Breakdown of För tio år sedan hade han ett helt annat kroppsspråk.
ett
a, an (neuter)
han
he
ha
to have
året
the year
annan
other / another (en-word)
tio
ten
hel
whole
för ... sedan
ago (in 'för ... sedan')
kroppsspråket
the body language
Questions & Answers about För tio år sedan hade han ett helt annat kroppsspråk.
How could I turn this into a focused question asking 'When was it that he had a completely different body language?' using this lesson's cleft construction?
You would say När var det som han hade ett helt annat kroppsspråk? Notice that because the original action is in the past tense (hade), the cleft construction uses var det instead of är det.
Why is the verb hade placed before the subject han?
This is a classic example of the V2 (verb-second) rule. Because the sentence starts with the time phrase För tio år sedan in the first position, the verb hade must take the second position, pushing the subject han to the third.
Why are both helt and annat spelled with a 't' at the end?
They are adapting to the neuter noun ett kroppsspråk (body language). Annat is the neuter form of the adjective annan (different/other). Helt acts as an adverb here meaning 'completely' modifying annat, and adverbs formed from adjectives take the neuter -t ending.
How does the expression for 'ago' work in Swedish?
Unlike English which puts 'ago' at the end, Swedish uses a two-part phrase wrapping around the time amount: för + [amount of time] + sedan. Here, that gives us för tio år sedan.
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