Word
Vi skulle vara tacksamma om ni båda städade.
Meaning
We would be grateful if both of you cleaned.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Vi skulle vara tacksamma om ni båda städade.
vara
to be
vi
we
ni
you (plural, subject)
städa
to clean
Questions & Answers about Vi skulle vara tacksamma om ni båda städade.
Why do we use skulle vara instead of just är?
The word skulle means "would" and is used here to make a polite, conditional statement. Since skulle is an auxiliary (helping) verb, the verb that follows it must be in its infinitive form, which is vara (to be).
Why does tacksamma end in an -a?
Adjectives in Swedish must match the noun or pronoun they describe. Because the subject Vi (We) is plural, the adjective tacksam (grateful) takes the plural ending -a.
How does the phrase ni båda work?
To say "both of you" in Swedish, you use the plural "you" pronoun ni immediately followed by båda (both). You can translate it literally as "you both".
Why is städade in the past tense when this is a request about the present or future?
Just like in English (e.g., "if you cleaned"), Swedish uses the past tense after om (if) to describe a hypothetical situation. Even though the cleaning hasn't happened yet, you use the past tense städade to match the conditional skulle in the first half of the sentence.