Lesson 20 | Time and dates in Swedish

Hello and welcome again to MySwedish learning corner. This lesson deals with time and dates. It is going to be full of new words and phrases. Since there’s a lot to cover the lesson is divided into two parts to make it easier for you to study. Let’s get started.

Time and dates in Swedish

We have gone through many lessons so far together but there is still a long way to go to master the Swedish language.

Get ready, sit back and let’s get down to business. We are going to start with the days of the week:

MÅNDAG — MONDAY

TISDAG — TUESDAY

ONSDAG — WEDNESDAY

TORSDAG — THURSDAY

FREDAG — FRIDAY

LÖRDAG — SATURDAY

SÖNDAG — SUNDAY

That wasn’t that difficult, right? And how can one say on Monday in Swedish/Hur säger man “on Monday” på svenska? It is as follows: på mondagor på måndagar if we want to say on Mondays. And last but not least, the phrase every Monday is varje måndag.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention how to say working days it’s vardagar in Swedish and weekend is helg.

And if you intended to ask a question whether or not one should write a capital letter in the beginning of the name of the day in the Swedish language, the answer is: NO, WE DON’T DO IT LIKE THAT. We always write it in a lowercase letter in the Swedish language.

Let’s continue with the names of the months of the year:

JANUARI — JANUARY

FEBRUARI — FEBRUARY

MARS — MARCH

APRIL — APRIL

MAJ — MAY

JUNI — JUNE

JULI — JULY

AUGUSTI — AUGUST

SEPTEMBER — SEPTEMBER

OKTOBER — OCTOBER

NOVEMBER — NOVEMBER

DECEMBER — DECEMBER

Another piece of cake, isn’t it? Let’s move to the seasons of the year for this moment:

VÅR — SPRING

SOMMAR — SUMMER

HÖST — AUTUMN

VINTER — WINTER

Spring and autumn are tricky and one can easily confuse höst/autumn and häst which stands for horse. And what does vår stand for? Yeah, you got that right, it can be our as well.

REMEBER/KOM IHÅG:

I JANUARI — IN JANUARY

PÅ VINTERN — IN THE WINTER

Please, note that the names of months ARE NOT written with an initial capital letter in the Swedish language!

ÅR — YEAR

ÅRTIONDE — DECADE

ÅRHUNDRADE — CENTURY

Let’s continue with the parts of a day:

EN MORGON — A MORNING

EN SOLUPPGÅNG — A SUNRISE

The preposition that is connected with the parts of the day is PÅ. The expression in the morning is på morgonen in the Swedish language.

EN MIDDAG — A NOON

When the Sun is up in the sky and you want to say at noon in Swedish, you have to say vid middagstid.

EN EFTERMIDDAG — AN AFTERNOON

As the day goes by and the Sun goes down the afternoon is here, and a twilight is coming.

EN KVÄLL — AN EVENING
EN SOLNEDGÅNG — A SUNSET

When the Moon/månen appears in the sky and the first star/stjärna starts to shine, the night has come and soon (unless you live in the very north) the day is about to end.

EN NATT — A NIGHT
EN MIDNATT — A MIDNIGHT

The expression at midnight is vid midnatt in the Swedish language.

Let me make a small timeline: yesterday => today => tomorrow would be i går => i dag => i morgon in Swedish.

And if you want to go even further to the past the day befor yesterday would be i förrigår or even further to the future the day after tomorrow woulde be i överimorgon.

When it comes to asking questions about the time you can use the following phrases:

WHAT TIME IS IT?

HUR MYCKET ÄR KLOCKAN?

VAD ÄR KLOCKAN?

And here comes some possible answers:

KLOCKAN ÄR NIO —9 o’clock

Please, note that there is no a.m. or p.m. in Swedish and klockan är nio means that it is 9 a.m.! The way to express 9 p.m. is as follows: klockan är nio på kvällen.