Breakdown of Vagten tjekker hvert andet vindue på etagen.
vinduet
the window
på
on / at / in (a language) / of (after nouns like end or start)
tjekke
to check
hver anden
every other
vagten
the guard
etagen
the floor (story of a building)
Questions & Answers about Vagten tjekker hvert andet vindue på etagen.
Why is it hvert andet vindue and not hver anden or a plural noun?
To express 'every other' or 'every second' in Danish, you must match the gender of the noun. Because it is et vindue (a neuter word), both words take the neuter t-ending: hvert andet. Notice that the noun itself stays in the singular indefinite form (vindue), just like we say 'every other window' in English, not 'windows'.
Why use the preposition på for på etagen instead of i?
When talking about floors, storeys, or levels of a building in Danish, you always use the preposition på. You can think of it as the guard walking 'on' the surface of that floor.
How does the phrase change if the guard is checking doors instead of windows?
Because a door is a common gender noun (en dør), you would use the common gender form of the interval phrase. The sentence would become: Vagten tjekker hver anden dør på etagen.
Does hvert andet literally translate to 'every second'?
Yes, it literally means 'every second window'. In Danish, ordinal numbers like anden (second) or tredje (third) are used to express intervals. While English often uses the idiom 'every other' to mean skipping one, Danish sticks to the literal 'every second'.
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