Breakdown of Pojken försöker att skriva brevet.
pojken
the boy
brevet
the letter
att
to
försöka
to try
skriva
to write
Questions & Answers about Pojken försöker att skriva brevet.
Why do we use att before skriva?
The word att is the infinitive marker, which means it works just like 'to' in English before a verb. Because the sentence says 'trying to write', Swedish uses att followed by the base form of the verb, skriva.
How do we know to use skriva instead of skriver?
When you have two verbs together linked by att (to), the second verb is always in its basic infinitive form. In Swedish, most infinitive verbs end in the letter -a, so we use skriva (to write) instead of the present tense skriver (writes).
Why does the sentence use försöker for 'is trying'? Where is the word for 'is'?
Swedish doesn't have a direct equivalent to the English 'is doing' forms. The single present tense verb försöker covers both 'tries' and 'is trying'. You should never put är (is) next to another verb to show an ongoing action.
Let's review definite nouns: why are we using pojken and brevet?
In Swedish, 'the' is attached to the end of the noun instead of being a separate word. Pojke (boy) gets an -n to become pojken (the boy). Because brev (letter) is an ett-word, it gets -et at the end to become brevet (the letter).
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