"Han är min lille bror."

Translation: He is my little brother.

[hasan661989]

where to use lilla and where to use lille?

[HelenCarlsson]

"Lille" is only used with male persons, but it's optional. In some parts of Sweden, the -e ending is not used at all.

[hasan661989]

tack så mycket

[lagolas2010]

So that becomes lill bror? Sound like a new name of a rap-artist. Oh, yeah, What about female ending?

[ValentinRainio]

No, it can either be lille bror or lilla bror.
The female ending is always -a: lilla syster

[dcounts]

I don't know if this has anything to do with anything, but the way I remember the e-ending is the German accusative rule for masculine objects. Maybe this will help.

[Sklegacy]

Shouldnt it be 'liten' ?

[Lundgren8]

Lilla/lille is the definite form of liten which is used with definite articles and after possessives like min.

• En liten bil. (A small car.)
• Den lilla bilen. (The small car.)
• Min lilla bil. (My small car.)

[sandeepa2]

Tack så mycket

[HelenCarlsson]

Why did you choose a sentence about a small brother instead of a proper "lillebror"? Just curious :).

[Arnauti]

For practical reasons, the incubator is not optimized for compound nouns and particle verbs.

[HelenCarlsson]

I see :). Anyway, I like that you've introduced the male adjective forms. Where I come from we use them a lot. I have a feeling that it differs between different parts of Sweden.

[Arnauti]

I think so too, but I also think they're common enough that people should know about them.

[saqirltu]

I want to say "younger brother", or is there another translation for this?

[Arnauti]

lillebror is a younger brother.

[SummerSolemnly]

What about an older brother? Storbror?

[Lundgren8]

Storebror.

[exqeriment]

Would younger sister be lillesyster?

[HelenCarlsson]

No, lille works only with male nouns, so it's lillasyster.

[exqeriment]

OK, thanks!

[sandeepa2]

Tack

[james.ambl]

So does this sentence refer to my brother being physically small or younger than me?

[HelenCarlsson]

"Lille" just means that he is little, so, at least theoretically, you could be even smaller :).
Younger brother = lillebror (one word).

[ThorbenKri]

My Swedish girlfriend says it's one word

[Arnauti]

lillebror is one word when it refers to 'younger brother'.
lille bror as we have here only means 'small brother'.

[Janek272724]

Det finns en person som heter "Lillebror" i Astrid Lindgrens bok "Karlsson på taket". Nu vet jag vad sitt namn betyder ;)

[Zuza802676]

Is there such an abbreviation in Sweden for the older sister?