Breakdown of Vi hade nog knappt tio meter till scenen.
vi
we
ha
to have
till
to (direction, destination)
tio
ten
scenen
the stage
nog
probably
knappt
just under
metern
the meter
Questions & Answers about Vi hade nog knappt tio meter till scenen.
Does knappt mean "barely" as in "we barely made it", or something else here?
In the context of numbers and measurements, knappt means "just under" or "scarcely". It tells us the distance was slightly less than ten meters. If you wanted to say it was "just over" ten meters, you would use the opposite word: drygt.
Doesn't nog mean "enough"? Why is it translated as "probably"?
You are right that nog means "enough" in phrases like stor nog (big enough). However, when it is dropped into the middle of a sentence like this, it acts as a little particle that means "probably", "likely", or "I suppose". Here, it shows the speaker is making a rough guess.
Why is there no plural ending on meter when there are ten of them?
In Swedish, most units of measurement that are en-words do not take a plural ending. You say en meter, but also tio meter. The same rule applies to words like en mil (a Scandinavian mile), which becomes tio mil.
Why do we use the verb hade (had) to talk about distance?
Saying vi hade [distance] till [place] is a very common and natural way to express how far away you were from a destination in Swedish. It translates literally to "we had [distance] to [place]", which mirrors the English phrasing perfectly.
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