Breakdown of Måste bilen besiktigas innan helgen?
bilen
the car
måste
to have to, must
helgen
the weekend
innan
before
besiktiga
to inspect
Questions & Answers about Måste bilen besiktigas innan helgen?
Why does the verb besiktiga have an -s at the end here?
This is the passive infinitive. After a modal verb like måste, you use the infinitive form of the main verb. To make it passive (meaning "be inspected" rather than "inspect"), you simply add an -s to the active infinitive besiktiga, creating besiktigas.
Could we use bli to make this passive instead?
Yes, you could say Måste bilen bli besiktigad innan helgen?. Both work, but the s-passive is shorter and extremely common in instructions, rules, and formal contexts like getting your car inspected.
I have seen this verb spelled as besikta. Could I use besiktas here?
Absolutely. Besiktiga and besikta mean the exact same thing (to officially inspect). Besikta is a slightly shorter, more modern spelling that matches how the word is usually pronounced. Måste bilen besiktas is perfectly fine and very common in everyday speech.
Why does the sentence use innan instead of före for the word "before"?
Traditionally, före is a preposition used before nouns (like före helgen) and innan is a conjunction used to connect full clauses (like innan helgen börjar). However, in modern Swedish, it is incredibly common to use innan before nouns too. Both innan helgen and före helgen are completely correct and natural here.
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