Word
Vilken tur att bilen kan bogseras gratis!
Meaning
What luck that the car can be towed for free!
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Vilken tur att bilen kan bogseras gratis!
bilen
the car
kunna
to be able to, can
vilken
which (en) / what a (en-word, exclamatory)
turen
the luck
Questions & Answers about Vilken tur att bilen kan bogseras gratis!
How do we form the passive verb bogseras?
This is the passive infinitive, which is exactly what we need after the modal verb kan ("can"). To form it, you take the base infinitive bogsera ("to tow") and simply add an -s to the end. While kan bogsera means "can tow" (active), kan bogseras means "can be towed" (passive).
Why does the sentence use Vilken tur instead of Vad tur for "What luck"?
How would this sentence look if we used the active form instead of the passive bogseras?
To use the active form, you have to introduce a subject—someone who is actually doing the towing. You could use the general pronoun man ("one"/"they") and say: Vilken tur att man kan bogsera bilen gratis! The beauty of the passive bogseras is that it lets us focus entirely on the car without needing to mention the tow truck driver.
Does the word gratis change its ending if the noun is plural or an ett-word?