Breakdown of Vi såg tiotusentals glada kunder, oavsett trängseln.
vi
we
glad
happy
se
to see
kunden
the customer
Questions & Answers about Vi såg tiotusentals glada kunder, oavsett trängseln.
Why does tiotusentals end in an -s, and why doesn't it use ett like ett tiotal does?
Adding an -s to a -tal word turns it into an indefinite plural quantifier meaning tens of thousands of. While ett tiotal is a singular neuter noun meaning a group of about ten, tiotusentals acts like a plural adjective modifying the noun directly, so it drops the ett.
Since tiotusentals contains the neuter noun root tal, why is the adjective glada in the plural instead of the neuter singular?
The adjective glada is describing the plural noun kunder, not the quantifier tiotusentals. Even though tiotusentals contains the neuter root tal, in this form it acts entirely as a quantity modifier for the plural phrase glada kunder.
Does the word oavsett always require the noun after it to be in the definite form like trängseln?
No, oavsett (regardless of) simply takes whatever noun form makes sense for the context. Here, we use the definite trängseln because it refers to a specific instance of crowding, but you could easily say oavsett väder (regardless of weather) using the indefinite form.
Why does the Swedish sentence use trängseln for the crowd instead of a plural word for people?