The adverb suffix "-vis"
In English, we often add "-ly" to an adjective to create an adverb (like turning "fortunate" into "fortunately"). In Swedish, you can create sentence adverbs—words that express likelihood, luck, or frequency—by adding the suffix -vis.
To form these, take the base adjective, add the neuter -t ending, and then add -vis.
- trolig (likely) + -t
- -vis = troligtvis (probably)
- lycklig (happy/fortunate) + -t
- -vis = lyckligtvis (fortunately)
More common "-vis" adverbs
This pattern applies to many other adjectives as well. You can use it with vanlig (usual) to express frequency, or möjlig (possible) to express possibility.
You can even combine this suffix with the negative prefix o- (which you learned in a previous lesson) to create words like olyckligtvis (unfortunately).
Word order
Because these are sentence adverbs, they typically sit in the middle of a main clause, right after the first verb (as seen in the examples above).
However, if you want to emphasize the adverb, you can place it at the very beginning of the sentence. When you do this, remember the V2 rule: the verb must be the second piece of information in the sentence, coming immediately after the adverb.