Breakdown of Suppen skal simre i gryden før vi spiser den.
den
it (common)
spise
to eat
vi
we
i
in
skulle
to have to / must / to be going to
gryden
the pot
før
before
suppen
the soup
simre
to simmer
Questions & Answers about Suppen skal simre i gryden før vi spiser den.
The English translation uses "must", so why is the Danish word skal and not må?
In Danish, skal is often used for instructions, plans, or firm obligations (the soup is supposed to simmer). If you used må, it would sound either like you are giving the soup permission to simmer, or making a logical deduction that it must be simmering right now.
Can I use inden instead of før in this sentence?
Yes, inden and før are highly interchangeable when introducing a new clause. Both act as conjunctions meaning "before" an action happens, so you could easily say inden vi spiser den without changing the meaning.
Why does the sentence end with den instead of det for the word "it"?
The pronoun must match the grammatical gender of the noun it replaces. Since the word for soup is common gender (en suppe, becoming suppen), you must refer back to it with den. If it were a neuter noun like brødet (the bread), you would use det.
If I wanted to add a central adverb like altid (always) to the second part of the sentence, where would it go?
Because før vi spiser den is a subordinate clause, central adverbs like altid must be placed between the subject and the verb. The phrase would become før vi altid spiser den. Remember that in a main clause, the adverb normally comes after the verb.
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