Breakdown of Draken bor i berget där hjälten sover.
bo
to live
i
in
sova
to sleep
berget
the mountain
där
where (relative)
draken
the dragon
hjälten
the hero
Questions & Answers about Draken bor i berget där hjälten sover.
Since hjälten (the hero) often refers to a male person, how would we say 'where the brave hero sleeps' using the adjective modig?
Because hjälten is a masculine word often referring to a male person, it takes the special masculine definite suffix -e instead of the usual -a. You would say där den modige hjälten sover. Remember that you also need to add the separate word den (the) before the adjective!
Why is 'where' translated as där in this sentence instead of var?
In Swedish, var is strictly a question word used to ask 'Where?' (like Var är draken?). When you are connecting two parts of a sentence to describe a location, you must use där, which usually means 'there'. You can think of this sentence as literally saying: 'The dragon lives in the mountain, there the hero sleeps.'
Both draken and hjälten end in -n, but berget ends in -t. Why?
This is because drake (dragon) and hjälte (hero) are both en-words, so their definite 'the' forms just add an -n at the end. However, berg (mountain) is an ett-word (ett berg). To make an ett-word definite, you add -et or -t, making it berget.
Could we use the verb lever instead of bor to say the dragon 'lives' in the mountain?
It is much better to use bor here. Bor means 'resides' or 'dwells' in a specific physical location. Lever means 'to be alive' or refers to a general way of life, so you would use it for sentences like 'Dragons live for hundreds of years' rather than giving their address.
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