A whole family of everyday Swedish verbs comes with a little pronoun bolted on that points back at the subject: känna sig ("feel"), sätta sig ("sit down"), skynda sig ("hurry"), gifta sig ("get married"), lära sig ("learn"). The pronoun — mig, dig, sig, oss, er, sig — is the reflexive object, and the thing that catches English speakers off guard is that it is grammatically required even when English supplies nothing at all. You don't "feel yourself tired" in English, but in Swedish you literally must.
The reflexive pronoun agrees with the subject
A reflexive verb's object is a pronoun referring back to whoever the subject is, so it changes with the person:
| Subject | Reflexive | Example: känna sig (feel) |
|---|---|---|
| jag | mig | jag känner mig |
| du | dig | du känner dig |
| han / hon / den / det | sig | hon känner sig |
| vi | oss | vi känner oss |
| ni | er | ni känner er |
| de | sig | de känner sig |
The only special form is third person sig, which covers han, hon, den, det, de alike. The first- and second-person reflexives (mig, dig, oss, er) are identical to the ordinary object pronouns — only sig is dedicated. In speech sig, mig, dig are pronounced (and sometimes written informally) as sej, mej, dej — but write the standard forms.
Jag känner mig helt slut efter jobbet.
I feel completely worn out after work. känner mig — first person reflexive 'mig', obligatory after känna.
Hon känner sig mycket bättre idag.
She feels much better today. Third person uses 'sig'.
Skynda er, tåget går om fem minuter!
Hurry up, the train leaves in five minutes! skynda er — 'ni' reflexive 'er'.
Why the reflexive is there when English has nothing
English handles many of these meanings with a plain intransitive verb or a "get"-construction, so the reflexive seems to come from nowhere. The logic is that Swedish treats the action as something the subject does to itself: you seat yourself, you hurry yourself, you teach yourself. English used to do this too (archaic "I betook myself"), but it has mostly dropped the reflexive and lets the bare verb stand. Swedish kept it. So the pattern to internalise is: where English says "learn," "sit down," "hurry," "feel," "get married," Swedish often says verb + sig.
| Swedish | Literal | Natural English |
|---|---|---|
| lära sig | "teach oneself" | learn |
| sätta sig | "set oneself" | sit down |
| lägga sig | "lay oneself" | lie down / go to bed |
| känna sig | "feel oneself" | feel (+ adjective) |
| skynda sig | "hurry oneself" | hurry |
| gifta sig | "marry oneself" | get married |
| bestämma sig | "decide oneself" | make up one's mind |
| ta sig | "take oneself" | get (somewhere) |
känna sig + adjective: how you feel
The most frequent reflexive for a learner is känna sig, used with an adjective to describe a state: känna sig trött ("feel tired"), känna sig glad ("feel happy"). The adjective agrees with the subject in the usual way (Jag känner mig stressad, Vi känner oss stressade). Crucially, you cannot drop the sig — känna without it means "to know (a person)" or "to feel (something with your hand)," a different verb-sense entirely.
Efter semestern kände vi oss riktigt utvilade.
After the holiday we felt really rested. kände oss + plural adjective 'utvilade' agreeing with 'vi'.
Känner du dig nervös inför intervjun?
Do you feel nervous before the interview? känner dig nervös — drop the 'dig' and the sentence breaks.
Jag känner honom väl.
I know him well. Without a reflexive, känna means 'know a person' — a completely different verb.
Motion reflexives: sätta sig, lägga sig, ställa sig
The placement verbs become reflexives of bodily motion. You seat yourself (sätta sig), lay yourself down (lägga sig), stand yourself up (ställa sig). These are extremely common as commands:
Sätt dig! Vi ska äta nu.
Sit down! We're going to eat now. sätt dig — imperative + 'dig'. Note the reflexive is required.
Det är sent, jag lägger mig nu.
It's late, I'm going to bed now. lägga sig = 'go to bed / lie down'.
Ställ dig vid fönstret så ser du bättre.
