Breakdown of Vaktmästaren städar våningsplanet på vilket sviten ligger.
städa
to clean
på
on / at / for (wait for) / in (believe in)
vilket
which (ett) / what a (ett-word, exclamatory)
ligga
to lie (be in a horizontal position) / to be located, be situated
vaktmästaren
the caretaker
våningsplanet
the floor (level of a building)
sviten
the suite
Questions & Answers about Vaktmästaren städar våningsplanet på vilket sviten ligger.
Why do we use vilket here instead of vilken?
The relative pronoun must agree in gender with the noun it refers back to. Here, it refers to våningsplanet. Since ett plan (and therefore the compound våningsplan) is an ett-word, we use the neuter form vilket. If it had referred to an en-word, such as våningen, it would be på vilken.
This lesson is about formal relative clauses. How would you say this in normal, everyday Swedish?
In everyday speech, you would use som instead of vilket and move the preposition to the end of the clause. It would become: ...våningsplanet som sviten ligger på. The structure på vilket is perfectly correct but very formal, mostly found in writing or official speech.
Why does the Swedish sentence use ligger instead of är for "is located"?
Swedish frequently uses positional verbs like ligger (lies) or står (stands) to describe where things are located. For buildings, rooms, suites, and cities, which have a fixed horizontal location, ligger is the natural choice. Using är here would sound like a clunky direct translation from English.
How do we determine the gender of the compound word våningsplanet?
The gender of a Swedish compound noun is always determined by its final root word. Here, the word is made of våning (an en-word), a connecting -s-, and plan (an ett-word). Because plan is an ett-word, the entire compound is treated as an ett-word, which is why it takes the definite suffix -et.
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