The definite ending (barnet, hunden)

"The" goes on the end

English puts the in front of the noun. Swedish welds it onto the back: barnet (the child), hunden (the dog), familjen (the family). There is no separate word — the ending is doing the work of "the". It is not a plural and not a case ending.

The ending is the gender

Swedish nouns come in two genders, and this is where you see it: -en (or just -n after a vowel) is common, -et (or -t) is neuter. Nothing in the meaning predicts it — hunden is common, barnet is neuter — so nouns are learned in this form.

"To be": är

Swedish verbs do not change for person. vara is är for everybody.

den and det

The gender decides which "it" you use: den for an -en noun, det for an -et noun. det is also how you point something out, whatever the gender.

här and och