Learn Swedish: Vad förfärligt att olyckan hände! - How awful that the accident happened!

In Swedish exclamations, vad is used before an adjective or adverb to mean 'how'. If you said hur förfärligt, it would sound like a direct question asking exactly how awful the accident was, rather than an exclamation of shock.

Why does the adjective förfärligt end in a -t?

It takes the neuter -t ending because it describes the entire abstract situation (the fact that the accident happened). In Swedish, when an adjective describes a whole clause or a general concept rather than a specific en-word, it always takes this neuter form.

What does att do in this sentence?

Here, att means 'that'. It connects the exclamation Vad förfärligt to the subordinate clause explaining what is awful (olyckan hände). It works exactly like saying 'How awful that the accident happened!' in English.

Could I use other adjectives to express the same feeling?

Definitely! Other common words for 'awful' or 'terrible' in this context are hemskt or fruktansvärt. You can swap them in perfectly to say Vad hemskt att olyckan hände!