Breakdown of Stenen sjönk i vattnet, och kvinnan brände brevet.
och
and
vattnet
the water
kvinnan
the woman
brevet
the letter
i
in
stenen
the stone
bränna
to burn (something)
sjunka
to sink
Questions & Answers about Stenen sjönk i vattnet, och kvinnan brände brevet.
Why is it brände here instead of brann when both mean burned?
English uses the same word for both doing the burning and being on fire. In Swedish, they are different verbs. brände comes from bränna and is used here because the woman is actively burning an object (the letter). If the letter itself were on fire, you would use brann (from brinna).
sjönk means sank. Is there a different verb if someone actively sinks an object?
Yes! sjönk comes from the intransitive verb sjunka, which is used when something sinks on its own, like the stone in this sentence. If you want to say that someone actively sank an object, you use the transitive verb sänka (past tense: sänkte).
I noticed sjönk has a vowel change, but brände adds an ending. Is there a pattern for these paired verbs?
Yes, there is a very common pattern. The intransitive verbs (things happening on their own, like sjunka and brinna) are usually strong verbs, meaning they change their core vowel in the past tense (sjönk, brann). Their transitive counterparts (doing the action to an object, like sänka and bränna) are usually weak verbs, meaning they add an ending like -te or -de in the past tense (sänkte, brände).
Why is the word for the water vattnet instead of vattenet?
vatten is an ett word that already ends in -en. For these specific words, the definite form drops the extra -e- and just adds -t, giving us vattnet to make it easier to pronounce.
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