Hello and welcome back to MySwedish. Today we are going to talk about genders (again). There is already a lesson on genders on MySwedish. You can go back and read it quickly if you feel that you need it.

This lesson brings tips that help us predict gender of words in Swedish.

Let me put this straight. Gender is only partly predictable. Still it is better than nothing.

Most human beings are non-neuter and what I mean by that is that they are “EN” words.

en far

en lärare

But there are exceptions like the following: ett barn, ett biträde, ett geni.

Most of animals are non-neuter as well as with several exceptions like: ett djur (funny isn’t it?), ett får, ett bi, ett lejon.

Days, months and seasons are “EN” words too. The only exception here is ETT DYGN.

en måndag

januari var kall

våren

Trees, flowers and shrubs are “EN” words and again with one funny exception: ETT TRÄD or compound words in -träd.

There is a big group containing non-neuter nouns with the following endings (the exceptions are in the brackets):

-a: en gata (ett drama, ett öga)

-are: en lärare (ett altare)

-dom: en sjukdom

-else: en rörelse (ett fängelse)

-het: en svaghet

-ing/-ning: en parkering

-ion: en station

-ism: realismen

-nad: en byggnad

-or: en dator

Let’s concentrate on neuter nouns now. This group consists of ETT WORDS.

Continents: Asien är överbefolkat.

Countries: Sverige är gelsbefolkat.

Provinces: Norrland är kallt.

Towns: Stockholm är stort.

Letters of the alphabet: ett a, ett b…

I am sure that this will come to great use for you! The last table is ahead of us. This one shows ETT WORDS, actually nouns with the given endings:

-ande: ett antagande (en sökande, en studerande)

-ende: ett leende

-um: ett faktum

Good job! Let’s call it a day. It’s time for a little reward now. Go and buy some ice cream for you, you deserve it!

See you soon, bye bye!