Breakdown of Han håller sin jacka och tappar sin nyckel.
han
he
och
and
nyckeln
the key
sin
his/her/its/their own (en-word)
tappa
to drop / to lose
hålla
to hold / to hold on to
jackan
the jacket
Questions & Answers about Han håller sin jacka och tappar sin nyckel.
Why does the sentence use sin instead of hans for "his"?
In Swedish, when a third-person subject ("he", "she", "it", or "they") does an action to their own thing, we use the reflexive pronoun sin. If the sentence used hans, it would mean he is holding and dropping another man's jacket and key!
Why is it sin both times, rather than sitt or sina?
You choose between sin, sitt, and sina based on the gender and number of the noun being owned. Both jacka (jacket) and nyckel (key) are singular en-words, so they both take sin. If he were dropping multiple keys, it would be sina nycklar.
Does the second sin still refer back to the subject Han even though it comes after och (and)?
Yes! The subject Han (he) carries over to the second half of the sentence, so it essentially means "He holds his jacket and [he] drops his key." Because Han is still the subject doing the dropping, the key is his own, so we must use sin again.
I've seen tappar translated as "lose". Does it mean "drop" or "lose" here?
Tappar can mean both "to drop" (accidentally letting something fall out of your hands) and "to lose" (misplacing something). Context tells you which one makes more sense. Here, since he is struggling with holding his jacket, he is likely physically dropping the key, though "losing" it is also a valid translation.
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