Learn Swedish: Är kandidaten både kvalificerad och trevlig? - Is the candidate both qualified and nice?

Både means "both" and och means "and". Together they form a pair used to link two similar things—in this case, the two adjectives describing the candidate: kvalificerad (qualified) and trevlig (nice). Just like in English, they wrap around the first item in the list!

Why do kvalificerad and trevlig not have an -a or -t at the end?

Adjectives in Swedish change their endings to match the noun they describe. Here, they describe kandidaten (the candidate), which is a singular en-word (from en kandidat). Because of this, both adjectives stay in their basic form. If the noun were an ett-word, they would end in -t, and if it were plural, they would end in -a.

Kvalificerad looks like a verb in the past tense. Is it an adjective here?

Yes! It is technically a past participle (a verb form used to describe a state, like "qualified" in English), but it acts exactly like a normal adjective in this sentence. It describes the noun kandidaten and will change its ending to match the noun's gender and number, just like trevlig does.

If I wanted to say "The candidate is both qualified and nice", how does the word order change?