Breakdown of Sjön har två vackra stränder.
ha
to have
sjön
the lake
vacker
beautiful
stranden
the beach
två
two
Questions & Answers about Sjön har två vackra stränder.
Why is the plural of strand (beach) written as stränder?
Strand belongs to a special group of nouns that change their main vowel in the plural. The a turns into an ä, and it takes the plural ending -er. This vowel change is called omljud (vowel mutation). You will see it in other common body parts and nature words too, like hand to händer or stad to städer.
Why is the adjective vackra instead of vacker?
Adjectives must match the noun they describe. Since stränder is plural (there are två of them), the adjective gets the plural ending, which is almost always an -a.
If we add -a to vacker, shouldn't it be spelled vackera?
When a Swedish adjective ends in -er, -el, or -en, it usually drops the unaccented e before adding the plural -a. This makes it flow better when speaking, so vacker becomes vackra.
How do we know Sjön means "the lake" and not just "a lake"?
In Swedish, you add an ending to the noun to mean "the". The basic word for "lake" is en sjö. Because it is an en-word that already ends in a vowel, we just attach an -n to the end to make it Sjön (the lake).
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