Questions & Answers about Vi simmar ofta i den djupa sjön.
Why does the Swedish sentence say den djupa sjön instead of just den djupa sjö?
This is a great example of Swedish "double definiteness." When you have a noun with an adjective and you want to say "the," you have to mark it as definite in two places. You use the freestanding article den (or det for ett-words) and you still have to add the definite suffix to the noun itself (sjön).
Why does the adjective djup have an -a at the end here (djupa)? Is the lake plural?
It is not plural! While -a is the ending for plural adjectives, it is also the required ending when an adjective is in the definite form. Because we are talking about a specific lake ("the deep lake"), the adjective djup takes the -a ending and becomes djupa.
Why is it simmar ofta ("swim often") when English says "often swim"?
In standard Swedish sentences, the verb wants to be in the second position. Because Vi (We) takes up the first spot, the verb simmar has to come next. Adverbs that describe how often something happens, like ofta, usually go right after the verb.
The word for lake is sjö. Why is "the lake" sjön instead of sjöen?