Relative Clauses in Swedish

In Brief

Swedish most often introduces a relative clause with som, which can mean English “who,” “which,” or “that”: mannen som bor här and boken som ligger där. You may leave som out only when it is the object inside the relative clause: boken (som) jag läste. Use vars for “whose”; vilken/vilket/vilka mainly occur in formal language and after prepositions.

Overview

A relative clause adds information about a person, thing, place, or idea: mannen som bor här, “the man who lives here.” The item being described is called the antecedent (the earlier word or phrase that the clause points back to). A relative clause is also a subordinate clause—a clause that depends on another part of the sentence rather than standing as the main message.

At B1, the essential Swedish pattern is pleasantly economical. Som covers distinctions that English usually expresses with who, which, and that. It does not change for gender, number, or whether it refers to a person or a thing. The main decision is not which form of som to choose, but whether som is the subject (the person or thing doing the action) or the object (the person or thing affected by the action) in its clause.

Relative clauses are common in everyday descriptions, definitions, news, instructions, and storytelling. They also follow ordinary Swedish subordinate-clause word order, so this topic builds directly on what you know about bisatser.

How It Works

The basic pattern with som

The relative clause normally comes immediately after the noun phrase it describes:

Structure	Swedish	English
antecedent + som + relative clause	en granne som arbetar på sjukhuset	a neighbor who works at the hospital
antecedent + (som) + subject + verb	filmen (som) vi såg	the film (that) we saw

Som is invariant: the same form works with en words, ett words, plurals, people, and things.

Antecedent	Example	Meaning
person	flickan som sjunger	the girl who is singing
en noun	stolen som är trasig	the chair that is broken
ett noun	huset som är gult	the house that is yellow
plural	vännerna som kom	the friends who came

Subject or object: when can som disappear?

To decide whether omission is possible, look only inside the relative clause.

In mannen som bor här, som is the subject of bor: the man does the living. A Swedish clause needs that subject, so som cannot be omitted.

In boken som jag läste, jag is already the subject and som represents the object of läste: I read the book. Here som may be omitted.

Role of som	Test	Omission?	Example
subject	Who or what performs the verb?	No	Kvinnan som ringde heter Sara.
object	The clause already has another subject; what receives the action?	Yes	Kvinnan (som) jag ringde heter Sara.

English speakers can use a similar test: English also permits “the book I read” but not standard “the man lives here” when a relative subject is intended. However, do not copy the English choice between who, which, and that: Swedish normally uses som for all three.

When omission is allowed, both versions are grammatical. Keeping som can make a long or complicated sentence easier to follow; leaving it out is especially natural in uncomplicated speech and writing.

Vars: possession

Vars means “whose” and connects an owner to something owned:

antecedent + vars + owned noun + clause

In kvinnan vars son jag känner, the woman is the owner and son is what belongs to her. Vars does not change for gender or number, and no extra possessive ending is added.

Swedish	English
en författare vars böcker säljs över hela världen	an author whose books are sold worldwide
ett företag vars kontor ligger i Malmö	a company whose office is in Malmö
föräldrar vars barn går här	parents whose children attend school here

Unlike English speakers’ occasional uncertainty about using whose for things, Swedish vars can naturally refer to both people and organizations or things, particularly in writing.

Vilken, vilket, and vilka

The relative pronoun vilken agrees with its antecedent (the noun it points back to). Agreement means that the form matches the noun’s grammatical type or number.

Antecedent	Form	Example
singular en noun	vilken	en metod, vilken ...
singular ett noun	vilket	ett beslut, vilket ...
plural	vilka	de regler, vilka ...

As plain equivalents of “who/which,” these forms sound formal, administrative, or old-fashioned in many contexts. Everyday Swedish generally chooses som: metoden som vi använder. Their clearest modern use is after a preposition in formal writing:

• det hus i vilket vi bor — “the house in which we live”
• de frågor om vilka de skrev — “the issues about which they wrote”

In ordinary speech, Swedish usually places the preposition at the end and uses som, or omits object som:

• det hus som vi bor i
• det hus vi bor i

This is called preposition stranding: the preposition remains at the end of the clause. It is normal Swedish, not an error.