Stand by the window and you'll see better. ställa sig = 'position oneself standing'.
(These reflexive motion verbs pair with the stative posture verbs sitta, ligga, stå — covered in their own right under the positional-verb pages.)
lära sig — the one that surprises everyone
Lära on its own means "to teach"; add the reflexive and it flips to "learn" (= "teach oneself"). This is the classic example of a reflexive English simply doesn't mark.
Hon lär sig svenska väldigt snabbt.
She's learning Swedish very fast. lära sig = 'learn'. Without 'sig', 'lär' means 'teaches'.
Jag måste lära mig de här verben till provet.
I have to learn these verbs for the test. lära mig — first person reflexive.
Common Mistakes
❌ Jag känner trött.
Incorrect — English 'I feel tired' has no '-self', but känna sig requires the reflexive.
✅ Jag känner mig trött.
I feel tired.
❌ Hon känner mig glad. (meaning 'she feels happy')
Incorrect — wrong-person reflexive. The reflexive must match the subject 'hon', so it's 'sig', not 'mig'.
✅ Hon känner sig glad.
She feels happy.
❌ Jag lär svenska.
Incorrect — without the reflexive, 'lär' means 'teach'. To say 'I'm learning', you need 'mig'.
✅ Jag lär mig svenska.
I'm learning Swedish.
❌ Sätt! (for 'sit down')
Incorrect — sätta sig needs the reflexive even as a command.
✅ Sätt dig!
Sit down!
❌ Vi skyndar. (for 'we're hurrying')
Incorrect — skynda is reflexive: it needs 'oss' here.
✅ Vi skyndar oss.
We're hurrying.
Key Takeaways
- Reflexive verbs require a reflexive object (mig, dig, sig, oss, er, sig) that agrees with the subject. Only third-person sig is a dedicated form.
- The reflexive is grammatically obligatory in Swedish even when English shows nothing — känna sig trött ("feel tired"), lära sig ("learn"), skynda sig ("hurry").
- Dropping the reflexive often changes the verb's meaning: känna alone = "know a person"; lära alone = "teach."
- känna sig
- adjective describes how you feel, and the adjective agrees with the subject (Vi känner oss trötta).
- Treat reflexive verbs as lexical units — learn sätta sig, lägga sig, gifta sig with the sig attached, rather than translating from English.
Now practice Swedish
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Start learning Swedish→Related Topics
- The Reflexive Pronoun sigA2 — When the object of a verb is the same person as the subject, Swedish 1st and 2nd persons just reuse the ordinary object pronoun (jag tvättar mig, du tvättar dig) — but the 3rd person has a dedicated reflexive word, sig, for he/she/it/they/one. Using honom or henne instead of sig flips the meaning to 'someone else', a mistake English's '-self' suffix makes very easy to fall into.
- ligga/lägga, sitta/sätta, stå/ställaB1 — Swedish refuses to use a single verb 'to be' or 'to put' for things in space. Where English says 'the book is on the table' and 'I put it there', Swedish picks a verb by the object's ORIENTATION: flat things lie (ligga), upright things stand (stå), fitted things sit (sitta) — plus a matching set of transitive partners for placing them (lägga, ställa, sätta). This guide gives you the orientation test so you can choose the right verb for any object.
- Verb Valency and ObjectsB2 — How many and what kind of arguments a verb takes: intransitive (sova), transitive (läsa boken), ditransitive (ge honom boken). Swedish marks objects by POSITION, not case, allows both 'V indirect direct' and 'V direct till indirect' for double objects like English, but the fixed prepositions after verbs (vänta PÅ, tro PÅ, tänka PÅ) rarely match English.
- Deponent Verbs (s-verbs That Aren't Passive)B1 — A small but extremely common set of Swedish verbs that always end in -s yet mean something fully active: hoppas ('hope'), trivas ('feel at home'), lyckas ('succeed'), minnas ('remember'), andas ('breathe'), and — most importantly — finnas, the everyday verb for 'there is'. You never strip the -s, and you use one of these constantly without realising it forms a category.