: cyklar, vintrar, ökar.
Utrum or Neutrum?
There is no definite answer to this question but there are a few tricks to make qualified guesses. For instance most living object belong to the utrum words: (en pappa a dad, en mamma a mum, en fågel a bird, en katt a cat. Exception: ett barn a child).
This doesn’t, however, mean that all inanimate objects automatically belong to the neuter gender. Examples are the days of the week (en måndag a monday), all seasons (en sommar a summer), all months (en juni a june) and holidays (en jul a christmas). Some suffixes claim the side of the utrum family: -a, -an, -are, -dom, -else, -het, -ing, -lek, -nad and -skap and words borrowed from other languages with -ett, -fon, -ik, -in, -ion, -ism, -ur and -å.
Neuter words are continents, countries, regions, cities, villages, islands, letters and words with the suffix -age, -eri, -ori, -em, -gram, -iv, -ment, -skop, -tek and -um.
And of course: to all of these rules there are definitely going to be exceptions.