Word
Paniken var stor när olyckan skedde.
Meaning
The panic was great when the accident happened.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Paniken var stor när olyckan skedde.
vara
to be
stor
big
när
when
ske
to happen (formal, to occur)
Questions & Answers about Paniken var stor när olyckan skedde.
Why is paniken in the definite form here, when in English we would usually just say "Panic was great"?
In Swedish, abstract nouns often take the definite form when referring to a specific instance of that concept. Here, paniken refers to the specific panic caused by the accident, so it gets the -en ending.
Why use stor (big/great) with panic? Could I use a word like mycket (a lot) instead?
In Swedish, intense feelings or abstract states like panic, joy, or success are usually described as being "big" (stor) rather than "much" or "a lot". Therefore, you will often see phrases like stor panik.
The verb skedde means "happened". Could I use hände instead?
Yes, hände (from att hända) works perfectly here and means the same thing. The verb att ske (which becomes skedde in the past tense) is just a bit more formal or dramatic, which fits well with a serious event like olyckan (the accident).
How does the verb att ske conjugate? It looks a bit unusual.
It belongs to a group of short verbs that end in a vowel. The forms you need to know are att ske (infinitive), sker (present), skedde (past), and har skett (present perfect/supine).