Breakdown of Arvet lär rädda den ruinerade mannen.
mannen
the man
den
the (with en-words)
rädda
to save
lär
is said to / is likely to
ruinerad
ruined
arvet
the inheritance
Questions & Answers about Arvet lär rädda den ruinerade mannen.
How does lär mean "will probably" here? Doesn't it usually mean "teaches"?
While lär is the present tense of the verb lära (to teach or learn), it also acts as a special modal verb. As a modal, it expresses either probability ("is likely to" or "will probably") or hearsay ("is said to"). Here, it shows the speaker thinks the inheritance is highly likely to save the man.
Why isn't there an att before the verb rädda?
Because lär is functioning as a modal verb here, it follows the same rules as auxiliary verbs like kan or ska. It takes the bare infinitive of the main verb, so we use rädda directly without att.
Why are both den and the -en ending on mannen used here?
This is a great example of the Swedish double definite rule. When a definite noun like mannen has an adjective describing it, you must also add the free-standing definite article before the adjective. For en-words, that article is den.
Why does the word ruinerade end in -ade instead of just -a?
Ruinerad is a past participle being used as an adjective. Unlike regular adjectives that usually just take an -a in the definite form, past participles that end in -ad always change to -ade in both the definite form and the plural.
How can I tell the gender of the word for "inheritance" from this sentence?
You can tell it is an ett-word because its definite form is arvet. If it were an en-word, it would be arven.
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