Word
Hon tvättar bilen var sjätte vecka.
Meaning
She washes the car every sixth week.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Hon tvättar bilen var sjätte vecka.
Why is it var and not vart in this sentence?
The word vecka (week) is an en-word (en vecka). When saying 'every [ordinal] [noun]', you must match the gender of the noun. So you use var for en-words and vart for ett-words. If it were 'every sixth year' (ett år), it would be vart sjätte år.
Why is vecka in the indefinite form?
After words like var (every) and varje (every), Swedish uses the indefinite singular form of the noun. This is exactly like English, where we say 'every sixth week' rather than 'every sixth the week'.
How is the word sjätte (sixth) formed from sex (six)?
Ordinal numbers in Swedish have specific endings. For numbers 3 through 6, the ending is usually -te, giving us words like femte (fifth) and sjätte (sixth). Note that the 'x' in sex changes to 'tt' to make sjätte.
How do you pronounce the beginning of sjätte?
Unlike the root number sex which starts with a standard 's' sound, sjätte starts with the Swedish sj-sound. Depending on the dialect, this sounds like a deep, breathy 'hw' or a soft 'sh' sound.