Breakdown of Forbedringen er mærkbar i forhold til i går.
være
to be
i går
yesterday
i forhold til
compared to
forbedringen
the improvement
Questions & Answers about Forbedringen er mærkbar i forhold til i går.
What does i forhold til literally mean, and why use it here?
Literally, i forhold til translates to 'in relation to' or 'in proportion to'. While you can use a more direct translation like sammenlignet med for 'compared to', Danish speakers use i forhold til much more frequently in everyday situations to contrast things or describe how a situation has changed.
It looks weird to have til i right next to each other. Is this a special grammar rule?
Not at all, it is just two separate chunks of the sentence bumping into each other. The word til is the end of the comparison phrase i forhold til (compared to), and i is the start of the time expression i går (yesterday). You will often see short prepositions stack up like this in Danish!
How can I easily remember the word mærkbar (noticeable)?
You can break it down! It comes from the verb at mærke, which means 'to feel' or 'to notice'. The ending -bar works exactly like the English suffix '-able'. Put them together, and you get a word that means 'noticeable' or 'able to be felt'.
Forbedringen looks like it comes from a verb. How does that word formation work?
Spot on! It comes from the verb at forbedre (to improve). By adding the common noun-forming suffix -ing, you turn the verb into the noun en forbedring (an improvement). The final -en is just the definite article 'the' attached to the end, giving us 'the improvement'.