Learn Hardcore Swedish: Efter leken skrattar de åt hur roliga de såg ut i de vuxnas kläder. - After the play they laugh at how funny they looked in the adults’ clothes.

Efter leken = after the (particular) play/game
Using bare lek here (Efter lek) would sound incomplete or unidiomatic.
Efter att leka (after to play) is not how you say after playing in Swedish. Instead, you’d typically use:
- Efter att ha lekt = after having played
- But when you refer to a specific session of play, you often just use the definite noun: Efter leken.

So Efter leken is like saying “After the game / after the playtime” in a concrete, specific sense.

Why is the word order “Efter leken skrattar de” and not “Efter leken de skrattar”?

Swedish has a V2 word order rule: the finite verb should be in the second position in main clauses.

Here, “Efter leken” is put first to set the time (a fronted adverbial).
Because of V2, the verb must then come next:
- Efter leken (1st slot: time expression)
- skrattar (2nd slot: verb)
- de (3rd slot: subject)

“Efter leken de skrattar” breaks the V2 rule and sounds ungrammatical in Swedish.

Why do we say “skrattar de åt” and not “skrattar de på” or just “skrattar de”?

In Swedish, to say “laugh at something/someone”, you use the verb skratta with the preposition åt:

skratta åt något/någon = to laugh at something/someone
skrattar de åt hur roliga de såg ut = they laugh at how funny they looked

You cannot replace åt with på here. Skratta på is not used with that meaning.

You could say just “De skrattar” = They are laughing, but then you lose the information about what they are laughing at. The åt-clause gives that content.

What exactly does “hur roliga de såg ut” mean? Why hur and not att?

Hur here means “how” in the sense of “in what way / how much / how (adjective)”.

hur roliga = how funny
hur roliga de såg ut = how funny they looked

If you used att, you’d get something like:

att de var roliga = that they were funny

So:

De skrattar åt hur roliga de såg ut
= They laugh at how funny they looked.

Using att here would change the structure and feel less natural; hur focuses on the manner/degree (“how funny”), not just on the fact (“that they were funny”).

Why is it “roliga” and not “rolig” in “hur roliga de såg ut”?

Roliga is the plural form of the adjective rolig.

In Swedish, adjectives agree with the number (and sometimes gender/definiteness) of the noun or pronoun they describe.

de = they (plural)
So the adjective must also be plural: roliga.

Compare:

Han såg rolig ut. – He looked funny. (singular)
De såg roliga ut. – They looked funny. (plural)

Because de is plural, you must use roliga.

Why do we say “såg ut” and not just “såg” in “hur roliga de såg ut”?

In Swedish:

se = to see
se ut = to look / to seem / to appear (visually)

So:

De såg roliga ut. = They looked funny / They appeared funny.
De såg roliga. would normally be taken as They saw funny (things), which doesn’t make sense here.

The particle ut changes the verb into the meaning “look (in appearance)”. It’s similar to English “look” vs “look at” – the little word changes the meaning.

Why is it “i de vuxnas kläder” and not “på de vuxnas kläder”?

Swedish uses i (“in”) when talking about wearing clothes:

vara i kläder = to be in clothes / to be wearing clothes
i de vuxnas kläder = in the adults’ clothes (i.e. wearing them)

Using på would sound like you mean on top of the clothes in a physical sense, not wearing them. So:

De såg roliga ut i de vuxnas kläder.
= They looked funny in the adults’ clothes (while wearing them).

How does “de vuxnas kläder” work grammatically? What is “de vuxnas”?

De vuxnas kläder literally means “the adults’ clothes”.

Breakdown:

vuxen = adult (singular)
vuxna = adults (plural)
de vuxna = the adults (article de
- adjective used as a noun)
de vuxnas = the adults’ (add -s to show possession; genitive)

So the structure is:

de vuxnas (possessive) + kläder (clothes)
→ the adults’ clothes

This is the normal way to form a possessive with a group of people described by an adjective.

Could you also say “vuxenkläder” instead of “de vuxnas kläder”?

You can say vuxenkläder, but it means something slightly different:

vuxenkläder = adult clothes / clothes for adults (a general type of clothing)
de vuxnas kläder = the adults’ clothes (specific, belonging to some particular adults)

In this sentence, the idea is that the children are wearing the actual clothes that belong to some adults (maybe their parents). So de vuxnas kläder is the more natural and precise choice.

Why is “skrattar” in the present tense but “såg ut” is in the past tense?

The sentence describes two different time frames:

skrattar (present) – They are laughing now (or habitually / as a general present).
såg ut (past) – The way they looked back then, when they were wearing the adults’ clothes.

So the structure is:

Efter leken skrattar de
→ After the game, (now) they laugh
åt hur roliga de såg ut i de vuxnas kläder.
→ at how funny they looked (earlier) in the adults’ clothes.

The mixed tenses are natural in both Swedish and English when you’re talking about present reaction to something that happened in the past.