Breakdown of Byen er kendt for sit gode omdømme.
være
to be
byen
the city
god
good
sit
his/her/its own (neuter)
Questions & Answers about Byen er kendt for sit gode omdømme.
The translation says 'known for'. Is kendt for a fixed phrase in Danish?
Yes! kendt for is a fixed adjective and preposition combination, used exactly like 'known for' or 'famous for' in English. If you wanted to say the city is known as something, you would use kendt som instead.
Why is 'its' translated as sit here instead of dens?
We use sit because the subject of the sentence (Byen) owns the reputation. When a third-person subject owns the object in the same clause, Danish requires the reflexive possessive (sin, sit, or sine). Because omdømme is an et word, it takes the neuter form sit.
Why does god have an -e at the end (gode) if omdømme is a singular word?
Even though omdømme is singular, it comes immediately after a possessive pronoun (sit). Possessive words trigger the definite form of the adjective, which almost always means adding an -e to the end.
Is there a trick to remembering that omdømme is a neuter (et) word?
Yes! This word is built from the preposition om (about) and the verb at dømme (to judge). Nouns that are created by combining a preposition and a verb with an -e ending are very often neuter (et) words in Danish.