Breakdown of Han köper ett glas alkoholfri cider och en kopp varm mjölk.
ett
a, an (neuter)
han
he
en
a, an (common)
och
and
varm
warm
köpa
to buy
glaset
the glass
koppen
the cup
mjölken
the milk
alkoholfri
alcohol-free
cidern
the cider
Questions & Answers about Han köper ett glas alkoholfri cider och en kopp varm mjölk.
Why is it alkoholfri instead of alkoholfritt, when it comes right after the neuter word glas?
In Swedish, when you have a measure and a substance (like a glass of cider), any adjective describing the substance must agree with the substance's gender, not the container's. Even though it is ett glas, the adjective modifies cider, which is an en-word. Therefore, we use the en-form alkoholfri.
Where is the word for 'of' in ett glas alkoholfri cider?
Swedish generally does not use a preposition in these kinds of quantity or measurement phrases. While English uses a preposition like in a glass of cider or a cup of milk, Swedish just puts the measure and the substance right next to each other: ett glas cider and en kopp mjölk.
In en kopp varm mjölk, is the adjective varm matching the cup or the milk?
Grammatically, it matches the milk! Just like the cider in the first half of the sentence, the adjective describes the substance itself. Since both en kopp and mjölk are en-words, the adjective takes the basic form varm either way, but the rule remains the same: the adjective agrees with the mass noun (the milk).
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