"På fredag kommer brevet."

Translation: On Friday the letter comes.

[Embla_]

I understand you can't say "På fredag brevet kommer', but could you say 'Brevet kommer på fredag'?

[DehPuh]

Sure you can!

[Embla_]

then I understand, thanks!

[daneosaurus]

"Kommer" is before "brevet" because "På fredag" is a subordinate clause, correct?

[Carnaedy]

This is just a matter of using proper terminology, but på fredag is not a clause at all since it does not have a subject and a verb. It's just an adverbial phrase. Saying that Swedish uses V2 sentence order does not exactly mean that the verb must always be the second word, but it has to be the second constituent of the sentence.

[På fredag] [kommer] [brevet].

[Time adverb] [verb] [subject].

[Gealach24]

Yes :-D

[daneosaurus]

Yay learning!

[LupoMikti]

Um, quick question… why is På fredag considered a subordinate clause? There isn't a subject and a verb. It's actually just an adverbial phrase in English. I'm not really seeing how this forces V2 word order.

Edit: Nevermind! Silly me forgot my German for a little bit there. V2 isn't just about subordinate clauses. It happens when an element takes the first 'spot' so to speak. In this instance, the adverbial phrase occupies that first position, so the verb must come second. I was simply confused by daneosaurus calling it a subordinate clause.

[DehPuh]

I really don't understand this kind of phrase construction, I don't think it was ever explained

[daneosaurus]

Check the tips and notes for conjunctions. The third to last paragraph states that if a sentence begins with a subordinate clause, the verb must immediately follow that subordinate clause. In this sentence "på fredag" is a subordinate clause (basically meaning it can't be a sentence on it's own), so the verb (kommer) must immediately follow it. Hope that helps!

[jaiirapetjan]

I had said, "The letter will come by Friday," since the mail sometimes arrives before the expected delivery date. To convey this in Swedish, what would you change the "på" to?

[Arnauti]

The letter will come by Friday = Brevet kommer senast på fredag.
(Constructions with från fredag mean from Friday, that is, starting on Friday.)

[AllanSuneli]

Cant i use the word arrives instead of comes

[Super-Svensk]

If it were "arrives," the sentence would read, På fredag kommer brevet fram. It's a minuscule difference, but "arrives" isn't the best translation.

[floridop]

Again, the literal translation makes no sense to me in english as there is no such construction [time adverb][verb][subject] in english afaik

[Carnaedy]

That's because English is an SVO language, while Swedish is a V2 language. To use less technical terms, in an English sentence, the subject, the verb and the object must appear strictly in this order for it to be grammatical. In Swedish, the verb must always be in the second position. Because of this, these two languages handle starting sentences with something other than subject differently:

• I am angry. -- Now I am angry.
• Jag är arg. -- Nu är jag arg.

[Arnauti]

What you're saying about Swedish as a V2 language is correct, but we don't say ond very often these days, it sounds very old-fashioned to me – that is, in the sense angry. Nowadays ond most often means evil.
Use arg instead to say angry.

[Carnaedy]

Thanks for the correction, I will definitely keep this in mind! I will also edit the post for clarity :-)

[zamlet]

Carnaedy - although I already understand the principle you're explaining here, I like the way you explain it and I think your explanation is valuable to this forum. Just wanted to flip a kudo your way... :)

[EwaDuVarra]

Dear Arnauti you are a great teacher. I am new at the Swedish DL. If only we all knew Greek Grammar and Terminology... that would be a surprise. Same structure. and plus. many words are not connected to German but to Greek. Arg means angry. ORGI means anger in Greek. En stund means just a moment . En stigmi. ! And so on. I just want to help. Eva.

[LupoMikti]

The literal translation is technically proper English. Nowadays, we tend to not start short clauses with adverb phrases (as far as I hear here in Northern California. Idk about the rest of the US). The sentence is more likely to be "The letter is coming on Friday." However, this construction uses a continuous construction in English where an even more literal translation would be "The letter comes on Friday" which doesn't make the most amount of sense because you're referring to something that will happen in the future with a present tense verb.

[cvictoria42]

English "present tense" is more like non-past, and it looks like Swedish works that way too? At least from the examples so far it seems that way. English doesn't really have a future tense per se. "Will" is really more of a modal auxiliary than a tense marker per se.

[LupoMikti]

I think it's because there's so little emphasis on Mood or Aspect when it comes to English, so little things that other languages like to make note of or emphasize get lost in translation.

[unclematthegreat]

I answered this earlier as the letter comes on Friday and it was marked wrong, as opposed to on friday the letter comes, which mean the exact same thing.

[the3lusive]

Can I translate this as "On Friday the letter will come" or "The letter will come on Friday" ?

[deactivated user]

i am very confused with words on, in and at because they all seem to be "pa" in swedish but in english they are 3 different words i guess? i probably don't know english well enough to use these 3 words correctly but can someone explain to me please?

[BWolfBurak]

Word order is same with some of sentences in German.

[Suzy681860]

The marking on this answer is wrong

[Alva504887]

That is Yoda talking, the normal way would be The letter comes on friday