planera means "to plan." It is a member of a large and very useful family: the -era verbs, loanwords (mostly from French and Latin, often through German) that all conjugate the same regular Group 1 way. Learn planera and you have the template for hundreds of others — studera, fungera, reparera, organisera, fotografera — they all run -erar / -erade / -erat.
Principal parts
| Infinitive | Present | Preteritum (past) | Supine | Imperative | Group |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| planera | planerar | planerade | planerat | planera | Group 1 (-era) |
Despite the long -era ending, this is ordinary Group 1: present planerar (stem + -r), past planerade (the full -ade), supine planerat (-at), imperative planera. The stress falls on the -er- syllable (plane'ra), which is the audible signature of this whole loan class.
Use 1: plan something
In its most basic use, planera takes a direct object — the thing you are planning.
Vi planerar en resa till Italien.
We're planning a trip to Italy. planera + object.
De planerade bröllopet i flera månader.
They planned the wedding for several months. planerade — the regular Group 1 past.
Har du planerat något för helgen?
Have you planned anything for the weekend? har planerat — the perfect, supine planerat after har.
Use 2: planera att + infinitive — 'plan to'
To say you plan to do something, Swedish uses planera att plus an infinitive. The little word att here is the infinitive marker, the equivalent of English "to" in "plan to go."
Jag planerar att resa i sommar.
I'm planning to travel this summer. planera att + infinitive = 'plan to'.
Vi planerar att flytta nästa år.
We're planning to move next year. att flytta — the infinitive after att.
Hon hade planerat att stanna längre.
She had planned to stay longer. The pluperfect hade planerat att + infinitive.
Use 3: planera in — to schedule
The particle verb planera in means "to schedule / fit into the plan" — to put something concretely into a calendar or programme.
Kan vi planera in mötet på torsdag?
Can we schedule the meeting for Thursday? planera in = slot into the plan.
Lunchen är redan inplanerad.
The lunch is already scheduled. The past participle inplanerad — note the particle moves to the front.
The noun: en plan
The related noun is en plan ("a plan") — an en-word: en plan, planen, planer. (A separate, identical-looking en plan also means "a level / storey" of a building, but the "plan / scheme" sense is the relevant one here.)
Vi har en plan, men den kan ändras.
We have a plan, but it may change. The noun en plan, definite planen.
planera vs tänka
When the "plan" is loose and informal — more "intend" than "schedule" — Swedes often reach for tänka + infinitive (no att) instead. tänka resa is the casual "(I'm) thinking of travelling / intending to travel," lighter and more spoken than the deliberate planera att resa.
Jag tänker resa i sommar. (informal)
I'm thinking of travelling this summer. (informal) tänka + bare infinitive — looser than planera att.
Projektet planeras att starta i augusti. (formal)
The project is planned to start in August. (formal) The passive planeras att — formal register.
Common Mistakes
❌ Jag planerar resa i sommar.
Incorrect — 'plan to' needs the infinitive marker att: planera att resa, not *planera resa.
✅ Jag planerar att resa i sommar.
I'm planning to travel this summer.
❌ Vi planerer en resa.
Incorrect — -era verbs are Group 1, so the present is planerar (-ar), not the Group 2 *planerer (-er).
✅ Vi planerar en resa.
We're planning a trip.
❌ Vi planderade festen.
Incorrect — the full -era stem stays; the past is planerade, with the regular -ade ending.
✅ Vi planerade festen.
We planned the party.
❌ Har du plan något?
Wrong word — plan is the noun ('a plan'). The verb you need is planerat: Har du planerat något?
✅ Har du planerat något?
Have you planned anything?
- infinitive for "plan to," planera in for "schedule," and remember the noun is en plan. For looser intentions in speech, tänka
- bare infinitive ("intend to") is the everyday choice.
Now practice Swedish
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Swedish→Related Topics
- Using the Verb ReferenceA2 — How to read the single-verb reference cards and the principal-parts citation system that underpins them. Every Swedish verb is cited as a short chain — infinitive – present – preteritum – supine – (past participle) — because every other form is derivable from those parts. This page decodes one weak verb (tala – talar – talade – talat) and one strong verb (skriva – skriver – skrev – skrivit – skriven), explains the conjugation-group labels (1/2/3/4), and gives a key to everything on a card.
- The Four Conjugation GroupsA2 — Swedish verbs sort into four conjugation classes, identified not by the present tense but by the PAST (preteritum) and supine: Group 1 (talar/talade/talat), Group 2 (ringer/ringde/ringt, köper/köpte/köpt), Group 3 (bor/bodde/bott), and Group 4, the strong verbs (skriver/skrev/skrivit) that change their vowel. Group 1 is so dominant and regular that every new and borrowed verb joins it — so treat it as the default and memorise only the closed list of strong verbs.
- Verb + Preposition GovernmentB2 — Many Swedish verbs demand a specific, unpredictable preposition: tänka på (think about), vänta på (wait for), tro på (believe in), be om (ask for), tycka om (like), längta efter (long for), bero på (depend on). The governed preposition rarely matches English's, and it's unstressed (unlike a particle), so these combinations are vocabulary items you learn as whole units.