
The Passive Voice – An Easy Swedish Grammar Hack
What is the passive?
The Passive is used in place of the Active (ordinary verb form) when the person who is doing something is unknown.
Active | Passive |
---|---|
Marcus drives the car. | The car is driven. |
Julia broke the window. | The window was broken |
A man stole a car. | A car was stolen. |
HOW DO WE FORM THE PASSIVE?
To form the Passive in Swedish we simply add an S to the verb.
Take at look at the image below, in the present tense we lose the r and add an s.
The rest, we simply add an s.

WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE IN SWEDISH?
So let’s take a look at some Swedish examples.
Active | Passive | ||
---|---|---|---|
Leo kör barnen till skolan. | Leo drives the kids to school | Barnen körs till skolan. | The kids are driven to school. |
Maria har serverat vinet. | Maria has served the wine | Vinet har serverats. | The wine has been served. |
And that’s it folks! As you can see it’s quite easy to form the passive in Swedish. You will find this form used a lot in newspaper reporting so look out for it next time you’re reading tidningen.
Responses