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Questions & Answers about De hittar katten.
Does this sentence follow the verb-second (V2) rule even though it only has three words?
Yes! The subject De (they) is in the first position, and the verb hittar (find) is in the second position. The object katten (the cat) comes right after the verb. This is the basic Subject-Verb-Object word order you will see in simple Swedish statements.
How is the word De pronounced?
Although it is spelled De, in everyday spoken Swedish it is almost always pronounced dom (rhymes with the English word dome). You will rarely hear it pronounced the way it is spelled!
Where is the word for "the" in this sentence?
In Swedish, "the" is usually added to the end of the noun instead of being a separate word. The base word for a cat is katt. By adding the suffix -en to the end, it becomes katten, meaning "the cat".
Could hittar also mean "are finding"?
Yes! Swedish does not have a separate tense for things happening right now (like the English "are finding"). The present tense verb hittar translates to both "find" and "are finding" depending on the context.