Breakdown of Din vän är sjutton år.
vara
to be
vännen
the friend
året
the year
din
your (singular; din/ditt/dina)
sjutton
seventeen
Questions & Answers about Din vän är sjutton år.
Why do we use Din here instead of Ditt or Dina?
Din is the word for your when describing a singular en-word. Because friend is en vän, we use din. If you were talking about an ett-word, like a child (ett barn), you would use ditt barn, and for plural nouns you would use dina.
The translation says years, but does år also mean year?
Yes, it means both! År is an ett-word that ends in a consonant (ett år). In Swedish, this specific group of words does not change spelling in the plural. So one year is ett år, and seventeen years is sjutton år.
In English we say years old. Why is there no word for old here?
In Swedish, it is perfectly fine to just say someone is a certain number of år without adding the word for old (gammal). You can say Din vän är sjutton år gammal, which is correct, but dropping gammal is faster and very common.
If I wanted to talk about multiple friends, how would the beginning of this sentence change?
You would change the pronoun to the plural form dina and the noun to the plural vänner. Because Swedish verbs do not change depending on the subject, the verb är stays exactly the same. The plural sentence is Dina vänner är sjutton år.
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