Word
Køretøjet kørte for hurtigt.
Meaning
The vehicle was going too fast.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Køretøjet kørte for hurtigt.
køre
to drive / to ride (a bike) / to run (of a train or bus service)
hurtig
fast
for
too
køretøjet
the vehicle
Questions & Answers about Køretøjet kørte for hurtigt.
Why does hurtigt end in a -t here?
In this sentence, hurtigt acts as an adverb describing the verb kørte (how it drove). In Danish, adverbs formed from adjectives generally take a -t at the end. Coincidentally, if it were an adjective describing the neuter noun køretøjet, it would also get a -t, but here it's strictly an adverb.
The translation says "was going", so why does the Danish just use the simple past kørte?
Danish does not have a continuous tense like the English "was doing" or "were going". The simple past tense kørte is used to mean both "drove" and "was driving" (or "was going").
What is the connection between køretøj (vehicle) and tøj (clothes)?
Køretøj is a compound of køre (to drive) and the suffix -tøj. While tøj by itself usually means "clothes" in modern Danish, it historically translates to "gear", "equipment", or "stuff". So a køretøj is literally "driving gear". You will see this same suffix in words like legetøj (toys) and værktøj (tools).
How do we know for means "too" here instead of "for"?
When the word for is placed directly in front of an adjective or an adverb like hurtigt, it acts as an adverb of degree meaning "too" or "excessively". When it is followed by a noun or pronoun, it typically acts as the preposition "for".