Learn Swedish: Bastun var varken bekväm eller brännande het. - The sauna was neither comfortable nor scorching hot.

Brännande is the present participle of the verb bränna (to burn). In this sentence, it acts as an intensifying adverb modifying the adjective het (hot), creating the meaning scorching hot or burning hot. When present participles are used as adverbs to intensify an adjective, they do not change their form to match the noun. They will always end in -ande or -ende regardless of the subject.

How does the varken ... eller construction work in this sentence?

Varken ... eller is a correlative conjunction meaning neither ... nor. It pairs up to negate both options (comfortable and scorching hot). A key point to remember is that Swedish does not use a separate negative word like inte alongside this construction, because the negative meaning is already completely built into varken.

Why are bekväm and het in their base forms without any grammatical endings?

These adjectives are describing bastun (the sauna), which is a singular en word. Because they are predicative adjectives, meaning they come after the verb var, they must agree in gender and number with the noun they describe. If the subject had been a singular ett word, they would have needed a t-ending to become bekvämt and hett.

Could I use instead of to describe a sauna?