Jag tycker att hennes smak för färger är modernare än min.

I think her taste in colors is more modern than mine.

Breakdown of Jag tycker att hennes smak för färger är modernare än min.

• jag: I
• vara: to be
• tycka: to think
• att: that
• hennes: her
• än: than
• för: for
• färgen: the color
• smaken: the taste
• modern: modern
• min: mine

Questions & Answers about Jag tycker att hennes smak för färger är modernare än min.

Why do we use tycker here and not gillar or tror?

Swedish has three very common verbs that all translate roughly as to think / to like in English, but they are used differently:

• tycka (here: tycker) = to have an opinion about something

  • Jag tycker att hennes smak för färger är modernare än min.
    → I think / In my opinion her taste in colours is more modern than mine.

• tror = to believe something is true (a fact, a prediction, guessing)

  • Jag tror att det ska regna. – I think / I believe it’s going to rain.

• gillar = to like (to enjoy, to be fond of)

  • Jag gillar hennes smak för färger. – I like her taste in colours.

In your sentence, you’re expressing an opinion/judgment, not a belief about facts and not that you like something, so tycker is the natural choice.

Why is there att after tycker? Can we leave it out?

Here att is a subordinating conjunction meaning that, introducing a clause:

• Jag tycker att = I think that
• … hennes smak för färger är modernare än min.
  (… her taste in colours is more modern than mine.)

Grammatically, att is optional after tycker in many everyday contexts:

• Jag tycker att hennes smak…
• Jag tycker hennes smak…

Both are understandable, and in spoken Swedish att is often dropped.
However:

• Including att is a bit clearer and slightly more formal/standard, especially in writing.
• In more complex sentences, leaving out att can make the sentence harder to process.

So: yes, you can omit att here, but the version with att is very natural and completely correct.

How does hennes work? Does it change form for gender or number?

hennes means her / hers (possessive). Important points:

• hennes refers to a female person previously known from context.
• It does not change form:
  • It stays hennes whether the noun is:
    • common gender or neuter: hennes smak, hennes hus
    • singular or plural: hennes väska, hennes väskor

So unlike min / mitt / mina or din / ditt / dina, hennes is invariable.

Also, note the difference from sin/sitt/sina:

• sin/sitt/sina refer back to the subject of the clause:
  • Hon gillar sin smak för färger. – She likes her own taste in colours.
• hennes refers to some other “her”, not the subject:
  • Jag gillar hennes smak för färger. – I like her taste in colours.

In your sentence, the subject is Jag, and we are talking about someone else’s taste, so hennes is correct, not sin.

What exactly does smak mean here, and why is it singular?

smak literally means taste:

1. The physical sense (taste of food/drink):

   • Den här soppan har en konstig smak. – This soup has a strange taste.

2. Aesthetic or personal taste (style, preferences):

   • Hon har bra smak. – She has good taste (in general).
   • hennes smak för färger – her taste in colours / colour sense.

In your sentence, smak is used in this abstract, aesthetic sense, and it’s treated as a single quality (her overall taste), so it’s singular:

• hennes smak = her taste (as a general trait)

You could say smaker (plural), but that would usually mean different kinds of tastes in a more concrete way (e.g. food flavours) and would not be natural here.

Why is it smak för färger? Why för and why is färger plural?

The phrase smak för X is a common pattern in Swedish:

• smak för färger – taste for colours
• smak för musik – taste for music
• smak för dyra viner – taste for expensive wines

Here:

• för works a bit like English for/in:
  
  • smak för färger ≈ taste in colours / taste for colours.
• färger is the indefinite plural of färg (colour), just like English colours in taste in colours.

You might also see smak i kläder / smak i musik, using i. Very roughly:

• smak för often emphasizes a liking or preference for a type of thing:
  • smak för stark mat – a taste for spicy food (you like it).
• smak i is more often about sense of style/quality in that area:
  • smak i kläder – taste in clothes (style).

In practice, there is overlap, and smak för färger is idiomatic and fully natural.

Why is the comparative modernare and not mer modern?

Swedish forms comparatives in two main ways:

1. -are ending (synthetic form)

   • lång → längre
   • billig → billigare
   • modern → modernare

2. With mer (analytic form)

   • intressant → mer intressant
   • effektiv → mer effektiv

With modern, both are possible:

• modernare
• mer modern

In actual usage:

• modernare is shorter and very common, and sounds completely natural.
• mer modern can sound a bit more formal or stylistic, but it’s also correct.

So är modernare is the most typical everyday choice, but är mer modern would not be wrong.

Why is it än min and not än mig or än mina?

We are comparing two tastes:

• hennes smak för färger (her taste in colours)
• min smak (för färger) (my taste in colours)

Swedish often omits the repeated noun and keeps only the possessive:

• … är modernare än min (smak).

So:

• än min = than my (taste)
• mig would compare her taste to me as a person, which is nonsense:
  • Her taste in colours is more modern than me – ungrammatical in both languages.

About min vs. mina:

• min is for a singular en-word (here: smak, an en-word):
  • min smak – my taste
• mina is for plural:
  • mina vänner – my friends

Since smak is singular, the correct form is min, not mina.

What exactly is left out after min? Why don’t we repeat smak?

The full, non-shortened version would be:

• Jag tycker att hennes smak för färger är modernare än min smak (för färger).

In natural Swedish, you avoid this repetition because it’s obvious what is meant.
So speakers usually drop the repeated noun:

• hennes smak … är modernare än min.
  → min clearly stands for min smak (för färger).

This kind of ellipsis (omitting something obvious) is very common in Swedish comparatives and sounds more natural than repeating smak.

Can we change the word order, for example: Hennes smak för färger är modernare än min, tycker jag?

Yes, that word order is perfectly natural:

• Jag tycker att hennes smak för färger är modernare än min.
• Hennes smak för färger är modernare än min, tycker jag.

Both mean the same thing. Differences:

• The original puts Jag tycker at the front, directly marking this as your opinion.
• The alternative puts the statement first and then adds tycker jag as a kind of comment at the end.

This end-position tycker jag / tycker du / tycker ni is very common in spoken Swedish. Grammatically, both versions are fine.

Could we rephrase it as Jag tycker att hon har modernare smak för färger än jag? Is that correct and how does it differ?

Yes, you can say:

• Jag tycker att hon har modernare smak för färger än jag (har).

Comments:

• hon har modernare smak – she has a more modern taste
• än jag (har) – than I (have)
  
  • Normative written Swedish prefers jag (subject form), because you can expand it to än jag har.
  • In everyday speech, many people say än mig (har), but än jag is the “school-correct” form.

Difference in feel compared to the original:

• Original:
  
  • hennes smak … är modernare än min.
  • Focuses on the tastes themselves (her taste vs. my taste).
• Rephrased:
  
  • hon har modernare smak … än jag.
  • Focuses more on the people and what they have (she has more modern taste than I do).

Both are correct; your original version is slightly more compact and idiomatic for comparing tastes.