Breakdown of Magikern kastar myntet, men jag ser det inte.
jag
I
det
it (neuter)
kasta
to throw
inte
not
se
to see
men
but
magikern
the magician
myntet
the coin
Questions & Answers about Magikern kastar myntet, men jag ser det inte.
Why does det come before inte in the second part of the sentence? Shouldn't it be jag ser inte det?
This is called object pronoun shift! When the object of a simple main clause is an unstressed pronoun like det (it), it jumps in front of inte (not). If we used the full noun instead, it would stay after the negative word: jag ser inte myntet (I do not see the coin).
How do we know to use det for "it" instead of den?
The pronoun "it" refers back to myntet (the coin). Because myntet is an ett-word (you can tell by the -et at the end), we have to use the matching ett-word pronoun, which is det. If the magician had thrown an en-word like bollen (the ball), we would use den.
The English translation says "I do not see it", but where is the word for "do" in Swedish?
As a quick refresher, Swedish doesn't use a "helper" verb like "do" or "does" to make negative sentences. To say "I do not see", you simply say jag ser inte (literally, "I see not").
Does the word men (but) change the word order of the second clause?
No, men is a coordinating conjunction, which is just a glue word that connects two normal main clauses. Because it doesn't count as the "first position" of the next clause, the second clause starts with regular word order: subject (jag) followed by the verb (ser).
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