"Min farfar är gammal."

Translation: My grandfather is old.

[HerrSchultzCab]

So is Gammalfarfar (great paternal grandfather) literally "old grandfather"?

[Lundgren8]

Yes, but it’s gammElfarfar whereas old is gammal.

[HerrSchultzCab]

Jag forstår. Tack så mycket!

[0511Jennifer]

What's the difference between "gammal" and "gamla"? They both mean old but I'm not sure when to use each one?

[Zmrzlina]

"Gamla" is used for plurals and most definites.

[teslorien]

i.e. "Gamla Stan"

[epichx93]

That's a place in Stockholm!

[Zmrzlina]

And it's awesome!

[Zmrzlina]

Indeed.

[oznmlhtnc]

So the "Stan" is a plural word, right?

[sotnosen93]

No, it's definite for "stad". It's technically "staden", but the "de" gets swallowed in casual speech so people sometimes write it to match in casual writing. I don't live in the area so I don't know about the place's history, but judging by a quick glance at Wikipedia the name started as a nickname for the area, so that might explain why it's informal.

[botanist814]

so in this case, the adjective isn't technically following the possessive so therefore not gamla but gammal? ex. min gamla farfar vs. min farfar ar gammal.
(my keyboard doesn't have umlauts, sorry)

[4oYBIxtO]

yes

[Lilja652023]

Also, just a helpful tip for anyone, mormor would be your moms mom, and farmor would be your dads mom, just as farfar would be your dads dad, and morfar would be your moms dad.

[Sara152881]

When do I use gamle? Like in the music "gamle man"?

[sotnosen93]

That's a special form that's used only for males (like a man, a boy, or a male dog), but it's entirely optional. It might be a bit more common when used as a vocative (as in "Kom hit, gamle man", "Come here, old man"), but that's mostly me guessing. All in all people probably won't raise an eyebrow if you use "gamla man" instead.

[Askey9]

So grandfather means farfar?? If I want to say grandpa would it be different? Please answer. Tack så mycket.

[Ollyfer]

Farfar is your paternal grandfather, whereas, if I do not confuse it after I actually should know better, morfar is your maternal grandfather. And if you switch the two parts of those terminologies, you will have respectively your paternal and your maternal grandmother. It's just two morphemes put together like blocks of a wall.

[kraeuterhexchen]

gammal as a word is so funny to me, especially when referring to people.
In German "gammelig" means rotten, so to refer to my great-grandparents as my gammelmorförälder seems a bit.. macabre? :D