Index of Strong Verbs by Pattern | Swedish Grammar

Swedish has roughly a hundred and fifty strong verbs, and met as an alphabetical list they look like a hundred and fifty separate things to memorise. They are not. The strong verbs fall into a small number of ablaut families — sets that share the same vowel journey from infinitive to past to supine — and most of those families line up neatly with an English cognate class you already own. This page is the index: each family as a four-part table of principal parts (infinitive – past – supine, plus the present), with English hints. Learn the pattern once and a dozen verbs come with it. For how to read a principal-parts chain, see Using the Verb Reference; for the strong system in general, Strong Verbs: Overview.

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Don't memorise strong verbs alphabetically — memorise them by ablaut family. The vowels travel in fixed patterns (i–e–i, i–a–u, a–o–a), and each pattern matches an English class (write–wrote–written, drink–drank–drunk). Learn the pattern and the whole family follows.

Pattern 1: i – e – i

Infinitive i, past e, supine back to i. This is the cleanest family, and it sits exactly on top of English ride–rode–ridden, write–wrote–written, bite–bit–bitten — the English past often has an o-sound where Swedish has e, but the supine returns to i in both languages. Drilled in full on Strong Pattern: i – e – i.

Infinitive	Present	Past	Supine	Meaning	English cognate
skriva	skriver	skrev	skrivit	write	write – wrote – written
bita	biter	bet	bitit	bite	bite – bit – bitten
gripa	griper	grep	gripit	grip / seize	grip – gripped
stiga	stiger	steg	stigit	rise / step	(stair, sty)
rida	rider	red	ridit	ride	ride – rode – ridden
skina	skiner	sken	skinit	shine	shine – shone
bli(va)	blir	blev	blivit	become / get	(be, OE belīfan)

Hon skrev under och steg in i bilen — sedan har vi inte hört av henne.

She signed and got into the car — since then we haven't heard from her. skrev (i–e–i), steg (i–e–i): past in 'e'.

Solen har skinit hela dagen, men igår sken den inte alls.

The sun has shone all day, but yesterday it didn't shine at all. Supine 'skinit' (i) vs past 'sken' (e).

Pattern 2: i – a – u (with one o)

Infinitive i, past a, supine u — and this is the exact family as English drink–drank–drunk, sing–sang–sung, swim–swam–swum, find–found–found. These verbs nearly all have a nasal or -ng-/-nk- in the stem, which is your visual cue. One member, sjunga, has ö in the past (sjöng) rather than a — a small wrinkle worth noting. Drilled on Strong Pattern: i – a – u.

Infinitive	Present	Past	Supine	Meaning	English cognate
dricka	dricker	drack	druckit	drink	drink – drank – drunk
finna	finner	fann	funnit	find	find – found – found
vinna	vinner	vann	vunnit	win	win – won – won
springa	springer	sprang	sprungit	run	spring – sprang – sprung
sjunga	sjunger	sjöng	sjungit	sing	sing – sang – sung
binda	binder	band	bundit	tie / bind	bind – bound – bound
brinna	brinner	brann	brunnit	burn (intrans.)	burn (cf. brand)
vinka	— (weak; do not confuse with vinna)

Vi vann matchen, men det bästa laget hade nästan sprungit slut på krafter.

We won the match, but the best team had almost run out of strength. vann (i–a–u), sprungit (supine in 'u').

Hon sjöng tills brasan hade brunnit ner till glöd.

She sang until the fire had burned down to embers. sjöng (irregular ö-past), brunnit (supine in 'u').

Pattern 3: a – o – a

Infinitive a, past o, supine back to a (with -it). These are the take–took–taken, shake–shook–shaken, fare–fore–faren family — the English past in oo matches the Swedish o. Several are short, contracted infinitives (ta, dra, slå) where the -a is all that survives of an older longer stem.

Infinitive	Present	Past	Supine	Meaning	English cognate
ta(ga)	tar	tog	tagit	take	take – took – taken
fara	far	for	farit	travel / go	fare – fore – faren
dra(ga)	drar	drog	dragit	pull / draw	draw / drag
slå	slår	slog	slagit	hit / strike	slay – slew – slain

Han tog tåget norrut och drog med sig alldeles för mycket bagage.

He took the train north and dragged along far too much luggage. tog, drog — past in 'o'.

Vi har farit över halva landet och slagit läger vid tre olika sjöar.

We've travelled across half the country and pitched camp by three different lakes. farit, slagit — supine in 'a' + -it.

