Breakdown of Vad mäktig katedralen är!
vara
to be
katedralen
the cathedral
vad
how (in exclamations)
mäktig
majestic
Questions & Answers about Vad mäktig katedralen är!
The English translation says "How majestic", so why does the Swedish sentence use Vad (what) instead of Hur (how)?
In Swedish, exclamations almost always use Vad followed by an adjective or adverb to mean "How [adjective]!". If you used Hur and said Hur mäktig är katedralen?, it would turn into a direct question asking for a measurement or degree of its majesty, rather than expressing awe.
Why is the verb är at the very end of the sentence?
Exclamatory clauses with Vad use subordinate clause word order. The structure is always Vad + adjective/adverb + subject + verb. Because of this rule, the subject (katedralen) must come right before the verb (är).
Since katedralen is in the definite form (the cathedral), shouldn't the adjective be in the definite form too, like mäktiga?
No, because the adjective here is predicative, meaning it describes the subject across a verb, just like in the basic sentence Katedralen är mäktig. In these Vad exclamations, the adjective takes the indefinite form that matches the noun's gender (mäktig for en-words, mäktigt for ett-words, and mäktiga for plurals).
I usually see mäktig translated as "powerful" or "mighty". Is "majestic" a common translation?