Breakdown of Min kollega stängde dörren innan pausen.
innan
before
dörren
the door
min
my (min/mitt/mina)
kollegan
the colleague
stänga
to close
pausen
the break
Questions & Answers about Min kollega stängde dörren innan pausen.
How do we know to use the -de ending for stängde?
Stänga (to close) is a Group 2 verb. To make it past tense (preteritum), we drop the -a to get the stem stäng-. Because the stem ends in a voiced consonant sound (the ng sound), it belongs to Group 2a and takes the suffix -de. If the stem ended in an unvoiced consonant like p, t, k, or s, it would be a Group 2b verb and take -te instead.
Why is it min kollega instead of the definite form min kollegan?
In Swedish, whenever you use a possessive word like min (my), din (your), or deras (their), the noun that follows must always remain in the indefinite form. Even though you are talking about a specific colleague, the possessive word already does the job of pointing out exactly whose colleague it is!
Can I use före instead of innan to say 'before the break'?
Yes, you can absolutely say före pausen. Traditionally, före is a preposition used before nouns (like pausen), while innan is a conjunction used before a full phrase (like 'before we took a break'). However, in modern everyday Swedish, innan is widely accepted in both situations, which is why it works perfectly here.
What are the base forms of dörren and pausen?
They are both regular en words: en dörr (a door) and en paus (a break). Because we are talking about the door and the break in this sentence, we add the definite suffix -en to the end of both words.
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