Hon är ordentlig när hon städar köket.

She is careful when she cleans the kitchen.

Breakdown of Hon är ordentlig när hon städar köket.

• vara: to be
• när: when
• hon: she
• köket: the kitchen
• städa: to clean
• ordentlig: careful

Questions & Answers about Hon är ordentlig när hon städar köket.

What does ordentlig mean here? Does it just mean tidy?

In this sentence, ordentlig means something like careful, thorough, neat, conscientious in the way she cleans.

It doesn’t only mean that she herself is generally tidy as a person (though it can mean that in other contexts). Here it focuses on how she behaves when cleaning the kitchen: she does it properly, carefully, not sloppily.

Common translations in this context:

• She is thorough when she cleans the kitchen.
• She is very neat when she cleans the kitchen.
• She is careful / conscientious when she cleans the kitchen.

Why is it är ordentlig (is tidy) and not städar ordentligt (cleans tidily)? Are both possible?

Both structures are possible, but they say slightly different things.

• Hon är ordentlig när hon städar köket.
  Literally: She is tidy/organised/thorough when she cleans the kitchen.
  Focus: Her character or behaviour in that situation.

• Hon städar köket ordentligt.
  Literally: She cleans the kitchen properly/thoroughly.
  Focus: The way she performs the cleaning action.

In many contexts they can feel almost equivalent, but:

• är ordentlig sounds more like a quality of the person in that situation;
• städar ordentligt sounds more like a quality of the action.

Native speakers use both depending on what they want to emphasise.

Is ordentlig an adjective or an adverb here? In English I would say “she cleans thoroughly”.

Ordentlig is an adjective in Swedish. It describes hon (she):

• hon (she) är (is) ordentlig (tidy/thorough).

Swedish often uses an adjective with vara (to be) where English would use an adverb with another verb:

• Hon är ordentlig när hon städar köket.
  → literally: She is tidy when she cleans the kitchen.
  But natural English may be: She is thorough when she cleans the kitchen or She cleans very thoroughly.

If you want a more “adverb-like” structure, you can also say:

• Hon städar köket ordentligt. (She cleans the kitchen thoroughly/properly.)

Why is städar in the present tense? In English I might say “whenever she cleans” or “when she is cleaning”.

Swedish uses the present tense very widely, including for:

• general truths
• habits
• repeated actions

In Hon är ordentlig när hon städar köket, the present tense städar expresses a habitual or repeated action, like:

• She is (always) thorough when she cleans the kitchen (whenever she does it).

You could also see it as:

• every time she cleans the kitchen, she’s like that.

Swedish doesn’t need an extra form like English “whenever” or “is cleaning” to convey that idea; the simple present works.

Why do we say köket for the kitchen, instead of having a separate word for the?

Swedish usually puts the definite article as an ending on the noun:

• kök = kitchen
• köket = the kitchen

So:

• ett kök = a kitchen
• köket = the kitchen

This is very regular in Swedish:

• en bok → boken (a book → the book)
• en stol → stolen (a chair → the chair)
• ett hus → huset (a house → the house)

In this sentence, we are talking about a specific kitchen (probably her own), so we use the definite form köket.

Why is hon repeated in när hon städar köket? In English I might just say “when cleaning the kitchen”.

Swedish normally requires a subject in finite clauses, including när-clauses:

• Hon är ordentlig när hon städar köket.
  Literally: She is tidy when she cleans the kitchen.

Leaving out the subject here (när städar köket) sounds ungrammatical in standard Swedish.

English often allows subjectless constructions like:

• When cleaning the kitchen, she is thorough.

Swedish almost always needs a visible subject:

• När hon städar köket är hon ordentlig.
• Hon är ordentlig när hon städar köket.

So the repetition of hon is normal and necessary.

What exactly does när mean here? Is it like “when”, “whenever”, or “while”?

In this sentence, när means when/whenever in a time sense.

It can cover:

• when (at the time that):
  She is thorough when she cleans the kitchen.
• whenever (every time that):
  She is thorough whenever she cleans the kitchen.

It doesn’t specifically mean while (in the sense of “during the whole time that”), although in many contexts the meaning overlaps. Here, it’s more natural to think of it as every time she cleans the kitchen, she’s thorough.

For conditional “when/if”, Swedish often uses om instead:

• Om hon städar köket, hjälper jag henne.
  If/When she cleans the kitchen, I help her.

Can I change the word order to När hon städar köket är hon ordentlig? Is that still correct?

Yes, that is perfectly correct, and it’s very natural Swedish.

You have two main options:

1. Hon är ordentlig när hon städar köket.
   Main clause first, när-clause second.

2. När hon städar köket är hon ordentlig.
   När-clause first, main clause second.

Both mean the same thing. The second version puts slightly more emphasis on the time-circumstance (När hon städar köket), but the difference in meaning is minimal in everyday use.

What’s the difference between hon, han, and hen?

These are Swedish personal pronouns:

• hon = she
• han = he
• hen = a gender-neutral singular pronoun

So:

• Hon är ordentlig när hon städar köket.
  She is thorough when she cleans the kitchen.

If you wanted to be gender-neutral, you could say:

• Hen är ordentlig när hen städar köket.
  They are thorough when they clean the kitchen. (singular, gender-neutral “they”)

Hen is widely understood and increasingly common, especially in more gender-conscious or formal contexts, and in cases where the gender is unknown or irrelevant.

Does this sentence mean she is always tidy, or only tidy when she cleans the kitchen?

The sentence specifically says she is ordentlig när hon städar köket:

• It tells us about her behaviour in that particular situation: when she cleans the kitchen.
• It does not automatically say that she is ordentlig in all other areas of her life (her room, her work, etc.).

Of course, in context, someone might imply she’s generally a tidy person, but grammatically and literally, the statement is limited to that situation: her way of behaving when she cleans the kitchen.

How do you pronounce köket, and what’s special about the ö?

Köket is pronounced roughly like “shur-ket” in English approximation, but with Swedish sounds:

• k before ö is often pronounced like sh (as in shoe) in many accents, especially in central Swedish, so it can sound like “shö-ket”.
• ö is a front rounded vowel. It’s somewhere between:
  • the e in her (British English), and
  • rounding your lips as if for ö while saying an e sound.

Syllables:

• kö- → one stressed syllable with ö
• -ket → ending with -et, the definite article

So: KÖ-ket, with stress on the first syllable.