Breakdown of Magikern letar efter kaninen, men han hittar den inte.
han
he
den
it (common)
hitta
to find
inte
not
men
but
leta efter
to look for (physical items, everyday)
magikern
the magician
kaninen
the rabbit
Questions & Answers about Magikern letar efter kaninen, men han hittar den inte.
Why is it hittar den inte and not hittar inte den?
This is an example of object pronoun shift. In a simple main clause, when the object is a short, unstressed pronoun like den (it), it usually jumps in front of inte (not). If we used the full noun instead of a pronoun, it would stay after the negation: han hittar inte kaninen (he does not find the rabbit).
Why do we need the word efter after letar?
The verb letar means 'searches' or 'looks'. To say you are looking for something, you must add the preposition efter. Saying letar kaninen without efter sounds like you are searching inside the rabbit, rather than looking for it!
Why do we use den for 'it' instead of det?
In Swedish, the word for 'it' has to match the gender of the noun it replaces. Because 'a rabbit' is en kanin (an en-word), we must use den to say 'it'. If the magician were looking for an ett-word, like ett mynt (a coin), we would use det instead.
Does the word men (but) affect the word order of the second half of the sentence?
No. The word men simply links two main clauses together without changing their internal word order. That is why the second clause follows the standard Subject-Verb order: han hittar (he finds).
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