Word
Är du nyfiken på om de har förlovat sig?
Meaning
Are you curious if they have gotten engaged?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Questions & Answers about Är du nyfiken på om de har förlovat sig?
Why is there a på before om? In English we just say curious if.
In Swedish, the adjective nyfiken (curious) pairs with the preposition på (curious about). When you connect it to an indirect question starting with om, you keep the preposition. It literally translates to curious about if.
How does om work in this indirect question?
The word om translates to if or whether. You use it to introduce an indirect question when the original, direct question was a yes/no question.
Why is the word order de har instead of har de, since this is a question?
The main sentence is a question, which is why it starts with the verb Är. But the second part, om de har förlovat sig, is an indirect question. Indirect questions act as subordinate clauses, so they use standard word order: subject (de) followed by the verb (har).
Why do we need sig at the end of the sentence?
The verb for to get engaged is reflexive in Swedish: att förlova sig. Because the subject of the indirect speech clause is de (they), the matching reflexive pronoun you shift to is sig.