Learn Hardcore Swedish: I källaren finns ett litet soprum som luktar starkt av gamla sopor. - In the basement there is a small garbage room that smells strongly of old trash.

“Det finns ett litet soprum i källaren.”
This is the most neutral “there is / there are” structure. It simply states the fact that such a room exists in the basement.
“I källaren finns ett litet soprum …”
Here the place i källaren (“in the basement”) is put first for emphasis or as the topic. Swedish main clauses obey the V2 rule (the finite verb is in second position), so when you move i källaren to the front, the verb finns must come next, and the subject ett litet soprum is pushed after the verb.

So:

Neutral: Det finns ett litet soprum i källaren.
Location-focused: I källaren finns ett litet soprum.

You could also hear: I källaren finns det ett litet soprum, with an extra dummy det, which is also fine but slightly wordier.

Why do we use finns and not är here?

Finns comes from the verb finnas, which is used for existence or presence: it corresponds roughly to English “there is/are”.

Det finns ett litet soprum i källaren.
= “There is a small garbage room in the basement.”

Är (“is/are”) describes a state or identity:

Soprummet är i källaren.
= “The garbage room is in the basement.” (Here we already know which garbage room we’re talking about.)

You wouldn’t normally say *Ett litet soprum är i källaren; that sounds wrong, because Swedish prefers finns (or verbs like ligger, står, sitter) when you introduce the existence or location of something not yet known to the listener.

So:

introducing or stating that something exists somewhere → finns
describing something you already have in mind → often är, ligger, står, etc.

Why is it ett litet soprum and not en liten soprum?

This is about grammatical gender and adjective agreement.

Soprum is a neuter noun (an ett-word), because:
- It’s a compound of sopor (“garbage”) + rum (“room”).
- In Swedish, the last part of a compound decides the gender.
- Rum is neuter: ett rum → therefore ett soprum.
The adjective liten changes form depending on gender and number:
- en-word: en liten bil – “a small car”
- ett-word: ett litet rum – “a small room”
- plural: små rum – “small rooms”

Since soprum is an ett-word, you need the ett-form of the adjective: litet.

So: ett litet soprum is the correct combination.

What exactly does soprum mean? Is it just any room with garbage?

Soprum is a very specific word in Swedish:

Literally: “garbage room / trash room”.
In practice: it usually refers to the designated room in an apartment building or housing complex where residents throw their trash and often separate recycling (paper, glass, etc.).

It’s not just any messy or dirty room. It’s a purpose-built room for waste disposal, common in multi-family housing in Sweden. Other related words:

soptunna / soptunna – garbage bin
sopkärl – garbage container
återvinningsstation – recycling station (often outdoors, for public use)

What is the function of som in “som luktar starkt av gamla sopor”?

Here som is a relative pronoun, like “that/which/who” in English. It:

Refers back to ett litet soprum.
Introduces a relative clause that describes that noun:
- ett litet soprum [som luktar starkt av gamla sopor]
  = “a small garbage room that smells strongly of old garbage”

In English you can sometimes drop “that” in such clauses (“a room that smells…” → “a room smells…”), but in Swedish you cannot drop som here when it is the subject of the relative clause.

So:

Correct: ett litet soprum som luktar starkt …
Incorrect: *ett litet soprum luktar starkt … (if it’s meant as a relative clause)

How does word order work in the clause “som luktar starkt av gamla sopor”?

This is a subordinate clause (a relative clause), and Swedish word order is slightly different from a main clause.

The structure here is:

som (relative pronoun, functioning as subject)
luktar (verb)
starkt (adverb)
av gamla sopor (prepositional phrase)

So: som + verb + rest.

Key points:

In relative clauses like this, you don’t use V2 in the same way as in main clauses; you simply put the subject before the verb:
- Main clause: I källaren finns ett soprum. (V2: verb in second place)
- Relative clause: som luktar starkt av gamla sopor. (subject som before the verb)
If you add a sentence adverb like inte, it typically comes after the subject and before the verb:
- som inte luktar starkt av gamla sopor – “that does not smell strongly of old garbage”.

So the word order in som luktar starkt av gamla sopor is the standard pattern for a relative clause.

