Swedish Reflexive Verbs

What are reflexive verbs?

A reflexive construction is used when the action relates back to the subject. The verb is paired with a reflexive pronoun, which corresponds to words like oneself or myself in English, but in Swedish the pronoun is often needed to keep the meaning of the verb.

Subject	Reflexive pronoun	English
jag	mig	myself
du	dig	yourself
han, hon, den, det	sig	himself, herself, itself
vi	oss	ourselves
ni	er	yourselves
de	sig	themselves

Some verbs regularly occur together with a reflexive pronoun and need it to keep their meaning.

Verb	Meaning	Example
lära sig	learn	Jag lär mig svenska.I am learning Swedish.
bestämma sig	decide, make up one's mind	Han har inte bestämt sig än.He hasn't decided yet.
gifta sig	get married	De gifte sig på stranden.They got married on the beach.

With other verbs, the reflexive pronoun is used much like an object instead. Compare these two sentences:

Han tvättar sig.He washes (himself).

Han tvättar bilen.He is washing the car.