sluta means "to stop, to finish, to quit" — but specifically in the sense of ending an activity. You sluta a job, sluta smoking, sluta school for the day. It is a perfectly regular Group 1 verb, so every form is derived by rule, and the only thing you really have to master is which English "stop" it covers.
Principal parts
| Infinitive | Present | Preteritum (past) | Supine | Imperative | Group |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| sluta | slutar | slutade | slutat | sluta | Group 1 |
Present is the infinitive plus -r (slutar), the past adds the full -de (slutade, never *slutde), and the supine ends in -at (slutat). No vowel change, no agreement: jag slutar, hon slutar, de slutar are all identical.
Use 1: stop / finish an activity
In its everyday sense, sluta means to bring something to an end — a job, a class, the working day. The underlying logic is that sluta is about activities and habits, things that have a duration and that you can choose to wind down. That is why it pairs so naturally with both nouns naming an activity (sluta jobbet, "finish work") and with verbs naming one (sluta röka, "stop smoking").
Jag slutar jobbet klockan fem.
I finish work at five o'clock. slutar — present, the time of day my workday ends.
När slutar skolan idag?
When does school finish today? slutar + subject, the natural way to ask about an end time.
Hon slutade på företaget förra månaden.
She quit the company last month. slutade — the regular Group 1 past, here meaning 'left her job'.
Regnet har äntligen slutat.
The rain has finally stopped. har slutat — perfect, supine slutat after har.
Use 2: sluta + infinitive — stop doing something
This is the construction that trips learners up most. To say "stop doing something," Swedish puts the bare infinitive straight after sluta — no preposition, no att, nothing in between.
Sluta röka!
Stop smoking! sluta + the bare infinitive röka — no 'att', no preposition.
Kan du sluta prata nu?
Can you stop talking now? sluta prata — two infinitives in a row, nothing between them.
Han slutade dricka kaffe för ett år sedan.
He stopped drinking coffee a year ago. slutade dricka — past tense of sluta, bare infinitive follows.
Jag har slutat oroa mig för det.
I've stopped worrying about it. har slutat oroa — perfect plus bare infinitive.
sluta vs stanna — two English "stop"s
English uses one word, "stop," for two completely different ideas, and Swedish splits them. sluta is to stop an activity — end it, quit it. stanna is to stop moving, to come to a halt, or to stay put. A car stannar (comes to a stop); a smoker slutar (quits the habit). Mixing them is the single most common error.
Bussen stannade vid hållplatsen. (stanna = halt)
The bus stopped at the stop. stanna — stopping a movement, not ending an activity.
Jag slutade träna i somras. (sluta = quit)
I stopped training this summer. sluta — quitting an activity.
There is also göra slut ("to break up," literally "make an end"), used for ending a relationship — and ta slut ("to run out / come to an end," said of supplies or time). These are fixed expressions built on the noun slut ("end"), not on the verb directly.
De gjorde slut efter tre år tillsammans.
They broke up after three years together. göra slut — the idiom for ending a relationship.
Mjölken har tagit slut — kan du köpa mer?
The milk has run out — can you buy more? ta slut, built on the noun slut, said of supplies.
A handy detail: when sluta takes a thing as its object (a job, school, the day), it means to finish or quit that thing; when it takes a verb, it means to stop doing that action. Both readings flow naturally from the core idea of bringing an activity to an end — Swedish doesn't switch verbs the way English sometimes does between "finish work" and "quit smoking."
Jag har bestämt mig för att sluta på gymmet.
I've decided to quit the gym. sluta på + place = leave / quit a membership or job there.
Common Mistakes
❌ Sluta att röka!
Off — after sluta the infinitive is bare. Drop the att: Sluta röka!
✅ Sluta röka!
Stop smoking!
❌ Bussen slutade vid hållplatsen.
Wrong verb — a bus halts, it doesn't 'quit'. Use stanna for stopping a movement.
✅ Bussen stannade vid hållplatsen.
The bus stopped at the stop.
❌ Jag slutde tidigt igår.
Incorrect — Group 1 takes the full -ade. The past is slutade, not *slutde.
✅ Jag slutade tidigt igår.
I finished early yesterday.
❌ Sluta med att prata.
Unnatural here — for 'stop talking', the bare infinitive is enough: sluta prata.
✅ Sluta prata.
Stop talking.
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