Questions & Answers about Nej, den är fjorton år.
Why doesn't the sentence include a word for "old"?
In Swedish, it is very common to just say that someone or something is a certain number of years (år). You can add the word for old (gammal) at the end, but it is usually left out. So den är fjorton år literally means "it is fourteen years", which translates to "it is fourteen years old" in English.
Why use den for "it" instead of det?
The choice between den and det depends on the noun you are replacing. You use den to say "it" when referring to an "en" word (like en hund, a dog). If you were talking about an "ett" word (like ett hus, a house), you would use det.
Is år singular or plural here?
It is plural here, meaning "years". In Swedish, "ett" words that end in a consonant, like ett år (a year), do not change their spelling in the plural form. So one year is ett år, and fourteen years is fjorton år.
I learned that the verb must be in the second position. Why isn't the verb right after Nej?
Words like yes (ja) and no (nej) are separated by a comma and do not count as part of the sentence for the verb-second rule. The actual sentence starts with the subject den in position one, so the verb är correctly takes position two.