Word
Hun er glad for sin nye cykel.
Meaning
She is happy with her new bicycle.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Hun er glad for sin nye cykel.
Why does the sentence use "glad for" instead of translating "with" directly?
In Danish, the set phrase glad for means to be "happy with", "pleased with", or "fond of" something. Prepositions rarely translate word-for-word from English, so it is best to learn glad for as a single chunk of vocabulary.
Why is "sin" used here instead of "hendes" to mean "her"?
This is a very important Danish rule! sin means that the bicycle belongs to the subject of the sentence (Hun). It translates to "her own" bicycle. If the sentence used hendes, it would mean she is happy with a different woman's bicycle.
Why use "sin" instead of "sit" or "sine"?
The choice between sin, sit, and sine depends on the word that comes after it. Because cykel is an en word (common gender) and it is singular, we use sin. If she owned a singular et word, it would be sit, and if she had multiple bicycles, it would be sine.
Why does the adjective "nye" have an "e" at the end if there is only one bicycle?
Normally, a singular en word like cykel uses the basic adjective ny. However, when an adjective comes right after a possessive word like sin, it must take the definite ending. For almost all Danish adjectives, this means adding an -e, making it nye.