Breakdown of Alla besökarna väntade i den stora salen.
stor
big
i
in
alla
all
den
the (with en-words)
vänta
to wait / to expect (a baby)
besökaren
the visitor
salen
the hall
Questions & Answers about Alla besökarna väntade i den stora salen.
Why do we say alla besökarna instead of just alla besökare?
Because we are talking about a specific group of people, meaning "all the visitors". In Swedish, you use alla followed by the definite plural noun (besökarna) for this. If you said alla besökare, it would mean "all visitors" in general everywhere.
How does the word en besökare (a visitor) become besökarna?
Nouns that refer to people and end in -are usually do not change in the indefinite plural, so "visitors" is just besökare. To make it definite ("the visitors"), you add -na to the end, which gives us besökarna.
Why is there a den in den stora salen?
This is a great example of the Swedish "double definite" rule. When you describe a definite noun (salen, which means "the hall") with an adjective (stora), you must also put a separate definite article in front of it. Since sal is an en-word, that freestanding article is den.
Why does the adjective stor end in an -a here (stora) if it is only describing one hall?
In Swedish, adjectives take an -a at the end not just for plural nouns, but also for definite nouns. Because the phrase is definite ("the large hall"), the definite adjective form stora is required even though it is singular.
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