Den åttonde juni börjar vår semester.

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Breakdown of Den åttonde juni börjar vår semester.

• börja: to start
• semestern: the vacation
• den: the

Questions & Answers about Den åttonde juni börjar vår semester.

Why does the date start with den?

In Swedish, full dates are often expressed with den + ordinal number + month:

• den åttonde juni = the eighth of June

The den is the common-gender definite article, and you can think of it as relating to an understood word like dagen (the day).

You will also see shorter forms, especially in writing:

• 8 juni
• den 8 juni

But den åttonde juni is a very normal full form.

Why is it åttonde and not åtta?

Because Swedish uses an ordinal number for dates, not a cardinal number.

• åtta = eight
• åttonde = eighth

So:

• den åttonde juni = the eighth of June

This is similar to the difference between June eight and June eighth in English, except Swedish normally uses the ordinal form in this kind of date expression.

Why is there no word for on, like in on June 8th?