Breakdown of Tänk om ett tjugotal anställda vägrar jobba i galenskapen!
ett
a, an (neuter)
jobba
to work
i
in
vägra
to refuse
anställd
employed
tänk om
what if
tjugotalet
the group of around twenty
galenskapen
the madness
Questions & Answers about Tänk om ett tjugotal anställda vägrar jobba i galenskapen!
Why is there no word for "of" between ett tjugotal and anställda?
In English you might say "a score of employees" or "dozens of employees", but in Swedish, words ending in -tal act directly as quantifiers. They connect to the following plural noun without needing a preposition like av. You simply place them side-by-side: ett tjugotal anställda.
How exact is ett tjugotal compared to just saying tjugo?
Adding the neuter suffix -tal to a number turns it into an approximation or a collective noun. While tjugo anställda means exactly twenty employees, ett tjugotal anställda means "around twenty" or "roughly twenty" employees.
Why is it vägrar jobba and not vägrar att jobba?
The verb vägra (to refuse) is one of several Swedish verbs that can take a bare infinitive, meaning you can drop the infinitive marker att. Saying vägrar att jobba is also completely correct, but dropping the att is extremely common and natural in spoken and informal Swedish.
Does tänk om mean "think about" here?
No, as a set phrase at the start of a clause, tänk om translates to "imagine if" or "what if". If you wanted to tell someone to "think about" something, you would use the phrasal verb tänka på instead.
Why does anställda end in -a in this sentence?
The word anställd (employed) is a past participle functioning as a noun here (an employee). Because the approximation ett tjugotal refers to a plural group of people, the noun must take its plural form anställda.
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