Breakdown of Hun kom til at vaske trøjen forkert, så den krympede.
hun
she
den
it (common)
vaske
to wash
så
then, so
trøjen
the sweater
komme til at
to inevitably happen / to accidentally do
forkert
wrong
krympe
to shrink
Questions & Answers about Hun kom til at vaske trøjen forkert, så den krympede.
How does kom til at convey the meaning of "accidentally" in this sentence?
The construction komme til at + infinitive (here, vaske) is the most natural way in Danish to say you did something unintentionally or by mistake. While it literally translates to "came to," it functions exactly like the English adverb "accidentally."
Could I just say vaskede ved et uheld instead of using kom til at vaske?
You could, and it would be understood perfectly, but kom til at is significantly more idiomatic and common in conversational Danish. It smoothly bakes the "accidental" aspect right into the verb phrase.
Why does forkert have a -t at the end here?
In this sentence, forkert is acting as an adverb describing how she washed the sweater, rather than an adjective describing the sweater itself. In Danish, adjectives usually function as adverbs by adding the neuter -t ending.
Why do we use den in den krympede rather than det?
The pronoun refers back to trøjen (the sweater). Because trøje is a common gender noun (an en-word), we must use den to say "it". If the noun had been a neuter word (an et-word) like tøjet (the clothes), you would use det.
Does the conjunction så trigger an inversion in word order for the final clause?
No, when så is used to mean "so" or "therefore," it acts as a coordinating conjunction. This means the clause that follows it is an independent main clause with normal straight word order: subject (den) followed directly by the verb (krympede).
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