Pattern 4: the irregular / contracted set

These are the highest-frequency strong verbs in the language, and they no longer fit a single clean ablaut row — centuries of heavy use wore their forms into one-off shapes (the gå → gick past, for instance, is historically borrowed from a different verb). There is no shortcut: learn each chain whole. The good news is that you meet these verbs constantly, so they stick fast. Note the short supines in -tt (gått, stått, fått) that several of them share.

Infinitive	Present	Past	Supine	Meaning	English cognate
gå	går	gick	gått	go / walk	go (past went is suppletive too)
stå	står	stod	stått	stand	stand – stood
få	får	fick	fått	get / be allowed	(cf. fetch)
komma	kommer	kom	kommit	come	come – came – come
falla	faller	föll	fallit	fall	fall – fell – fallen
hålla	håller	höll	hållit	hold / keep	hold – held
låta	låter	lät	låtit	let / sound	let; (cf. loud for "sound")
ge / giva	ger	gav	gett / givit	give	give – gave – given
se	ser	såg	sett	see	see – saw – seen

A note on ge: the everyday supine is gett; the longer givit is the older form, still fully correct and common in writing and in the fixed past participle given ("given"). Both are listed because you will meet both.

Jag fick aldrig något svar, så jag gick hem och lät det vara.

I never got any answer, so I went home and let it be. fick (få), gick (gå), lät (låta) — three irregular pasts in a row.

Hon stod kvar på perrongen, och tåget kom precis som det skulle.

She stood waiting on the platform, and the train came right on time. stod (stå), kom (komma).

Vad har hänt? Du ser blek ut — har du sett något konstigt?

What's happened? You look pale — have you seen something strange? Present 'ser' vs supine 'sett' for 'see'.

How to use this index

Three habits make the patterns pay off:

Read the Swedish past off the English cognate. If you know the verb is cognate (write, drink, take, fall), the English past tells you the Swedish vowel family: English o-sound → Swedish e (i–e–i) or o (a–o–a); English a → Swedish a (i–a–u). It is a recovery tool for forms you half-remember.
Anchor each family to one model verb. skriva for i–e–i, dricka for i–a–u, ta for a–o–a. When you meet a new strong verb, ask "which model does it rhyme with?" and borrow that model's vowel journey.
Treat Pattern 4 as flashcards, not rules. gå/gick/gått, se/såg/sett and the rest have no derivation — but they are so frequent that rote works fast. Don't waste effort hunting for a pattern that isn't there.

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The supine of every strong verb ends in -it (skrivit, druckit, tagit) — except the short contracted set in Pattern 4, whose supines end in -tt (gått, stått, fått) or are simply learned whole (kommit, sett, gett). The -it/-tt ending, never -at, is the giveaway that a supine is strong.

Common Mistakes

❌ Jag drickade en kopp kaffe.

Incorrect — 'dricka' is strong (i–a–u). The past is drack, not *drickade.

✅ Jag drack en kopp kaffe.

I drank a cup of coffee.

❌ Vi har drack för mycket.

Incorrect — after 'har' you need the supine, which restores the 'u': druckit, not the past 'drack'.

✅ Vi har druckit för mycket.

We've drunk too much.

❌ Han har gick hem.

Incorrect — 'gick' is the past. The supine of 'gå' is gått.

✅ Han har gått hem.

He has gone home.

❌ Hon togade en taxi.

Incorrect — 'ta' is strong (a–o–a). The past is tog, not *togade.

✅ Hon tog en taxi.

She took a taxi.

❌ Jag har sedd filmen.

Incorrect — confusing the participle 'sedd' with the supine. After 'har' the supine is sett.

✅ Jag har sett filmen.

I have seen the film.

Key Takeaways

Strong verbs cluster into a few ablaut families; learning the family beats learning the list.
i–e–i (skriva/skrev/skrivit) = English write/wrote/written; i–a–u (dricka/drack/druckit) = drink/drank/drunk; a–o–a (ta/tog/tagit) = take/took/taken.
The irregular/contracted set (gå/gick/gått, stå/stod/stått, få/fick/fått, komma, falla, hålla, låta, ge, se) has no shared pattern — learn each whole, but they're so frequent they stick.
A strong supine ends in -it (or -tt for the short verbs), never -at — that ending tells you a verb is strong.
Use the English cognate to recover a half-remembered Swedish past; anchor each family to one model verb.

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