Learn Hardcore Swedish: Resan till Spanien var lång men rolig.

In Swedish, you use the definite form when you and the listener both know which specific thing you’re talking about. Here, it’s a particular trip to Spain, not just any trip.

En resa = a trip (indefinite)
Resan = the trip (definite)

Swedish often uses the definite form where English would use just a bare noun:

Resan var lång ≈ “The trip was long” / “The journey was long”
Maten var god ≈ “The food was good”

Also note: if you add a possessive, you normally don’t keep the definite ending:

Min resa till Spanien var lång men rolig.
(not ✗ Min resan …)

What grammatical form is Resan, and what does it tell us?

The base noun is resa (trip, journey). It is a common gender noun (an en-word).

Its main forms are:

en resa = a trip (indefinite singular)
resan = the trip (definite singular)
resor = trips (indefinite plural)
resorna = the trips (definite plural)

The -n in resan is the definite singular ending for many en-words.

So Resan at the beginning of the sentence tells you:

It’s a specific trip (definite).
The noun is common gender (an en-word).
It’s subject of the sentence: Resan … var lång men rolig.

Why is the preposition till used in till Spanien?

Till is the normal Swedish preposition for movement towards a place, often translated as to:

Jag åker till Spanien. = I’m going to Spain.
Vi reste till Stockholm. = We travelled to Stockholm.

Some quick contrasts:

till = to (movement towards)
- Resan till Spanien = the trip to Spain
i = in (location inside a country/city)
- Vi var i Spanien. = We were in Spain.
från = from (movement away from)
- Resan från Spanien = the trip from Spain.

So Resan till Spanien literally means the trip to Spain. Using i Spanien here would change the meaning to something like the trip in Spain, which is not the same thing.

Why is till Spanien placed right after Resan instead of at the end of the sentence?

Because till Spanien belongs to the noun phrase, not to the verb phrase. It tells us which trip we’re talking about:

Resan till Spanien = the trip to Spain (one unit)

If you said:

✗ Resan var lång men rolig till Spanien.

it would sound very odd in Swedish, as if till Spanien were modifying the adjectives or the verb var instead of the noun resan.

The normal structure is:

[Resan till Spanien] [var] [lång men rolig].

So Resan till Spanien is the subject, var is the verb, lång men rolig are the adjectives describing the subject.

What exactly does rolig mean here? Is it “fun” or “funny”?

Rolig can mean both fun / enjoyable and funny / amusing, depending on context.

In the phrase:

Resan till Spanien var lång men rolig.

rolig is understood as fun, enjoyable rather than “funny”. You’re saying the trip was enjoyable, interesting, pleasant.

Some rough guidelines:

en rolig resa / film / fest
usually ≈ a fun trip / film / party
en rolig historia / ett roligt skämt
≈ a funny story / joke

Context usually makes it clear. For a trip, rolig most often means it was fun, not that the trip itself was comical.

Why are the adjectives lång and rolig in this basic form and not långa or roliga?

Here, lång and rolig are predicative adjectives: they come after the verb var and describe the subject Resan till Spanien.

In this position, the form depends on:

number (singular/plural)
gender (common/neutral)
definiteness (indefinite/definite)

In Resan till Spanien var lång men rolig:

subject: resan = common gender, singular, definite
predicative adjectives: lång, rolig

For singular subjects, predicative adjectives take the same form as the indefinite singular:

Resan var lång. (en- word, singular)
Huset var långt. (ett- word, singular: långt)
Resorna var långa. (plural: långa)
Husen var långa. (plural: långa)

So:

Resan var lång men rolig. (singular)
Resorna var långa men roliga. (plural)

If the adjectives were placed before the noun in a definite phrase, they would change:

Den långa men roliga resan till Spanien …
(article den
- långa, roliga
  - resan)

Why is the verb var used instead of är?

Var is the past tense of är (to be).

är = am / is / are (present)
var = was / were (past)

So:

Resan till Spanien är lång men rolig.
= The trip to Spain is long but fun. (for example, speaking in general about that route)
Resan till Spanien var lång men rolig.
= The trip to Spain was long but fun. (talking about a specific trip in the past)

Because the speaker is describing a trip that has already happened, var is the correct choice.

Can I say Resan till Spanien var rolig men lång instead? Does the order of lång and rolig matter?

You can say Resan till Spanien var rolig men lång, and it’s grammatically correct.

Both orders are possible:

… var lång men rolig.
… var rolig men lång.

The difference is mostly about what you want to emphasize last:

lång men rolig:
First you mention the “negative” part (long), then you end on the positive (fun). It sounds like: “It was long, yes, but the main point is: it was fun.”
rolig men lång:
First you say it was fun, then you highlight as a kind of downside that it was long. It can sound a bit more like: “It was fun, but (unfortunately) long.”

Both are natural; choose the order based on what you want to stress.

How do you pronounce Resan till Spanien var lång men rolig?

Approximate pronunciation (Swedish standard, shown in a rough English-friendly way):

Resan ≈ RAY-san
- Re- like English ray
- -san like sun but with a softer a
till ≈ teel (short, clipped ee, no diphthong)
Spanien ≈ SPAH-nee-en
- Spa- with an open a (like father)
- three syllables: SPA-ni-en
var ≈ var with a as in father (not like English “car”)
lång ≈ long but with:
- a longer å sound (between English aw and o)
- final ng pronounced like English ng
men ≈ men (like English men, but shorter vowel)
rolig ≈ ROO-lig
- ro- like roo in rooster (but a bit tenser)
- -lig roughly lig, with a short i like in sit

Spoken smoothly, it might sound like:

RAY-san til SPAH-nee-en var long men ROO-lig.