Word
De hittade inte skruvmejseln själva.
Meaning
They did not find the screwdriver themselves.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of De hittade inte skruvmejseln själva.
de
they
hitta
to find
inte
not
själva
ourselves / yourselves / themselves (emphatic)
Questions & Answers about De hittade inte skruvmejseln själva.
Why is the word for "themselves" written as själva instead of själv?
The emphatic pronoun has to agree with the subject of the sentence. Since the subject is De (they), which is plural, you must use the plural form själva. If the subject were singular, like Han (he), it would be Han hittade inte skruvmejseln själv.
Does själva usually go at the end of the sentence like this?
Yes! When used to emphasize that someone did an action "by themselves" or "personally," själv or själva typically goes at the end of the clause. It acts almost like an adverb describing how the action was done.
How is the word skruvmejseln built?
It is a compound word combining skruv (screw) and mejsel (chisel). It is an en word (en skruvmejsel), so to say "the screwdriver" you simply add -n to the end, giving you skruvmejseln.
Why does inte come after the verb hittade? In English, "did not" comes before "find".
This is because of the Swedish V2 rule, which states that the verb must be the second piece of information in a main clause. De is in position 1, so the verb hittade must be in position 2. The negative word inte follows the verb. Notice also that Swedish doesn't use a helper word like "did" to make a sentence negative!