Breakdown of Ens personlige indstilling betyder meget for resultatet.
betyde
to mean
meget
very; much, a lot
resultatet
the result
for
for (preposition)
Questions & Answers about Ens personlige indstilling betyder meget for resultatet.
What exactly is ens and why are we starting the sentence with it?
Ens is the possessive form of the impersonal pronoun man (one). It translates directly to "one's". Since this sentence is making a general statement about people in general rather than a specific person, we use ens to mean "a person's" or "one's".
Why does the adjective personlige end in an -e here if the noun indstilling is singular?
In Danish, possessive pronouns like ens act as definite articles. This means they trigger the definite form of the adjective that follows them. Even though indstilling is a singular word, the possessive ens requires you to add the definite -e ending to personlig.
Could I use sin instead of ens in this sentence?
No, you cannot. The reflexive possessive sin requires a third-person subject to be doing the owning, and it can never be part of the subject itself. Since we are making a general statement about what "one" owns, and it is part of the sentence's subject, you must use ens.
I usually see betyder translated as "means" for definitions. Does it also mean "matters" here?
Yes! While at betyde is often used for definitions, the phrase at betyde meget for translates to "to mean a lot for" or "to matter a lot to". It is the standard way to express that something has great significance.