Breakdown of Efter att larven har vuxit, förvandlar den sig till en puppa.
en
a, an (common)
den
it (common)
ha
to have
till
to (direction, destination)
Questions & Answers about Efter att larven har vuxit, förvandlar den sig till en puppa.
Why do we use the present perfect har vuxit in the first part, but the present tense förvandlar in the second part?
When using efter att (after), Swedish strictly follows a sequence of tenses to show that one action finishes before the next begins. Because the transformation happens in the present (förvandlar), the growing that happened before it must be in the present perfect (har vuxit). If the main clause were in the past tense (förvandlade), the first clause would shift to the past perfect (hade vuxit).
Why does the main clause start with the verb förvandlar instead of the subject den?
This is a classic example of the V2 (verb-second) rule. The entire subordinate clause (Efter att larven har vuxit) acts as the first "block" of information in the sentence. Because the verb must come second, the main clause immediately starts with the verb (förvandlar), pushing the subject (den) to the third position.
Why is the word sig included after den?
The verb förvandla (to transform) requires a reflexive pronoun when a subject changes itself into something else. The phrase is förvandla sig. Because the subject den (it, referring to the caterpillar) is in the third person, we use the third-person reflexive pronoun sig.
Why do we use the preposition till to mean "into" here?