Breakdown of Efter en lugn paus känner hon mindre oro och mer styrka i hjärtat.
Questions & Answers about Efter en lugn paus känner hon mindre oro och mer styrka i hjärtat.
In Swedish, every noun has a grammatical gender: en-word (common gender) or ett-word (neuter).
- paus is an en-word: en paus (a break).
- The adjective lugn must agree with an en-word in the singular: en lugn paus.
If it were an ett-word, you’d say ett lugnt X (for example: ett lugnt rum – a calm room).
So:
- en lugn paus = correct
- ett lugn paus = wrong (because paus is not an ett-word)
Swedish main clauses normally have the verb in second position (V2 word order).
Here, the first “slot” is taken by the adverbial phrase Efter en lugn paus (“After a calm break”), so the verb must come next:
- Efter en lugn paus → adverbial (first)
- känner → verb (second)
- hon → subject (third)
- mindre oro … → rest of the sentence
If you start with the subject instead, you get the more neutral order:
- Hon känner mindre oro och mer styrka i hjärtat efter en lugn paus.
Both are grammatically correct; the original just emphasizes “after a calm break”.
Swedish has several verbs that can translate as “feel”:
- känna (känner) – literally to feel, often about emotions or internal sensations.
- känna sig – to feel (oneself), often followed by an adjective:
- hon känner sig trött – she feels tired.
- må (mår) – to feel / be (health-wise or emotionally):
- hon mår bättre – she feels better.
In this sentence:
- känner hon mindre oro och mer styrka
= she feels less anxiety and more strength.
The objects are nouns (oro, styrka), so plain känner fits well.
If you used känner sig, you would expect an adjective:
- hon känner sig mindre orolig – she feels less anxious.
mår is more about overall state (“doing well/poorly”), not “feels less X and more Y” in this concrete way, so känner is the most natural choice here.
- oro is a noun: worry, anxiety.
- orolig is an adjective: anxious, worried.
In the sentence, we’re comparing amounts or degrees of two nouns:
- mindre oro – less anxiety
- mer styrka – more strength
If you said:
- Hon känner sig mindre orolig – She feels less anxious.
then you’d be using the adjective orolig with känner sig.
Both versions are valid but slightly different in structure:
- känner mindre oro – focuses on the amount of anxiety she feels.
- känner sig mindre orolig – describes her state of being (less anxious).
oro (worry/anxiety) and styrka (strength) are used here as abstract, uncountable nouns. In Swedish, such nouns typically appear without an article when you talk about them in general or in terms of quantity:
- mindre oro – less anxiety (not en oro here)
- mer styrka – more strength (not en styrka here)
You would use an article if you mean a specific instance:
- en oro – a particular worry (rare, usually with additional specification)
- en styrka – a specific strength, talent, or power.
In this context, it’s about general feelings, so no article is used.
mer and mindre are the standard comparative forms for mass/uncountable nouns and with abstract quantities:
- mer = more
- mindre = less
They work much like in English:
- mer vatten – more water
- mindre tid – less time
- mer styrka – more strength
- mindre oro – less anxiety
There is also mera, an older or more emphatic form of mer, but mer is far more common in modern standard Swedish.
You could say mera styrka but it sounds a bit more poetic or old-fashioned; mer styrka is the normal choice.
Swedish often omits possessive pronouns (min, din, hans, hennes, etc.) when the owner is clear from the subject and the noun is a body part or something closely belonging to the person.
So instead of:
- i hennes hjärta – in her heart
Swedish prefers:
- i hjärtat – literally “in the heart”, but understood as in her heart in this context.
Examples:
- Hon skakar på huvudet. – She shakes her head.
- Han lyfter armen. – He lifts his arm.
You only use the possessive if you need to emphasize whose it is or avoid ambiguity.
Hjärta is an ett-word (neuter noun):
- ett hjärta – a heart
- hjärtat – the heart (definite singular)
In the sentence, the form hjärtat is the definite form: “the heart”.
This is standard when referring to someone’s heart as a concrete organ or as the figurative seat of feelings:
- Ont i hjärtat – pain in the heart
- Det värmer i hjärtat – it warms the heart
So i hjärtat literally means “in the heart” but is interpreted as “in her heart” here.
Grammatically, i hjärtat comes directly after styrka, so it most naturally attaches to “styrka”:
- mer styrka i hjärtat – more strength in (her) heart.
However, semantically it’s easy to understand it as describing her whole emotional state (less worry, more inner strength), and Swedish listeners will usually do that.
If you really wanted to make it clear that both are “in the heart”, you could rephrase, for example:
- …känner mindre oro och mer styrka i sitt hjärta
- …känner mindre oro *i hjärtat och mer styrka i hjärtat* (more explicit, but clumsy).
Yes, you could say “efter en lugn stund”, but the nuance changes slightly:
- paus – a break from something (work, activity, stress). It implies an interruption in something ongoing.
- stund – a while / moment / period of time, more neutral and not necessarily a “break” from anything.
So:
- efter en lugn paus – after a calm break (from what she was doing)
- efter en lugn stund – after a calm moment/period (just some peaceful time)
Both sound natural; paus emphasizes a break in activity, stund emphasizes the quiet time itself.