Breakdown of Varje person betalar sin egen biljett.
biljetten
the ticket
sin
his/her/its/their own (en-word)
betala
to pay
var
every (with ordinal)
egen
own
personen
the person (an individual)
Questions & Answers about Varje person betalar sin egen biljett.
Why does the sentence use sin instead of deras (their) or hans/hennes (his/her)?
In Swedish, when a third-person subject (here, Varje person) owns the object in the exact same clause, you must use the reflexive possessive pronoun sin, sitt, or sina. If you used hans or hennes here, it would mean the person is paying for someone else's ticket!
The English translation says "pays for", so why isn't there a word like för after betalar?
When you are directly stating the item or service you are buying, the Swedish verb betala does not need a preposition. You literally say "pays their ticket". You generally only use för if you mention the amount of money being exchanged, such as in De betalar 100 kronor för biljetten (They pay 100 crowns for the ticket).
Why is it egen and not eget or egna?
Egen (own) acts like an adjective and must agree with the noun it describes. Because biljett is a singular en-word, we use egen. If the person were paying for an ett-word like a train (ett tåg), it would be sitt eget tåg, and for plural tickets it would be sina egna biljetter.
Why is biljett in the indefinite form (without the -en at the end) if we mean a specific ticket?
In Swedish, whenever a noun comes immediately after a possessive word like min, din, or sin, it must be in the indefinite form. Even though the ticket is specific to that person, you say sin egen biljett, never sin egen biljetten.
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