Learn Hardcore Swedish: Vid dörren hänger våra jackor, tröjor och byxor på en lång vägg. - By the door our jackets, sweaters and trousers hang on a long wall.

vid dörren = by/at the door, i.e. close to the door.
på dörren = on the door, literally on the surface (e.g. Det hänger en lapp på dörren – “There’s a note on the door”).
i dörren = in the doorway / in the door, usually meaning in the opening or stuck in the door frame (e.g. Hon stod i dörren – “She stood in the doorway”).

In this sentence the clothes are near the door, not on its surface, so vid is the natural choice.

Why does the sentence start with Vid dörren instead of the subject våra jackor?

Swedish main clauses follow a verb-second (V2) rule: the finite verb must be in second position, but the first position can be many things, not only the subject.

Here the speaker wants to emphasize the location:

Vid dörren (place phrase) – first position
hänger (verb) – second position
våra jackor, tröjor och byxor (subject phrase) – third position

You could also say:

Våra jackor, tröjor och byxor hänger vid dörren på en lång vägg.

Both are correct; the original just foregrounds the location “by the door.”

Why is it dörren (the door) but en lång vägg (a long wall)?

This is about definite vs. indefinite nouns:

dörren = the door (definite)
en lång vägg = a long wall (indefinite)

The door is usually a specific, known object (for example, the main door of the room/house everyone knows about), so Swedish naturally uses the definite form dörren.

The wall is introduced as new information; the listener doesn’t necessarily know which wall yet, so it’s indefinite: en lång vägg.

You could make the wall definite if it had already been introduced or was clearly unique, e.g.:

Vid dörren hänger våra jackor på den långa väggen. – “...on the long wall.”

Why is it våra jackor and not vår jackor or vårt jackor?

The possessive pronoun vår/vårt/våra agrees with the number (singular/plural) of the noun:

vår – with singular en-words
- vår jacka (our jacket)
vårt – with singular ett-words
- vårt hus (our house)
våra – with all plural nouns, regardless of gender
- våra jackor (our jackets)
- våra hus (our houses)

Since jackor, tröjor, byxor are all plural, the correct form is våra.

Why are jackor, tröjor and byxor all in the plural? Is there a singular form of byxor?

All three nouns refer to multiple items of clothing:

jacka → jackor (jackets)
tröja → tröjor (sweaters/jumpers)
byxor (pants/trousers)

For byxor:

Grammatically there is a singular en byxa, but in modern usage byxor is almost always plural when referring to one pair of pants.
This is similar to English “pants”/“trousers”, which are also plural in form but can mean one item.

So våra jackor, tröjor och byxor is the natural way to say “our jackets, sweaters and pants.”

Why is there a comma after jackor and tröjor, but not before och byxor?

This is the normal way to write lists in Swedish:

Items in a list are separated by commas.
Before the final och (and) or eller (or), Swedish normally does not use an “Oxford comma.”

So:

jackor, tröjor och byxor

is standard. You don’t write:

jackor, tröjor, och byxor (this comma is usually considered incorrect or at least unnecessary in Swedish).

Why is hänger used instead of är or finns?

The verb hänger is a lexical verb describing how the clothes are positioned:

hänger = hang / are hanging
är = are (very general “to be”)
finns = exist / can be found / there is/are

In Swedish, for objects that are attached to hooks, walls, or hangers, you typically use:

Jackorna hänger på väggen. – “The jackets hang / are hanging on the wall.”

You could say:

Våra jackor är vid dörren. – “Our jackets are by the door.”

but this is less specific and sounds less natural for clothing on hooks.

finns would stress existence rather than placement:

Vid dörren finns det krokar. – “There are hooks by the door.”

What is the tense of hänger, and does it mean “hang” or “are hanging”?

Hänger is present tense. In Swedish, the present tense usually covers both:

English simple present (“hang”)
English present continuous (“are hanging”)

So hänger here can be translated as either:

“hang” – Our jackets, sweaters and pants hang...
“are hanging” – Our jackets, sweaters and pants are hanging...

Both translations are correct depending on style; Swedish doesn’t grammatically distinguish those two aspects here.

Why is it lång vägg and not långa vägg or länge vägg?

This involves adjective agreement and the difference between adjectives and adverbs:

Adjective agreement with nouns
- lång is the base (indefinite singular) form of the adjective used with an en-word in the singular:
  - en lång vägg – a long wall
  - en lång jacka – a long jacket
- långa is used for plural or definite forms:
  - långa väggar – long walls
  - den långa väggen – the long wall
Since vägg is singular (en vägg) and indefinite, we use lång.
länge is an adverb and refers to time:
- Jag väntade länge. – I waited for a long time.
It cannot modify a noun like vägg, so länge vägg is wrong.

Can you explain the two place phrases vid dörren and på en lång vägg together? Isn’t one enough?

The sentence uses two location expressions that give different kinds of information:

vid dörren – gives a general location: near the door.
på en lång vägg – gives a more specific placement: on a long wall (probably along that wall).

So the full picture is:

The clothes hang on a long wall,
and that wall is by the door.

Swedish often allows more than one place phrase in a row, going from more general to more specific, or vice versa, depending on what you choose to front:

Vid dörren, på en lång vägg, hänger våra jackor... (very explicit)
På en lång vägg vid dörren hänger våra jackor... (both phrases after the noun)

The original is a natural, compact way to express both.

Could we say Våra jackor, tröjor och byxor hänger vid dörren på en lång vägg instead? Is that still correct?

Yes, that sentence is grammatically correct and natural:

Våra jackor, tröjor och byxor hänger vid dörren på en lång vägg.

The difference is mainly information structure:

Original: Vid dörren hänger våra jackor...
→ Focuses first on the place (“By the door...”), then tells what is there.
Alternative: Våra jackor... hänger vid dörren...
→ Starts with what (our clothes), then tells where they hang.

Both obey the V2 rule (the verb hänger is still in second position).

What are the grammatical genders and plurals of jacka, tröja, byxor, vägg and dörr?

Here are the key forms:

jacka – jacket
- Gender: en-word
- Singular: en jacka
- Plural indefinite: jackor
- Plural definite: jackorna
tröja – sweater/jumper
- Gender: en-word
- Singular: en tröja
- Plural indefinite: tröjor
- Plural definite: tröjorna
byxor – pants/trousers
- Commonly used only in plural:
  - Plural indefinite: byxor
  - Plural definite: byxorna
- Singular en byxa exists but is rare in everyday speech.
vägg – wall
- Gender: en-word
- Singular: en vägg
- Plural indefinite: väggar
- Plural definite: väggarna
dörr – door
- Gender: en-word
- Singular: en dörr
- Plural indefinite: dörrar
- Plural definite: dörrarna

In the sentence you see plural indefinite (jackor, tröjor, byxor) and singular definite (dörren) and singular indefinite (en lång vägg).

Could we add så and say Vid dörren så hänger våra jackor, tröjor och byxor...? Is that good Swedish?

You will hear sentences like:

Vid dörren så hänger våra jackor...

in spoken Swedish, and they are very common in informal speech. The så here is more of a discourse marker than a literal “then/so.”

However:

In standard written Swedish, after a fronted phrase like Vid dörren, you normally go directly to the verb to keep the V2 structure clean:
- Vid dörren hänger våra jackor... (preferred in writing)

So:

Spoken/informal: Vid dörren så hänger... (acceptable, very common)
Written/standard: Vid dörren hänger... (recommended)