Breakdown of Hon hade skrivit en mycket komplicerad recension.
hon
she
en
a, an (common)
mycket
much / very
ha
to have
Questions & Answers about Hon hade skrivit en mycket komplicerad recension.
How would we change this sentence to say she wrote a "more complicated" review?
You would replace mycket (very) with mer (more), making it en mer komplicerad recension. Because komplicerad is a long word ending in -ad, it uses mer and mest to show comparisons instead of taking the usual endings like -are or -ast.
Why do adjectives like komplicerad always use mer and mest?
In Swedish, adjectives that are actually formed from verbs (called participles, which often end in -ad, -ed, or -ande) always use mer and mest for their comparative and superlative forms. Adding the standard -are or -ast endings to these long words is simply too hard to pronounce!
Why does the sentence use skrivit instead of the past tense skrev?
Because of the word hade (had). Just like in English, when you use have or had, the verb that follows must be in its supine form. The supine form of to write is skrivit, so hade skrivit means had written, whereas skrev just means wrote.
What would happen to komplicerad if she had written something that is an ett-word, like ett meddelande (a message)?