A relative clause adds a description to a noun: the woman who called, the film we saw, the book that I haven't read. In Swedish this is one of the most common subordinate-clause types, and it is built from machinery you already know. The connecting word is almost always som, and the clause that follows it obeys BIFF order, exactly like any other subordinate clause. This page teaches how to construct the clause, when som is required versus optional, and the comma that separates restrictive from non-restrictive relatives. (For the relative words themselves and the person/thing question, see Relative Pronouns.)
The basic shape: noun + som + clause
A relative clause comes after the noun it describes and is introduced by som. The structure is:
noun + som + (subject) + verb + (rest)
Because the clause is subordinate, the finite verb stays low — there is no V2 inversion inside it, and a sentence adverb like inte precedes the verb.
Kvinnan som ringde var min chef.
The woman who called was my boss. 'som ringde' describes 'kvinnan'; som is the subject of 'ringde'.
Mannen som bor här heter Olof.
The man who lives here is called Olof. The relative clause sits right after 'mannen'.
Jag känner en tjej som spelar i ett band.
I know a girl who plays in a band. The relative follows its noun and gives extra information about her.
Notice the relative clause always trails the noun directly — Swedish does not let other material wedge in between, just as English keeps "the man who lives here" together. The clause behaves as a single descriptive unit hung off the noun.
Subject som vs. object som: the rule English speakers get backwards
This is the heart of the page, and the place where English instinct fails. som can be dropped when it is the object of the relative clause, but never when it is the subject. English does the reverse-feeling thing: it freely drops object "that" (the book I read), and even for a subject it is happy with a bare clause in everyday speech — so English never trains you to keep an obligatory subject relative the way Swedish demands, and learners under-apply som exactly where it is required.
Subject som — obligatory. If som is the one doing the verb of the relative clause, it cannot be left out, because then the clause would have no subject at all:
Kvinnan som ringde var arg.
The woman who called was angry. som IS the subject of 'ringde' — drop it and the clause loses its subject. Obligatory.
Tåget som går klockan sju är alltid försenat.
The train that leaves at seven is always late. som is the subject of 'går' — required.
Object som — optional. If som is what the clause's own subject acts on, the clause already has a subject sitting there, so som can be dropped (and often is, in speech):
Filmen vi såg igår var fantastisk.
The film (that) we saw yesterday was fantastic. 'vi' is the subject of 'såg'; som is the object, so it drops.
Boken jag läste på tåget var spännande.
The book (that) I read on the train was exciting. 'jag' is the subject; the dropped som is the object of 'läste'.
The diagnostic is simple: does the relative clause already have a subject of its own? If yes (vi, jag), the relative word is an object and can drop. If the relative word is the subject, it must stay.
BIFF inside the relative clause
Because a relative clause is subordinate, the word order inside it is BIFF, not main-clause V2. The practical consequence: sentence adverbs — above all inte — come before the finite verb, never after it.
Boken som jag inte har läst ligger på bordet.
The book that I haven't read is on the table. Inside the relative: subject 'jag' + 'inte' + verb 'har'. 'inte' precedes the verb.
Det finns saker som man aldrig glömmer.
There are things you never forget. 'aldrig' sits before the verb 'glömmer' — BIFF order inside the relative.
Han nämnde ett problem som vi ännu inte har löst.
He mentioned a problem we haven't solved yet. 'ännu inte' before 'har' — subordinate order.
If you instinctively place inte after the verb (as a main clause would: jag har inte läst), you have applied the wrong clause type. Inside a relative, it is som jag *inte har läst*. This is not a special relative-clause rule — it is the general BIFF rule, surfacing here.
Restrictive vs. non-restrictive: the comma matters
Swedish, like English, distinguishes two kinds of relative clause, and the difference is marked by a comma.
A restrictive relative identifies which one you mean — it narrows the noun down, and it takes no comma:
Min bror som bor i Lund kommer imorgon.
My brother who lives in Lund is coming tomorrow. No comma: this picks out which brother (implying I have more than one).
A non-restrictive relative adds extra, parenthetical information about an already-identified noun, and it is set off by commas (a pair, if it is mid-sentence):
Min bror, som bor i Lund, kommer imorgon.
