Breakdown of Hon känner en skådespelare som jobbar på den stora teatern.
Questions & Answers about Hon känner en skådespelare som jobbar på den stora teatern.
Swedish has two common verbs that both translate as to know in English:
- känna – to know a person (to be acquainted with someone)
- Hon känner en skådespelare. = She knows/is acquainted with an actor.
- veta – to know a fact, piece of information
- Hon vet att han är skådespelare. = She knows that he is an actor.
Because the object is a person (en skådespelare), Swedish must use känner, not vet.
Swedish, like English, has different pronouns for subject and object:
- Hon = she (subject form)
- Henne = her (object form)
In this sentence, Hon is the subject that performs the action of knowing:
- Hon (subject) känner en skådespelare.
If she were the object, you’d use henne instead:
- Jag känner henne. = I know her.
En skådespelare gives you two pieces of grammatical information:
Number:
- en = one / a(n) → singular, indefinite
- skådespelare here is singular (even though the form looks like the plural too).
Gender:
- en marks common gender (formerly “uter”).
- So skådespelare is a common-gender noun (en skådespelare, skådespelaren).
Also, skådespelare is gender-neutral in modern Swedish: it can refer to any actor, male or female.
Yes, you can, but the meaning changes slightly:
Hon känner en skådespelare som jobbar på den stora teatern.
= She knows an actor who works at the big theater. (Any one; you don’t know which.)Hon känner skådespelaren som jobbar på den stora teatern.
= She knows the actor who works at the big theater. (A specific actor that you and the listener can identify.)
So the original sentence introduces some actor, not a particular one already known in the conversation.
Som is a relative pronoun here, connecting the noun en skådespelare to the relative clause som jobbar på den stora teatern.
It works like who or that in English:
- en skådespelare som jobbar på den stora teatern
= an actor who works at the big theater
Key points:
- In this function, som cannot be left out in standard Swedish.
- English: the actor (who) I know – you can omit who.
- Swedish: skådespelaren som jag känner – you must keep som.
- Som is used for people, things, animals – unlike English who/which/that, Swedish generally just uses som.
The sentence has a main clause plus a relative clause:
Main clause (verb in second position):
- Hon (subject) känner (finite verb) en skådespelare (object).
Relative clause introduced by som:
- som jobbar på den stora teatern
- Subject (understood as som = skådespelare) + verb + place.
Put together:
- Hon (1st position)
- känner (2nd position – Swedish V2 rule in main clauses)
- en skådespelare (rest of main clause)
- som jobbar på den stora teatern (relative clause describing skådespelare).
Inside the relative clause itself, the order is normal subject–verb–object/adverbial: [som] jobbar på den stora teatern.
Swedish present tense jobbar covers both:
- She works (habitually, as her job).
- She is working (right now / these days).
Swedish doesn’t normally use a separate continuous form like English is working. Context decides whether it’s a general/habitual statement or a current/ongoing one.
So som jobbar på den stora teatern can be understood as:
- who works at the big theater (as a job), or
- who is working at the big theater (right now/these days),
depending on context.
You can say both:
- som jobbar på den stora teatern
- som arbetar på den stora teatern
Differences:
- jobba is slightly more informal and very common in everyday speech.
- arbeta is a bit more formal or neutral, often used in writing, official contexts, etc.
In this sentence, the meaning is the same; it’s mainly a stylistic choice.
With places like workplaces or public institutions, Swedish often uses på where English uses at or sometimes in:
- på teatern – at the theater
- på banken – at the bank
- på sjukhuset – at the hospital
- på universitetet – at the university
So jobbar på den stora teatern naturally means “works at the big theater”.
You would use i when you mean physically inside the building as a location, not as a workplace or institution:
- Vi sitter i teatern. = We are sitting in the theater.
With a definite noun + adjective in Swedish, you need three things:
- A definite article (den/det/de)
- The adjective in -a form
- The noun with a definite ending
For a common-gender singular noun like teater:
- Indefinite: en stor teater = a big theater
- Definite (no adjective): teatern = the theater
- Definite (with adjective): den stora teatern = the big theater
So:
- den stor teater – incorrect (adjective form and noun form are wrong)
- stora teatern – missing den (colloquially possible in some fixed names, but the neutral form is den stora teatern)
Correct full form in this context: på den stora teatern.
This reflects what is assumed to be known or identifiable:
- en skådespelare – an actor, not previously known or specified; just “some actor”.
- den stora teatern – the big theater, assumed to be a specific, identifiable place (maybe the main theater in town).
In conversation, it’s common that well-known institutions or unique local places are referred to in the definite form, while new people being introduced are indefinite:
- She knows an actor (new person in the story)
- who works at the big theater (a place both speaker and listener can recognize).
Skådespelare has four syllables and primary stress on the first:
- SKÅ-de-spe-la-re
Approximate pronunciation (Swedish standard):
- skå – like English score but without the final r, with a long å /oː/
- de – very short, like de in detail but reduced
- spe – like spe in spend but with a short e /e/
- la – short la, like la in lava (but short)
- re – a reduced schwa-like sound at the end.
In IPA (roughly): /ˈskoːdɛˌspeːlarɛ/ (actual realizations vary slightly by dialect).
Stress pattern: main stress on SKÅ-, a secondary stress often on -SPE-.