Breakdown of Du får inte tappa passerkortet!
du
you (singular)
inte
not
få
to be allowed to, may
tappa
to drop / to lose
passerkortet
the access card
Questions & Answers about Du får inte tappa passerkortet!
Why does this sentence use får inte instead of måste inte for "must not"?
This is a common trap! In Swedish, måste inte actually means "do not have to" (it expresses a lack of necessity, exactly like behöver inte). To express a strict prohibition like "must not" or "are not allowed to", you always use får inte.
Doesn't the verb tappa usually mean "to drop"?
Yes, tappa means "to drop", but it is also the standard verb for "to lose" when you physically misplace an object like a card, keys, or a phone. If you want to talk about losing a game, a job, or a person, you would use the verb förlora instead.
Why is there no att before tappa?
Because få (here conjugated as får) acts as an auxiliary (helping) verb. Just like the verbs måste and behöver, it is followed directly by the bare infinitive of the main verb without using att (to). So it is simply får inte tappa.
How is the word passerkortet built?
It is a compound word made of the verb stem passer- (from passera, meaning to pass or pass through) and the definite noun kortet (the card). It literally means "the pass-through card", which is the everyday Swedish term for a work access card or key badge.
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