Leading forms of verbs (SVFL)

Listen to these chants and see if you can explain how they are constructed: Cykla, cyklade, cyklat Plocka, plockade, plockat Sova, sov, sovit Let’s repeat some verb basics: Verbs are words which change their form depending on when in time the action is taking place. The different variants of the verbs are verb forms. The different times that the verbs describe are tenses. Some tenses have their own verb forms. The simple past tense for example: Åt, sov, dog Other tenses are formed by combining auxiliary verbs with some form of the main verb.

Such as the present perfect tense: Har ätit, har sovit, har dött. Infinitive is a verb form, but not a tense, because it says nothing about when the action is taking place. The verb form infinitive is the basic form of the verb. This is what infinitive sounds like: Äta, sova, dö To make it easier to keep track of all those verb forms, we are going to use those chants you heard before. They are useful regardless of whether you are trying to understand your first language better, or working to acquire a new one.

We create a short chant for each verb, consisting of three of the verb forms. We call them the leading forms of the verb. First, we state the verb in its base form - infinitive. That’s the form you find in a dictionary, and that you can put att in front of. Kasta Höra Tro Bryta Gå Then we add the simple past tense.

It’s a verb form and a tense, used to talk about things that have already happened in the past. You can put igår in front of the simple past form of the verb. Kastade Hörde Trodde Bröt Gick And then finally we have the verb form past participle. Past participle is the verb form you use to form both the present perfect tense, and the past perfect tense. You can place har or hade in front of the past participle, depending on which tense you want to form.

Kastat Hört Trott Brutit Gått There you go – leading forms of some common verbs. Let’s chant’em! Kasta, kastade, kastat Höra, hörde, hört Tro, trodde, trott Bryta, bröt, brutit Gå, gick, gått If you want, you may add more than three of the verb forms to each chant, before you practice.