Word
Hon letade efter parfymen efter att ha använt deodoranten.
Meaning
She looked for the perfume after using the deodorant.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Hon letade efter parfymen efter att ha använt deodoranten.
hon
she
ha
to have
att
to
efter
after
Questions & Answers about Hon letade efter parfymen efter att ha använt deodoranten.
Why do we use efter att ha använt instead of a direct verb form for "after using"?
Swedish does not have an "-ing" verb form (a gerund) to express "after doing" something. Instead, you build this sequence by using efter att ha followed by the supinum form of the verb. It literally translates to "after to have used".
Why does the word efter appear twice in this sentence?
It is doing two completely different jobs here. In the first half, letade efter is a phrasal verb meaning "looked for". In the second half, efter att ha is the fixed grammatical structure used to mean "after having".
Could I just say efter att hon använde instead of efter att ha använt?
Yes, you can! Saying efter att hon använde deodoranten is grammatically correct and means the same thing. However, using the perfect infinitive (efter att ha + supinum) is very natural and common in Swedish when the person doing both actions is the exact same subject.
Why does the verb använda change to använt here?
The helper word ha always forces the following verb into its supinum form. For the verb använda (to use), that form is använt. This is the exact same form you use in the present perfect tense, such as when saying hon har använt (she has used).