Breakdown of Han fuskar, men han är ganska smart.
vara
to be
han
he
men
but
ganska
quite
smart
smart
fuska
to cheat
Questions & Answers about Han fuskar, men han är ganska smart.
Does ganska make the word smart stronger or weaker?
It softens the adjective, making it slightly weaker than if you just said han är smart. Ganska means "quite", "fairly", or "rather". It sits right in the middle of the scale: it is stronger than lite (a little) but definitely weaker than väldigt (very).
Wait, doesn't Swedish have a rule where the verb has to come second? Why is it ... men han är ... instead of ... men är han ...?
You are thinking of the V2 rule! However, men (but) is a coordinating conjunction, which is a word that simply glues two independent sentences together. Words like och (and) and men do not count as the first position in the new clause. Therefore, the subject (han) takes the first spot in the second clause, followed by the verb (är).
Is smart the normal Swedish word for "smart", or is it just English slang?
It is completely normal in Swedish! It was borrowed from English a long time ago and works exactly like a regular Swedish adjective. Because han is an en-word subject, it is just smart, but if you were talking about an ett word, you would add a -t (ett smart barn), and for plurals, you would add an -a (smarta barn).
What group of verbs does fuskar belong to?
It is a Group 1 verb. The infinitive form is att fuska (to cheat). Because the root of the verb ends in an -a, you simply add an -r to the end to make the present tense (fuskar).
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