Word
De er meget afhængige af hinanden i hverdagen.
Meaning
They are very dependent on each other in everyday life.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about De er meget afhængige af hinanden i hverdagen.
Why does hinanden come right after af here?
Hinanden means "each other" and is used here as the object of the preposition af. The phrase afhængig af means "dependent on", so afhængig af hinanden translates smoothly to "dependent on each other". Prepositions in Danish go right before the reciprocal pronoun just like they do in English.
Why is the adjective afhængige spelled with an -e at the end?
Because it describes the subject De (they), which is plural. In Danish, adjectives must agree with the noun or pronoun they describe. We take the base word afhængig (dependent) and add an -e to make it plural. It is easy to forget this rule in longer sentences, but adjectives always follow the subject's number.
The English translation says "dependent on", but doesn't af usually mean "of"?
Prepositions rarely match up perfectly between languages. While af often translates to "of" or "by", the specific fixed expression in Danish is always afhængig af. It is best to memorize the preposition together with the adjective as a single block of vocabulary.
Why does Danish use the definite form hverdagen here?
The base word hverdag means "everyday life" or "weekday". When talking generally about what happens "in everyday life" or "on a daily basis", Danish uses the definite phrase i hverdagen (literally "in the everyday"). It is a common expression you will hear often.