Irregular Verbs

What are irregular verbs?

Swedish verbs are usually divided into four conjugation groups. Most verbs follow the patterns of one of these groups, but a small number have forms that cannot be predicted.

These are often simply called irregular verbs or half-weak. They make up the fifth conjugation group. But there are a few other types of verbs that are also called irregular, depending on who you ask.

Strong verbs

Strong verbs or group four verbs are sometimes described as irregular because they change their stem vowel.

skriva → skrev → skrivit

dricka → drack → druckit

flyga → flög → flugit

These changes, however, actually follow a number of recurring patterns and thus aren't really real irregular verbs.

Half-weak verbs

Swedish has a small group of four verbs called half-weak verbs. These are called irregular by Say it in Swedish, because they lack a pattern even though some of the forms are similar to those of weak verbs. That's why they are called half-weak by Swedish grammars.

Infinitive	Present	Past	Supine
kunna	kan	kunde	kunnat
skola	ska	skulle	skolat
vilja	vill	ville	velat
veta	vet	visste	vetat

Weak verbs with irregular stem changes

Some verbs still belong to the weak conjugations but have irregular changes in their stem. Some grammars lump them together with the strong verbs.

sälja → säljer → sålde → sålt

välja → väljer → valde → valt

göra → gör → gjorde → gjort

sätta → sätter → satte → satt

lägga → lägger → la/lade → lagt

säga → säger → sa/sade → sagt