Breakdown of Föreställningen skulle börja utomhus innan det började åska.
börja
to start
innan
before
utomhus
outdoors
det
there (dummy subject)
skulle
would
föreställningen
the performance (show)
åska
to thunderstorm
Questions & Answers about Föreställningen skulle börja utomhus innan det började åska.
Why does the sentence use skulle to mean "was going to"?
Skulle is the past tense of ska (will / are going to). When you pair it with a bare infinitive like börja (to start), it expresses the "future in the past". We use this to talk about things that were planned or expected to happen, just like saying "was going to" or "was supposed to" in English.
Why is the verb for "start" used in two different forms (börja and började)?
The first one follows the auxiliary verb skulle, so it must be in the bare infinitive form: börja. The second one describes the action that actually happened and interrupted the plan, so it acts as a normal main verb in the simple past tense: började (started).
Why isn't there an att (to) between började and åska?
Here, åska is used as a verb in its infinitive form, meaning "to thunder". After the verb börja (to start), the infinitive marker att is completely optional. Saying började åska is very common and natural, though började att åska is also grammatically correct.
I know utomhus means "outdoors". What is the word for "indoors"?
The opposite is inomhus. Both words are built on the noun hus (house/building), combined with the prefixes utom (outside of) and inom (inside of).
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