Word
Bussen kører forbi skolen.
Meaning
The bus drives past the school.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Bussen kører forbi skolen.
køre
to drive / to ride (a bike) / to run (of a train or bus service)
bussen
the bus
skolen
the school
forbi
past, by; over (finished)
Questions & Answers about Bussen kører forbi skolen.
Why is bussen spelled with a double 's' when the base word is just bus?
In Danish, if a short vowel is followed by a single consonant at the end of a word, you usually double that consonant when adding an ending like the definite article -en. This doubling shows that the 'u' sound stays short.
In English we often say a bus goes past a place. Could I use går instead of kører here?
No, you must use kører. In Danish, går specifically means to walk or go by foot. For anything moving on wheels like a bus, train, or car, you must use kører to describe the movement.
I have seen forbi used to mean that an event is over. How does it work here?
You are right that forbi can mean finished or over when talking about time, like saying a movie is forbi. However, when used as a preposition of place as it is here, it means physically moving past or by a location like skolen.