Breakdown of Ejendomsmægleren siger at han slet ikke vil sælge huset.
han
he
huset
the house
sige
to say
ville
want to / will
at
that
sælge
to sell
slet ikke
not at all
ejendomsmægleren
the real estate agent
Questions & Answers about Ejendomsmægleren siger at han slet ikke vil sælge huset.
Why is slet ikke placed before vil in this sentence?
Because it is in a subordinate clause introduced by at. In Danish main clauses, adverbs like slet ikke come after the first verb. But in subordinate clauses, sentence adverbs always come before the conjugated verb. So it must be at han slet ikke vil rather than at han vil slet ikke.
Could we use the other target phrase langtfra instead of slet ikke here?
Yes, but it changes the tone slightly. slet ikke means 'not at all', emphasizing a flat refusal. If you used langtfra, it would mean 'far from'. Both act as sentence adverbs and would sit in the exact same spot before the verb, but slet ikke is the more natural choice for an absolute lack of desire to do something.
Does vil mean 'will' indicating future tense, or 'wants to' here?
In this context, it means 'wants to'. While vil can express future actions in Danish, it is fundamentally the verb for 'to want'. The strong negation slet ikke applies to his intention, so translating it as 'does not at all want to' captures the meaning better than a simple future 'will not'.
If the real estate agent is talking about the owner not wanting to sell, would the pronoun change?
No, han is used whether the agent is referring to himself or a third-party male owner. Only context tells us who han refers to. This is a good reminder that Danish does not shift the subject pronoun to clarify this, though it would use the reflexive possessive pronoun sit if we were talking about 'his own' house instead of just 'the house'.
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