Breakdown of Sjön är exakt trettio meter djup.
vara
to be
djup
deep
sjön
the lake
trettio
thirty
exakt
exactly
metern
the meter
Questions & Answers about Sjön är exakt trettio meter djup.
Why does the adjective djup come at the very end of the sentence?
In Swedish, physical measurements follow the pattern: item + verb + quantity + unit + adjective. You use the adjective that describes the dimension you are measuring. Just like in English, we say Sjön är ... trettio meter djup (The lake is ... thirty meters deep).
Why is it meter instead of a plural form like metrar after the number thirty?
The word meter is an en-word ending in -er, and these often have the exact same form in singular and plural. When you use units of measurement or currencies with a specific number, you generally just use this base form. So it is en meter but also trettio meter.
Does the adjective djup need to agree with the word meter or the word sjön?
It must agree with the thing being described, which is sjön (the lake). Since sjö is an en-word, djup takes the standard en-word form without any extra endings. If you were measuring an ett-word like havet (the ocean), you would add a -t to the adjective: Havet är exakt trettio meter djupt.
What role does exakt play here, and why does it not have an extra ending?
Here, exakt works as an adverb meaning exactly, and it emphasizes the measurement itself. Because it is acting as an adverb modifying the phrase trettio meter djup rather than an adjective directly describing the lake, it stays in this basic form.
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