Possessive case

Normally you construct this case by adding an S to the possessive noun. This means we both say Peters mamma (Peter’s mother) and husets färg (the colour of the house). It’s not really much to it. So in Swedish we construct possession like this:

[main word] + s [the possession in its indefinite form]
Mannens hund
The man’s dog (the dog of the man)

The possessor is always in front of that which is possessed. That noun is also always in its indefinite form as you can see in the example. We wouldn’t say mannens hunden, the man’s the dog, like you can do with the dog of the man. Other examples are min flickväns hus, my girlfriend’s house, and sonens leksak, the son’s toy.

In some cases we can construct possessive case with prepositions. Not with av, of, but with description prepositions: instead of husets färg, the house’s colour, we can say färgen på huset, the colour on the house. The owner of a dog can be both hundens ägare and ägaren till hunden, the owner to the dog.

Nationaliteter / Nationalities