Breakdown of Om jag hade en yacht, skulle ingenting vara omöjligt.
jag
I
vara
to be
en
a, an (common)
ha
to have
om
if, whether
skulle
would
ingenting
nothing
yachten
the yacht
omöjlig
impossible
Questions & Answers about Om jag hade en yacht, skulle ingenting vara omöjligt.
Why does the sentence use the past tense word hade if we are imagining a situation right now?
This is how Swedish builds an unreal conditional (a hypothetical situation). Just like in English, Swedish uses the simple past tense (preteritum) after om to show that we are imagining something in the present, not talking about the actual past.
Why is the word order skulle ingenting vara and not ingenting skulle vara?
This is the V2 (verb-second) rule. The entire if-clause (Om jag hade en yacht) counts as the first piece of information in the sentence. So the verb for the main clause (skulle) must take the second position, right after the comma, swapping places with the subject (ingenting).
Why does omöjligt end with a -t when yacht is an en-word?
The adjective omöjligt describes the word ingenting (nothing), not the yacht. Pronouns like ingenting, någonting (something), and allting (everything) are treated as neuter concepts in Swedish, so any adjective describing them must take the -t ending.
Why do we use the bare infinitive vara here?
In hypothetical sentences, the auxiliary verb skulle (would) works just like other modal verbs and must be followed by a main verb in its bare infinitive form. Together, skulle vara simply means would be.
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