Breakdown of Laget var fokuserade trots att chatten var rörig.
vara
to be
laget
the team
rörig
messy
trots att
although, in spite of the fact that
fokuserad
focused
chatten
the chat
Questions & Answers about Laget var fokuserade trots att chatten var rörig.
Why is fokuserade in the plural form when Laget is a singular ett-word?
This is a perfect example of semantic agreement. Even though laget (the team) is grammatically a singular ett-word, it refers to a group of people. In Swedish, it is very common to use the plural form of the adjective, fokuserade, because you are thinking of the individual members of the team being focused rather than the team as a single abstract object.
Could I write Laget var fokuserat instead?
Yes, you can. Writing fokuserat follows strict grammatical agreement with the singular ett-word laget. However, using the plural fokuserade usually sounds more natural here because being focused is a human psychological trait, which naturally brings the focus to the actual people in the group.
Is trots att followed by a main clause or a subordinate clause?
It is a conjunction that triggers a subordinate clause. You can easily spot this because of the word att (that). This means the BIFF rule applies: if you needed to add a sentence adverb like inte (not), it would have to go before the verb var, giving you trots att chatten inte var rörig.
Is there a rule for why the English loanword chatt gets the en-word ending -en in chatten?
Yes! When new loanwords enter the Swedish language, they almost always become en-words by default. Therefore, chatt becomes en chatt, making the definite form chatten.
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