Word order inside the relative clause

A relative clause uses subordinate-clause word order. The most visible sign is that a sentence adverb such as inte comes before the finite verb (the verb marked for tense):

Main-clause order	Relative-clause order
Han talar inte svenska.	mannen som inte talar svenska
De har aldrig rest dit.	vännerna som aldrig har rest dit

Use the familiar Swedish memory rule BIFF: I en Bisats kommer Inte Före det Finita verbet (“in a subordinate clause, inte comes before the finite verb”). When som is the subject, it occupies the subject position: personen som inte kunde komma. When som is the object, another subject follows it: personen som jag inte kunde hjälpa.

A complete relative clause can be part of a larger main clause:

• Boken som ligger på bordet är min.
• Kvinnan som jag träffade i går arbetar här.

Do not let the verb inside the relative clause replace the main verb. In the first sentence, ligger belongs to the relative clause, while är completes the main statement.

Identifying and adding information

Some relative clauses identify which person or thing you mean: eleverna som klarade provet refers specifically to the students who passed. Others add extra information about an already identified person or thing: Anna, som bor i Uppsala, kommer i morgon.

Swedish commonly sets off this extra, parenthetical information with commas. An identifying clause normally has no comma. The distinction is one of meaning, not merely punctuation.

Examples in Context

Swedish	English	Note
Mannen som bor här är läkare.	The man who lives here is a doctor.	Som is the subject and must stay.
Boken som jag läste var spännande.	The book that I read was exciting.	Object som may be omitted.
Det här är kaffet jag köpte i går.	This is the coffee I bought yesterday.	Object som is omitted.
Jag söker en lägenhet som inte kostar för mycket.	I am looking for an apartment that does not cost too much.	Subordinate order: inte before kostar.
Känner du personen som står vid dörren?	Do you know the person who is standing by the door?	A person still takes ordinary som.
Kollegan som jag arbetar med är från Lund.	The colleague I work with is from Lund.	Everyday preposition stranding.
Vi besökte byn där min farfar föddes.	We visited the village where my grandfather was born.	Där introduces a place-related clause.
Kvinnan vars son jag känner flyttade hit i våras.	The woman whose son I know moved here this spring.	Vars expresses possession.
Företaget vars produkter vi säljer har vuxit snabbt.	The company whose products we sell has grown quickly.	Vars can refer to an organization.
Det är ett problem som vi ännu inte har löst.	It is a problem that we have not solved yet.	Object som is retained for clarity.
Anna, som nyligen har flyttat till Uppsala, hälsar på i helgen.	Anna, who recently moved to Uppsala, is visiting this weekend.	Extra information is set off by commas.
De antog förslaget, vilket överraskade oss.	They adopted the proposal, which surprised us.	Vilket refers to the whole preceding event.
Det rum i vilket mötet hölls var för litet.	The room in which the meeting was held was too small.	Formal preposition + vilket.

Common Mistakes

Omitting subject som

• Wrong: Mannen bor här är min granne.
• Right: Mannen som bor här är min granne.
• Why: Som is the subject of bor. Only object som can be omitted.

Adding a second subject after subject som

• Wrong: Mannen som han bor här är min granne.
• Right: Mannen som bor här är min granne.
• Why: Som already represents mannen as the subject. Adding han gives the relative clause two subjects.

Using main-clause placement for inte

• Wrong: Jag känner en person som talar inte svenska.
• Right: Jag känner en person som inte talar svenska.
• Why: A relative clause is a subordinate clause, so inte precedes the finite verb.

Copying English relative pronouns too closely

• Wrong: choosing a different everyday Swedish pronoun simply because English has who rather than which.
• Right: kvinnan som ringde; telefonen som ringde.
• Why: Ordinary Swedish som refers to both people and things and never changes form.

