Breakdown of Pojken vill ha flera bananer.
pojken
the boy
ha
to have
vilja
to want to
flera
several
bananen
the banana
Questions & Answers about Pojken vill ha flera bananer.
Why does banan get an -er ending in the plural instead of -ar?
The word banan belongs to noun Group 3. Many international words or loanwords in Swedish fall into this group. For these nouns, we form the plural by adding -er to the end of the singular word, which gives us bananer.
Why do we need ha after vill? Can't I just say Pojken vill flera bananer?
In Swedish, vill is a helper verb that specifically means "wants to" do an action. If you want a physical object (like bananas), you must use vill ha (literally "wants to have"). Saying Pojken vill flera bananer sounds incomplete to a Swede, much like saying "The boy wants to several bananas" in English.
Why do we use flera here, and how is it different from mer?
Flera means "several" or "more" and is only used for things you can count, like bananer or bilar (cars). If you are talking about something uncountable, like vatten (water) or tid (time), you must use mer instead.
Wait, is pojken a plural word?
No, pojken is the definite singular form, meaning "the boy". The base word is en pojke (a boy). Because it already ends in a vowel, we just add -n to the end to make it "the boy". If you wanted to say "boys" in the plural, it would be pojkar.
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