Breakdown of Hon lär oss häxkonsten, men vi förstår den inte.
hon
she
vi
we
den
it (common)
inte
not
förstå
to understand
oss
us
men
but
lära
to teach (lära sig = to learn)
häxkonsten
the witchcraft
Questions & Answers about Hon lär oss häxkonsten, men vi förstår den inte.
How is the compound word häxkonsten formed?
It is made by combining häxa (witch) and konsten (the art). When a Swedish noun ending in -a becomes the first part of a compound word, we typically drop that final -a to use the pure stem. That is why häxa changes to häx- before joining konst.
I thought lär meant learn. Why is it translated as teaches here?
The verb att lära is tricky because it can mean both to teach and to learn. When you use it with a person as the object, like oss (us) in this sentence, it means teach. To say someone is learning, Swedish uses a reflexive pronoun: hon lär sig means she learns.
Why does the sentence use den for it instead of det?
The pronoun den points directly back to häxkonsten. Because the base noun is en konst (an art), it is an en-word. When saying it about an en-word, you must use den.
Why is inte at the very end of the sentence instead of right after the verb?
Normally in a main clause, inte goes immediately after the verb. However, when the object of the sentence is a short pronoun like den, det, or oss, it usually jumps ahead of inte. If we used the full noun instead, it would go back to the standard order: vi förstår inte häxkonsten.
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