Gender (Uter, neuter and reale)

The Swedish language depends a lot on gender of a word.
It controls what form an adjective should be in and what plural/article ending to use.

Uter is a gender which was formed by merging together masculine and feminime.
It's used for most living things, such as people, nationalities, occupations, animals and plants, but never trees themselves. However, the names of the trees are uter.
Thus, man and kvinna (woman) are both uter.
What makes uter words so special is that one/a/an means "en" whenever it comes before a word in uter form. For example, "en tandläkare" means "a dentist".
Because of that, uter words are in general speech called "en-ord" (ord=word(s)).
Also, when an uter word is definite, it ends with N, for example "flickan" means "the girl".
Most uter words end with A and all foreign vocabulary is in uter form with exceptions of words from Latin. It's the most common gender so if you only use "en" you'd be right about 75% of the time.

Neuter words are mostly non-living objects.
Most words that are in neuter form comes from Latin, such as system.
What makes neuter words so special is that one/a/an means "ett" whenever it comes before a word in neuter form. For example, "ett hus" means "a house".
Because of that, neuter words are in general speech called "ett-ord".
Also, when a neuter word is definite, it ends with T, for example "bordet" means "the table".
This is the uncommon gender so don't use this gender until you're sure what you're talking about.

Reale is a combination of uter and "non-living".
About 75% of uter words are in reale, such as "sjö" which means "lake".
This particular thing, you didn't need to know, but I included it anyway because it's by some considered a gender of its own.

That wraps up uter, neuter and reale.
Next time we're gonna talk about masculine and feminime.