At best, separating compound words is a minor error. At worst, särskrivningar (literally: "separate writing") can lead to major misunderstandings. If you speak any other Germanic languages, like Dutch, German or another Scandinavian language then this shouldn't be much of an issue for you as the rules are more or less the same.
English, however, is more or less the only Germanic language which does not form compound words in this way. (Särskrivningar in Dutch are considered to be a sign of Engelse ziekte, or 'English sickness', a range of common linguistic errors blamed on English influence over the language. If that wasn't confusing enough, English sickness is also the name for the bone disease rickets in both Dutch and Swedish).
Anyway, back to särskrivningar. Here are some examples of särskrivning gone wrong:
En rödhårig kvinna: "a red-haired woman"
En röd hårig kvinna: a red, hairy woman
Kassapersonalen: "checkout workers"
Kassa personalen: "useless employees"
Barnunderkläder: "children's underwear"
Barn under kläder: "child under clothes"
Mistakes can also occur in the other direction. Here's one of my favourite examples:
Sex stolar: "six chairs" (the name of a hair salon in Malmö, where I live)
Sexstolar: "sex chairs"
Särskrivning is not a new problem – debates over the linguistic error have raged since the 1800s, where they were often considered to be major mistakes when featured in a text, and they're considered one of the most irritating mistakes by many Swedish grammar obsessives.
So, when should you write a compound word together and when should you write it apart?
The answer is: it depends. Compound words in Swedish can be a mix of different word types. The first part of the word can be more or less anything (a preposition, a pronoun, a verb, an adjective or noun, and so on) but the second part is usually an adjective, noun or verb.
SWEDISH GRAMMAR GUIDES:
- Modal verbs: When to use ‘vill’ and ‘ska’ in Swedish
- How to know where to put the verb in Swedish sentences
- How to think in Swedish: tänka, tro or tycka?
Nouns are relatively easy – two nouns written in a row that together describe a single thing should be written as one compound noun.
Let’s use chicken liver as an example.
In English, this is written as two separate words: chicken liver. In Swedish, however, two nouns describing a single thing must be written together, which means that the correct Swedish translation is kycklinglever.
If these words are written separately then they cannot both be nouns describing the same thing. In this case, there’s an extra layer of confusion as lever is also a verb: lives. Kyckling lever, then, can only mean ‘the chicken lives’ and not ‘chicken liver’.
Here’s another example: telephone call, which in Swedish has to be written as one word: telefonsamtal.
Email address: mejladress. Chocolate cake: chokladkaka. Wine bottle: vinflaska. You get the idea. It’s important to note that the gender of compound words with two nouns is always determined by the second noun, so en båt and ett hus together make ett båthus (a boathouse).
Sometimes, you’ll see an s added between the two words in a compound – football + match becomes fotbollsmatch, for example. In general, this s is added if the first part of the word is a compound word (in this case, fot + boll + match means that an s is added before the final part of the word). This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but should give you a general idea of when an s should be added.
The rules around compound words get slightly more complicated when it comes to adjectives (see the rödhårig/röd hårig example above), but in general, Swedish uses compound words rather than hyphens or spaces in English.
You can also try saying the word out loud in Swedish. If there’s a tiny pause between the two parts of the word then they should be written separately. If they flow into each other without a pause, then you should write them together as a single word.
Hopefully now you feel better equipped to fend off Swedish sticklers for grammar for whom a sär skrivning is the ultimate sin.
Did you find this Swedish grammar explainer useful, or do you have more grammar or vocab topics you want us to go through? Let us know in the comments below.
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