Breakdown of En häst är stor, men en fluga är mycket liten.
vara
to be
en
a, an (common)
mycket
much / very
stor
big
men
but
liten
small
hästen
the horse
flugan
the fly
Questions & Answers about En häst är stor, men en fluga är mycket liten.
Why is it liten here instead of litet or små?
Because it describes en fluga (a fly), which is an en word. You use liten for singular en words, litet for singular ett words, and små for all plural words.
Why do we use stor instead of stort for the horse?
Just like with liten, regular adjectives must also match the gender of the noun they describe. Because häst is an en word (en häst), we use the basic form stor. If it were an ett word like ett djur (an animal), it would be stort.
The word mycket usually means "much" or "a lot". Does it mean something else here?
Yes! In Swedish, mycket is also the most common way to say "very" when it is placed directly before an adjective, as in mycket liten (very small). You might also see people use the word väldigt here, which means the exact same thing.
Does the word men (but) change the word order in the second half of the sentence?
No, men is a simple connecting word. It joins two regular, independent sentences together without forcing any words to move. Both halves of this sentence keep the standard subject-verb order: en häst är and en fluga är.
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