The Missing Verb

I don't know if it was the same process in other schools or not. As part of building up our language base, we typically learnt one word for an item. For example, we learnt DOG, we didn't learn MUTT, HOUND, POOCH, or any other word to describe the same item. A matter of practicality, I guess. You learn enough to get the message across. However, towards the end of the course, one of us would occasionally come across a second word for the same item. Naturally this would create confusuion as we already thought that we knew the right word. 9 times out of 10, when we would ask the teacher, the response would be that this alternative word was actually the more common word, and that the word we had originally learnt was not really used by anyone today. So why teach us that word as the primary description in the first place ? When you knew full well that there was a more practical word to use. We just looked really stupid out in the real world and we already looked stupid enough as it was.

Another decision, which mystified me, was the complete absence of one of the most popular forms of verb useage. In my SFI class at least. It wasn't until I had completed SFI that this extra verb form showed up in formal lessons, and it's really common. If we had to learn 4 or 5 forms of the verb anyway, why not learn them all at the same time ? If I hadn't carried on with extended studies, I wouldn't have understood this extra form and how to use it.

Basic swedish verb forms generally follow the same as for English:

Command form: Sleep !

Future form: He will sleep

Present/hypohetical form: He is sleeping, or, He sleeps

Completed past form: He slept

Uncompleted past form: He has slept

That's the basic forms and pretty much every verb uses all forms. "Feeling" type verbs often miss out the Command form, for obvious reasons.

And then we have the SFI forgotten form, where the verb is followed by an "s" as a suffix. I still can't believe they left this one out, as it's as common as spit. Most of the time a sentence structure follows the sequence Subject - Verb - Object. Subject is the most important noun in the sentence while the object is the Supporting Actor in the sentence. "I drive the car". Sometimes, for whatever reason, you may want to invert the sentence and say "The car is driven by me". This becomes a little subjective, in my opinion. You could argue that the car is now the focal point of the sentence, but really it's still me who is most important. And rightly so. This is where the "s" form of the verb comes in. In English we use a combination of a present verb (is) and a past verb (driven) to create a timeless, or theoretical, form of the verb to cope with the same situation. "is driven", "is used", "is required", "is supplied". You get the idea. The Swedish "s" form kind of fills that need. It takes a bit of getting your head around, and for that reason I think it should have been included from the start. I remember when my son started at kindergarten. He didn't just learn the word "dog", he learnt dog breed names, such as "Beagle", "Spaniel", "Poodle". Dog was a new word that he had to learn, so the breed names became just other new words, with no greater fear attached to them. I was already terrified of Swedish. Holding one verb form back wasn't going to make me less terrified. Big mistake, SFI.