Word
Der var en stor festival for at fejre byen.
Meaning
There was a big festival to celebrate the city.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Der var en stor festival for at fejre byen.
en
a / an (common)
byen
the city
stor
big
for at
in order to (+ infinitive) / so that (+ clause)
Questions & Answers about Der var en stor festival for at fejre byen.
Why do we use der var here, and does it change if there were multiple festivals?
Der var translates to "there was" and acts as an existential clause introducing that something happened or existed. In Danish, you use der var for both singular ("there was") and plural ("there were"). It does not change based on the number of things!
Why is it for at fejre instead of just at fejre?
In Danish, you use for at before an infinitive verb when you want to express purpose or intention, translating to "in order to" in English. So here, the festival existed specifically "in order to celebrate" the city. If you just used at fejre, it would miss the meaning of purpose.
How do I know whether to use stor, stort, or store in this sentence?
Adjectives must match the gender and number of the noun they describe. Festival is a common gender word (en festival). Since the sentence talks about one indefinite festival, the adjective stays in its base form, stor. You would use stort for a neuter (et) word and store for plural words or when the noun is definite.
Why does the word byen have -en at the end?
The base word is by, which means "city" or "town". Because it is a common gender word (en by), attaching -en to the end makes it definite, meaning "the city".