Breakdown of Vi tittar på den fjärde filmen.
vi
we
titta på
to look at
filmen
the film
den
the (with en-words)
fjärde
fourth
Questions & Answers about Vi tittar på den fjärde filmen.
Why is the word på used here?
In Swedish, to say you are watching or looking at something, you use the phrase tittar på. If you just said Vi tittar filmen, it would sound incomplete to a Swedish speaker, similar to saying "We look the movie" in English.
How do I know if Vi tittar means "We watch" or "We are watching"?
You can only tell from the context. Swedish doesn't have an "-ing" form to show that an action is happening right now. The single present tense verb tittar is used for both general habits ("We watch") and current actions ("We are watching").
Why are there two "the"s (den and the -en on filmen)?
This is a famous Swedish grammar rule often called the "double definite". Whenever you put a descriptive word (like the number fjärde) in front of a specific noun, you need "the" in two places: the standalone word den before the adjective, and the definite ending -en glued to the end of film.
Does the word for "fourth" (fjärde) change depending on the noun?
No, ordinal numbers like fjärde (fourth) or tredje (third) have fixed forms. Even though they act like adjectives describing the noun, you don't have to worry about changing their endings for en-words or ett-words.
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