Questions & Answers about Hvorfor er suppen for salt?
Does for mean "too" or "for" in this sentence?
Here, for means "too" (as in excessively). When placed directly before an adjective like salt, for acts as an adverb meaning "too". It is spelled exactly the same as the preposition for, but seeing it right in front of an adjective tells you which meaning is intended.
Why is the word for "salty" just salt?
In Danish, salt acts as both the noun for "salt" and the adjective for "salty". Because suppen (the soup) is a singular common gender noun, the adjective stays in its base form. If it were a plural noun, the adjective would add an -e to become salte.
Why does the verb er come before suppen?
This is the standard word order for questions. The question word Hvorfor takes the first position in the sentence, so the verb er must take the second position (the V2 rule). The subject suppen simply follows right after the verb.
How do we know it says "the soup" and not just "soup"?
Danish usually puts "the" at the end of the noun as a suffix. The base word is suppe, which is a common gender word (en suppe). To make it definite ("the soup"), you add the -n to the end, resulting in suppen.