"Did you hear what I said?"

Translation: Hörde du vad jag sade?

[erikblomqvist]

We usually don't pronounce the -de at the end and a lot of people don't even spell it that we. This could easily just be "hörde du vad jag sa?"

[jaxxist]

does that apply to all areas of Sweden or is it regional?

[erikblomqvist]

All areas, I would say.

[22879]

when would you say that the -de ending is pronounced? it's not the first time I hear that it can be omitted, but in all my textbooks I hear it clearly pronounced.

[devalanteriel]

Practically never in sade and lade. For verbs in the past tense, how much of an ending -de you pronounce differs wildly between people and sociolects.

[.Joanna.]

That is what I wrote – Hörde du vad jag sa ... and it was accepted.

[friswing]

As erikblomqvist said, the end of 'sade' is not pronounced. The duolingo computer voice is more often than not very formal, or rather - it pronounces the way we spell, i.e. written language, which really differs a lot.

[bogdanmateescu]

should we drop in speaking the -de ending for both horde and sade or only for sade?

[friswing]

Only 'sade'. we can even write it as "sa", in informal texts. You cannot leave out -de, in 'hörde', that would change the meaning (the tense) from 'heard' to 'hear'

[29brodi]

But in another discussion the mods said de is usually left out in speech for de verbs, "tala" being one of them which would mean "to speak"

[Arnauti]

-de is usually left out in speech in verbs that end in -ade, like talade, but from what I can think of, never when a verb ends in a consonant +de, like hörde.
The two sa and la are the only ones that are OK to write that way, and they have different infinitive forms anyway so there's no risk of confusion.

[Arnauti]

@DenOrangeMannen yes, it's perfectly ok to say talade with all the syllables, it might sound a bit stilted but not too bad. It can be more that you're trying to speak clearly.
lade and sade are the ones where -de is dropped most often, for those two I think it really always sounds stilted to say the ending. I think I never ever say those with -de, but I sometimes say verbs like 'talade' with -de (even when not reading aloud).

[DenOrangeMannen]

Does it sound strange for someone to pronounce -de anyway? I imagine it being similar to conjunctions in English (can not vs. can't). It's perfectly acceptable not to use them, but sounds stilted.

[epiphany6988]

So youre saying that "sade" is basically pronounced as "sa"?

[friswing]

yes. 'sade' is written language.

[22879]

this may be a little off topic, but I came across the construction "vad som" so I wanted to try it in this answer as "hörde dy VAD SOM jag sade" but it was not accepted. Could anyone please tell me when "VAD SOM" can be used? thanks a lot.

[devalanteriel]

We tend to use vad som prior to verbs, but not to other verb phrases. And of course, there's also vad som helst - "anything".

[22879]

thank you so much.

[wallingfordjohn]

I have always heard 'sade' pronounced as 'sa'. I also notice many Swedes do not pronounce the -de at the end of -ade past tense forms. Any guidance on when to use them or not?

[devalanteriel]

Actually, the entire comment thread is about that. :)

[Buzdawg]

Jag blir lite förvirrad om någonting - det finns en mening någonstans där man skriver "det" och kan inte använda "vad". Jag tror att den meningen har nästan samma (eller en liknande) konstruktion som den här. Om någon kunde förklara (och kontrollera min svenska också) så vore det häftigt :)

[sotnosen93]

Your Swedish is very good, enough that I mistook it for a native speaker at first glance. Just a few tiny mistakes:

• "confused about" is "förvirrad över"
• it's "inte kan använda"
• I would write "nästan har samma"
• "häftigt" has a meaning closer to "impressive"; if you meant to say "nice" as in it would be doing you a favour, "schysst" is a good word (though it's an informal one, so don't go using it in essays)

I'm afraid I can't help you with the difference between the sentences without hearing them both though; I don't want to accidentally give you false information by assuming a context other than the one you had.

[SunnySundquist]

This is exactly what I heard on my last visit to Sweden. Always, "Vad sa du" I made sure, and used the phrase often. ;-)

[SunnySundquist]

Meaning, "What did you say?" I heard it between our Swedish friends often also.

[lUC9P]

Wiktionary list both säga and läga as weak verbs. Since they both convert the ä -> a on past tense i assume theres some rule about this? Or am i confused about what being a weak verb implies

[devalanteriel]

Yes, a strong verb in Germanic languages change its stem vowel in the past tense. :) But there's no rule to tell beforehand whether a verb is strong or weak, and they may change irregularly (e.g. äta -> åt).

[Casper784885]

I thought säger was an irregular verb and therefore sa without de, right?

[friswing]

sa = sade, it is just a spelling-adjustment to the pronunciation, nothing irregular.
You will find both spellings, but in stylistically different texts.

[lUC9P]

Did a bit of looking into, and i certainly hope the mods will correct me if im wrong. A weak verb in germanic 'just' means the past tense is indicated by a dental suffix. Irregular indicates an 'irregular' vowel shift in the tense. Strong verbs dont use a dental suffix for past tense so are always irregular. A weak verb may have a vowel shift due to pronunciation shifts in a language