My brother, who lives in Lund, is coming tomorrow. Commas: I have one brother; the clause just adds a fact about him.
Stockholm, som är Sveriges huvudstad, ligger vid kusten.
Stockholm, which is Sweden's capital, lies on the coast. A proper noun is already unique, so a relative on it is always non-restrictive — commas required.
The meaning shift is real, exactly as in English: Min bror som bor i Lund implies you are distinguishing this brother from others; Min bror, som bor i Lund, implies you have just the one. Unlike English, however, Swedish keeps som in both cases — there is no som/vilken split for restrictiveness the way English shifts between "that" and "which" (a distinction English itself only half-observes). The comma does the work.
Common Mistakes
❌ Kvinnan ringde var min chef. (meaning 'the woman who called')
Incorrect — subject som cannot be dropped; without it this reads 'the woman called was my boss', which is broken.
✅ Kvinnan som ringde var min chef.
The woman who called was my boss.
❌ Boken som jag har inte läst ligger här.
Incorrect — inside a relative (subordinate) clause, 'inte' goes BEFORE the verb: som jag inte har läst.
✅ Boken som jag inte har läst ligger här.
The book I haven't read is here.
❌ Filmen som vi såg den var bra.
Incorrect — don't add a resumptive pronoun 'den'. The relative leaves a gap: filmen (som) vi såg.
✅ Filmen vi såg var bra.
The film we saw was good.
❌ Stockholm som är Sveriges huvudstad ligger vid kusten.
Incorrect (punctuation) — a relative on a unique noun is non-restrictive and needs commas.
✅ Stockholm, som är Sveriges huvudstad, ligger vid kusten.
Stockholm, which is Sweden's capital, lies on the coast.
Key Takeaways
- A relative clause is noun + som + a BIFF subordinate clause, sitting directly after the noun.
- som is obligatory for the subject (kvinnan *som ringde) and *optional for the object (boken (som) jag läste) — the reverse of what English instinct suggests.
- Because the clause is subordinate, adverbs and inte precede the verb inside it: boken som jag *inte har läst*.
- Restrictive relatives take no comma; non-restrictive (parenthetical) relatives take commas. Swedish keeps som in both; the comma carries the meaning, with no that/which switch.
- Don't insert a resumptive pronoun — the relative leaves a gap (filmen vi såg, not filmen vi såg den).
Now practice Swedish
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Start learning Swedish→Related Topics
- Relative Pronouns (som, vilken, vars)B1 — Swedish gets by with one all-purpose relative word, som — it covers 'who', 'whom', 'which' and 'that' for people and things, as subject or object alike. The catch English speakers miss: som can be dropped when it's the object (boken jag läste) but never when it's the subject (boken som handlar om...), and Swedish strands its prepositions at the end (mannen som jag bor med) far more naturally than English does — while the pied-piping you'd reach for in English (mannen med vilken...) is stiff and bookish here.
- Relatives with Prepositions and vars/vilketB2 — The advanced corners of the relative system: stranding a preposition in a relative clause (huset som jag bor i — the natural pattern) versus the stiff, formal pied-piped i vilket; vars for 'whose' (författaren vars böcker ...); and the crucial vilket — the dedicated relative for a WHOLE-CLAUSE antecedent ('Han kom sent, vilket gjorde mig arg' = '..., which annoyed me'), exactly where som is ungrammatical. English uses 'which' for both noun and clause antecedents, so learners wrongly stretch som into the clausal slot.
- Subordinate Clauses: StructureB1 — Inside a subordinate clause Swedish abandons the V2 rule entirely and locks word order into a fixed frame: subordinator–subject–adverb–verb–rest (the BIFF rule in action). The whole clause counts as ONE element, so a fronted subordinate clause fills the main-clause first slot and forces the main verb to invert right after the comma — När jag kom hem, åt jag — a 'comma-then-verb' pattern English never produces.
- Complex Grammar: OverviewB1 — A map of the advanced sentence-building constructions — relative clauses, conditionals, reported speech, comparison structures, information-packaging devices (clefts, extraposition) and non-finite constructions — and the single liberating idea behind all of them: almost none introduce a new word-order rule. They are recombinations of the V2 and BIFF machinery you already know, plus fronting and embedding. The difficulty is combinatorial, not novel.