Breakdown of En ny bakterie hittades av studenten.
en
a, an (common)
hitta
to find
studenten
the student
ny
new
av
of, by / from (cause)
bakterien
the bacterium
Questions & Answers about En ny bakterie hittades av studenten.
Why do we use av in this sentence? Doesn't it usually mean "of"?
You are right that av often means "of" or "off", but in passive sentences, it translates to "by". It is used to introduce the agent—the person or thing actually performing the action. Here, it tells us who actually found the bacterium.
How does the word hittades translate to "was found"? Where is the word for "was"?
Swedish often forms the passive voice just by adding an -s to the end of the verb, without needing a helper verb like "was". The regular past tense of "to find" is hittade. Adding the -s makes it the passive hittades (was found).
Could we just say Studenten hittade en ny bakterie instead?
Yes, that is the exact same event told in the active voice ("The student found a new bacterium"). Using the passive voice with hittades av is simply a stylistic choice to put the focus on the newly discovered bacterium rather than on the student.
Why is the adjective ny used here instead of nytt?
bakterie is an en-word (en bakterie). Adjectives have to match the gender of the noun they describe, so we use the basic en-word form ny (new). If the noun were an ett-word, it would be nytt.
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