De dekorerar ytan med glasyr och ett mönster.

and

Breakdown of De dekorerar ytan med glasyr och ett mönster.

• ett: a
• med: with
• de: they

Questions & Answers about De dekorerar ytan med glasyr och ett mönster.

Why is it dekorerar and not the infinitive dekorera?

Dekorerar is the present tense form of the verb dekorera (to decorate).

• att dekorera = to decorate
• dekorerar = decorate / are decorating

So De dekorerar ytan ... means They decorate the surface ... or They are decorating the surface ..., depending on context.

This is very common in Swedish: the present tense of many verbs ends in -r, and for verbs like dekorera, it becomes -ar in the present:

• att dekorera → dekorerar
• att studera → studerar

What does de mean here?

Here, de means they.

It is the subject form, so it is used because these people are doing the action:

• De dekorerar ... = They decorate ...

A useful comparison:

• de = they
• dem = them

In modern spoken Swedish, many speakers pronounce both de and dem as dom, even though the spelling is different.

Why is it ytan instead of ?