Why is it “luktar starkt av” and not “luktar starkt från” or something else?

With lukta (“to smell”), Swedish commonly uses av to express what the smell comes from / is caused by.

lukta av något ≈ “smell of something / smell caused by something”
- Rummet luktar av cigarettrök. – “The room smells of cigarette smoke.”
- Kläderna luktar starkt av parfym. – “The clothes smell strongly of perfume.”

In contrast:

lukta från något would focus more on the source as a location:
- Det luktar rök från köket. – “It smells of smoke from the kitchen.”

In this sentence, the idea is that the room itself smells strongly because of the old garbage inside it, so av is the natural choice:

…som luktar starkt av gamla sopor.
= “…that smells strongly of old garbage.”

Could you say “stinker” instead of “luktar starkt”?

You could, but it changes the tone.

lukta starkt – literally “smell strongly”. This just says the smell is intense. It can be negative in context (garbage usually is), but the word itself is relatively neutral.
stinka – “to stink, reek”. This is strongly negative, much more expressive.

So:

som luktar starkt av gamla sopor
= “that smells strongly of old garbage” (descriptive, relatively neutral wording)
som stinker av gamla sopor
= “that stinks of old garbage” (much more vivid and negative)

Both are grammatically fine; you just choose based on how strong or emotional you want to sound.

Why is it “gamla sopor” and not “gamla soporna” or “gammal sopor”?

There are two separate issues: plural & adjective form, and definiteness.

Plural and adjective form
- sopor is plural.
- The adjective gammal changes like this:
  - singular en-word: gammal (en gammal bil)
  - singular ett-word: gammalt (ett gammalt hus)
  - plural (any gender): gamla (gamla bilar, gamla hus, gamla sopor)
- So you must say gamla sopor, not *gammal sopor.
Indefinite vs definite
- gamla sopor = “old garbage” (indefinite, general)
- de gamla soporna = “the old garbage” (definite, specific)
- Here we’re not referring to some already-identified garbage; we’re just describing the smell in general, so indefinite makes sense.

Also, note that sopor is almost always used in the plural in Swedish when you mean “garbage / trash”.

Can I move parts around and say “Ett litet soprum som luktar starkt av gamla sopor finns i källaren”?

Yes, that sentence is grammatical.

Swedish allows some flexibility in word order. Both are fine:

I källaren finns ett litet soprum som luktar starkt av gamla sopor.
– Topic/emphasis on the basement.
Ett litet soprum som luktar starkt av gamla sopor finns i källaren.
– Topic/emphasis on “a small garbage room”.

They mean the same thing; the difference is which piece of information you present first as the “starting point” of the sentence. For learners, the more neutral variant is usually:

Det finns ett litet soprum som luktar starkt av gamla sopor i källaren.

Why is it “i källaren” and not “på källaren”?

Swedish uses i and på differently from English in/on:

i is used for being inside an enclosed space:
- i källaren – in the basement
- i huset – in the house
- i rummet – in the room
på is used for surfaces, many institutions and public places, and some fixed expressions:
- på bordet – on the table
- på jobbet – at work
- på sjukhuset – at the hospital

Since a basement is an enclosed space that you are in, standard Swedish uses i källaren.
På källaren would sound wrong in standard language (or at best very dialectal / meaning something like “on top of the basement”).

How do you pronounce “källaren” and “soprum”?

Approximate pronunciation for an English speaker:

källaren (the basement)
- IPA: roughly [ˈɕɛlːarɛn]
- Rough English guide: “SHELL-ah-ren”
  - k before ä becomes a soft ɕ sound, somewhat like “sh” but more fronted.
  - ä like e in “get”.
  - Double ll is a long l.
  - Final -en is like a weak “en” (similar to the “e” in “taken” plus an n).
soprum (garbage room)
- IPA: roughly [ˈsuːprʉm]
- Rough English guide: “SOO-proom”, but:
  - so = long oo as in “zoo”.
  - u in rum is the Swedish [ʉ], a front rounded vowel (between English “oo” and French u in “lune”).
  - Stress is on the first syllable: SOO-prum.

These are approximations, but they should get you close enough to be understood.