Mishandling the preposition

• Wrong: huset i som vi bor
• Right: huset som vi bor i / huset vi bor i / formal huset i vilket vi bor
• Why: Do not put a preposition directly before som. Leave it at the end, or use formal preposition + vilken/vilket/vilka.

Adding an extra possessive marker with vars

• Wrong: kvinnan vars hennes son jag känner
• Right: kvinnan vars son jag känner
• Why: Vars already means “whose.” Hennes repeats the owner unnecessarily.

Usage Notes

Som is the default. It is natural in conversation and in nearly every kind of writing. Using vilken/vilket/vilka wherever English uses “which” can make otherwise simple Swedish sound legalistic or dated.

Swedish freely strands common prepositions in neutral speech and prose: personen jag pratade med, staden hon kommer från, frågan vi tänkte på. Keeping object som is also possible in all of these. Preposition + vilken belongs mainly to formal written style, especially when precision or a more compact official tone is wanted.

Punctuation can change the intended group. De anställda som arbetar hemifrån får informationen via mejl identifies the employees who work from home. De anställda, som arbetar hemifrån, får informationen via mejl presents working from home as extra information about all the employees in question. In speech, pauses and intonation often carry this distinction.

English sometimes prefers “that” in an identifying clause and “which” after a comma. Swedish does not reproduce that split with som versus vilket: som works in both kinds. Commas and context usually show the difference.

Beyond the Basics / Advanced Use

Vilket referring to a whole statement

Neuter singular vilket can point back not to one ett noun, but to an entire preceding event or claim:

• Tåget var inställt, vilket gjorde oss sena. — “The train was canceled, which made us late.”
• Hon tackade nej, vilket jag respekterar. — “She declined, which I respect.”

Here vilket is fixed in the neuter singular because it summarizes the situation as a whole. This construction is common in organized written prose and does not require a specific neuter antecedent.

Relative adverbs: där, dit, and när

Swedish can introduce related clauses with adverbs rather than som:

• platsen där vi träffades — “the place where we met”
• staden dit de flyttade — “the city they moved to”
• dagen när allt förändrades — “the day when everything changed”

Där describes location, while dit describes movement toward a destination. With time expressions, both när and other constructions such as då may occur depending on context and style. For B1 production, mastering platsen där ... and dagen när ... is a useful next step; there is no need to replace clear som constructions merely to sound more advanced.

Det som and free relative vad

Sometimes there is no ordinary noun before the relative clause. Det som means “that which” or, more naturally in English, “what/the thing that”:

• Det som oroar mig är priset. — “What worries me is the price.”

Swedish also uses vad in clauses meaning “what” without a stated antecedent:

• Jag förstår vad du menar. — “I understand what you mean.”

Do not add an ordinary antecedent directly before this vad. Say det som jag behöver (“what/the thing that I need”), not saken vad jag behöver. With a stated noun, use som: saken som jag behöver.

Longer clauses and clear reference

A relative clause should sit close to what it describes. If several nouns intervene, readers may not know which one is the antecedent. In a long sentence, repeat the noun or split the sentence rather than relying on a distant som. Likewise, retaining optional object som can make a dense clause easier to parse. Omission is a choice, not a mark of more advanced Swedish.

Practice Tips

1. Use the two-clause test. Turn boken som jag läste back into Jag läste boken. Because jag is the subject and boken the object, som can disappear. For mannen som ringde, the underlying sentence is Mannen ringde, so subject som must remain.
2. Combine pairs of sentences. Start with Jag har en granne. Hon arbetar på sjukhuset. Then combine them: Jag har en granne som arbetar på sjukhuset. Make another set where the repeated noun is the object, and practice both with and without som.
3. Listen for the end of the clause. When Swedish speakers say personen jag pratade med, notice the final preposition. Collect examples with med, om, på, för, and från, then rewrite each one in formal style with the correct form of vilken.

Related Concepts

• Prerequisite: Subordinate Clauses — provides the subordinate word order used inside relative clauses.
• Next step: Types of Subordinate Clauses — compares relative clauses with nominal and adverbial subordinate clauses.