Learn Hardcore Swedish: Hon pendlar fortfarande till sitt jobb i staden, men resan känns lugnare utan all trafik. - She still commutes to her job in the city, but the trip feels calmer without all the traffic.

Pendlar comes from the verb att pendla and specifically means “to commute” – to travel regularly back and forth between home and work/school.

Hon pendlar = She commutes (it implies a regular, repeated trip).
Hon åker = She goes / travels (more general, can be a one‑time or occasional trip).

So pendlar tells you this is her usual routine, not just a random trip.

Why is it fortfarande and not something like ännu in this sentence?

Both fortfarande and ännu can translate as “still”, but fortfarande is the most common everyday choice for still (continuing to be the case).

Hon pendlar fortfarande = She still commutes (she has not stopped).
ännu is more often used in negative or slightly more formal contexts, e.g. Hon har inte kommit ännu (She hasn’t arrived yet).

In spoken, neutral Swedish, fortfarande is the natural word here.

Why is it sitt jobb and not hennes jobb?

Swedish uses special reflexive possessive pronouns (sin, sitt, sina) when the owner is the subject of the same clause.

Hon pendlar till sitt jobb = She commutes to her (own) job.
sitt is used because jobb is an ett‑word (ett jobb).
If you wrote hennes jobb, it would usually mean someone else’s job, belonging to another woman.

So sitt jobb clearly says that the job belongs to her, the subject hon.

Why is it sitt jobb and not sin jobb?

The choice between sin, sitt, sina depends on the noun’s gender and number, not on the owner.

sin – with en‑words (en bok → sin bok)
sitt – with ett‑words (ett jobb → sitt jobb)
sina – with plural (böcker → sina böcker)

Since jobb is an ett‑word (ett jobb), the correct form is sitt jobb.

Why is it i staden (in the city) and not till staden (to the city)?

The phrase till sitt jobb i staden is understood as one unit:

till sitt jobb = to her job (direction)
i staden = in the city (location of the job)

She is commuting to the job, and that job is in the city. If you said till staden, you’d be focusing on going to the city itself as the destination, rather than to the job that happens to be located there.

Why is resan in the definite form, not just resa?

Resan is the definite form of resa (journey/trip), so resan means “the journey”. Here, it refers to a specific, known journey: the commute mentioned in the first clause.

Using the definite form is natural when both speaker and listener know which journey is meant:

men resan känns lugnare = but the (commuting) journey feels calmer.

An indefinite en resa känns lugnare would sound like “a journey feels calmer” in general, which doesn’t fit the context.

Why is it känns lugnare and not är lugnare?

känns is the passive form of känna and here means “feels” in the sense of seems / is experienced as.

resan känns lugnare = the journey feels calmer (to her, subjectively).
resan är lugnare = the journey is calmer (more objective statement).

Using känns emphasizes her experience of the journey, not just an external fact.

Why is the adverb fortfarande placed after the verb: Hon pendlar fortfarande and not Hon fortfarande pendlar?

In Swedish main clauses, the finite verb normally comes in second position (the V2 rule). Sentence adverbs like fortfarande typically come after the verb.

So the natural order is:

Hon pendlar fortfarande … (subject – verb – sentence adverb).

Hon fortfarande pendlar is possible in special emphatic contexts, but in normal, neutral speech it sounds odd or marked. The given sentence uses standard word order.

How is lugnare formed, and what degree of comparison is it?

Lugnare is the comparative form of the adjective lugn (calm). Swedish often forms the comparative by adding ‑are to the base adjective:

lugn → lugnare (calmer) → lugnast (calmest).

So resan känns lugnare means “the journey feels calmer”, usually compared to how it was before (for example, when there used to be more traffic).

What does utan all trafik mean, and why is all used here?

utan means “without”, so utan trafik = without traffic. Adding all (all = all / all the) strengthens it:

utan all trafik = without all (that) traffic / without any of the traffic that used to be there.

It emphasizes the complete absence of the traffic that previously made the journey stressful. It’s similar in feel to English: “without all the traffic” rather than just “without traffic”.