Allt and alla very well both mean... well, something pretty close to the "all" of the English language. As usual when it comes to Swedish, there are actually three forms of declension of the word considered: ALL - ALLT - ALLA ALL - used with uncountable (uncountable meaning pretty much the same kind of words that you can't use "a" or "an" in English - uncountable, abstract etc.) singular words of the EN-family *Jag skall ägna all fritid åt hunden. *All kärlek till dig, min sköna. *Publiken visade all sin glädje. *All respekt till mina föräldrar. *Hon gav honom all kärlek. Menar du all? And now the ones you wanted to know about: ALLT - used with uncountable words of the ETT-family *Jag vill att du hämtar allt gräs. *Använd inte allt varmvatten när du duschar. *Ät inte upp allt brödet. *Allt arbete skall vänta tills imorgon. *Ulla var här i förmiddags och lämnade allt. ALLA means all in plural *Alla mina vänner ska komma med mig - All my friends will come with me. --- So all alla, allt and all mean pretty much the same as "all" in English, but in Swedish you just must pay attention to the gender of the words --- THE FOLLOWING IS PROBABLY WHAT MAKES YOU CONFUSED: Furthermore, ALLT means EVERYTHING. "Allt som hände var hemskt" - Everything that happened was terrible "Allt vad han säger är dumt" - Everything that he says is stupid. (Notice the T-ending of the adjectives) Anyhow, you can't use ALLT alone. Usage, when there is no separate subject in the phrase: ALLT SOM Många är intresserade av allt som händer i filmen. ("som" becomes the subject) Usage when there is a separate subject in the phrase: ALLT VAD Allt vad publiken gör stör mig. ("publiken" is the subject) And ALLA means EVERYONE *Sture ville att alla skulle gå hem från festen nu. *Alla ville spela fotboll. *Yngve gav presenter till alla. *Det går inte att få med alla till Spanien. *Alla åkte till Skrylle utanför Dalby. IN A NUTSHELL: ALLT - used with ETT-gender words meaning ALL ALLT - used with SOM and VAD meaning EVERYTHING ALLA - used with plural words meaning ALL ALLA - used separately and singly meaning EVERYONE I wish you found this helpful! :) In fact, there are still some more cases where the usage of ALL-ALLT-ALLA changes, but let's not go that deep this time and don't worry about it because those are not severe things when it comes to understanding.