Breakdown of De som tittar ser de röda näbbarna.
röd
red
se
to see
de
the (plural, before adjective)
som
who / which / that (relative pronoun)
titta
to look (direct your eyes)
näbben
the beak
Questions & Answers about De som tittar ser de röda näbbarna.
Could I say De vilka tittar instead of De som tittar since this lesson focuses on vilka?
No, you must use som here. While formal Swedish uses vilka as a relative pronoun after prepositions (like fåglarna på vilka vi tittar - the birds at which we look), you cannot use vilka directly after a demonstrative pronoun like de (those). The phrase de som is the strict, fixed pairing for "those who".
Two verbs back-to-back: why does ser come immediately after tittar?
The entire phrase De som tittar (Those who watch) acts as the subject of the main sentence. Because Swedish is a verb-second (V2) language, the main verb of the sentence (ser) must take the second position immediately after that whole subject block.
The word de appears twice here. Are they doing the exact same grammatical job?
No, they have different jobs, even though both are pronounced dom in everyday speech. The first De acts as a demonstrative pronoun meaning "those" (De som = "Those who"). The second de is the plural definite article meaning "the", which is required because the adjective röda comes before the definite noun näbbarna.
Since it is pronounced dom, could I write Dem som tittar at the start of the sentence instead?
No, because De is the subject of the main clause here ("Those... see"). You would only write dem som if the group of people was the object of the action. For example: Vi ser dem som tittar (We see those who watch).
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