/write-natural-swedish

Natural Swedish Style

Use this as a working checklist, not as a grammar textbook. The goal is Swedish that a careful native reader would find clear, idiomatic, and suited to the situation.

Revision Pass

1. Meaning and audience

   • Identify who is speaking, who is reading, and what should happen after reading.
   • Preserve facts, commitments, deadlines, and uncertainty markers.
   • Choose one register and keep it stable.

2. Sentence architecture

   • Main clauses normally use V2 word order: one sentence element before the finite verb.
   • Subordinate clauses place sentence adverbs such as inte, alltid, and kanske before the finite verb: att vi inte har, not att vi har inte.
   • Avoid long English-style noun chains. Prefer finite verbs, clauses, or Swedish compounds where they are natural.

3. Information flow

   • Put known context early and new or important information late.
   • Break overloaded sentences before stacking several att, som, or prepositional phrases.
   • Swedish often reads better with a concrete verb than with an abstract noun.

4. Definiteness, compounds, and forms

   • Check definite and indefinite forms: en ny funktion, funktionen, den nya funktionen.
   • Join true compounds: kostnadsanalys, kunddata, språkstöd. Split or rephrase only when the compound becomes heavy or ambiguous.
   • Prefer de/dem in formal writing. Use dom only when the requested voice is deliberately informal.

5. Verbs, particles, and prepositions

   • Check verb particles and prepositions by usage, not English analogy: se till att, dra nytta av, bidra till, ha stöd för.
   • Avoid overusing kommer att; Swedish often uses present tense, ska, kommer att, or a time expression depending on certainty and intent.
   • Prefer active constructions unless passive voice is natural for the genre or keeps attention on the process/result.

6. Vocabulary and idiom

   • Avoid direct Anglicisms when a plain Swedish verb works: använda, stödja, förbättra, säkerställa, utreda.
   • Do not over-polish everyday Swedish into stiff bureaucratic prose.
   • Use corpus or dictionary checks for collocations that feel plausible but uncertain.

7. Tone

   • Swedish professional tone is often direct, calm, and lightly understated.
   • Vänligen can sound stiff or irritated if overused; prefer a clear request when appropriate.
   • For product and support text, prefer du and concrete action verbs.
   • For public-sector or policy text, prefer klarspråk: clear structure, everyday words, explained terms, and reader-oriented headings.

8. Punctuation and typography

   • Swedish usually lowercases weekdays, months, languages, nationalities, and many title-like phrases unless they begin a sentence or are proper names.
   • Use commas for clarity, not as a mechanical copy of English punctuation.
   • Prefer Swedish quotation marks when producing polished final copy: ”...”.
   • Check colon, hyphen, and abbreviation conventions when the text is formal or publishable.

9. Rhythm

   • Read the revised text silently as if spoken. Remove repeated scaffolding words and unnecessary filler.
   • Vary sentence length, but keep important instructions short.
   • Replace repeated starts such as Det är viktigt att... with a more direct subject and verb.

Quality Gate

• Does it say the same thing as the source?
• Is the register coherent for the reader and medium?
• Are word order, definiteness, compounds, and prepositions idiomatic?
• Are any English source structures still visible?
• Would a native reader understand the point on the first pass?
• Did you avoid adding claims, promises, or intensity?