Breakdown of Sjukdomen dödade många människor.
många
many
människan
the human
sjukdomen
the disease
döda
to kill
Questions & Answers about Sjukdomen dödade många människor.
Why use människor here instead of folk to mean "people"?
Both mean "people", but människor refers to individuals or human beings in a countable sense (you can count "many humans"). Folk is an uncountable collective noun meaning "a crowd" or "the public" (as in "there were a lot of people at the concert"). Since we are talking about a quantifiable number of individual lives lost, många människor is the correct choice.
Could I use the verb dog instead of dödade in this sentence?
No, because dog is the past tense of dö (to die), which is an intransitive verb—meaning it happens to the subject. Döda means "to kill", which is a transitive verb that requires a direct object. Here, the disease is actively doing the killing to someone else, so you must use dödade.
Is there a trick to remember that sjukdom is an en-word (making it sjukdomen)?
How would I rewrite this sentence in the passive voice to say "Many people were killed by the disease"?
You would use the passive s-form of the verb by adding an -s to the end. The sentence becomes: Många människor dödades av sjukdomen. This passive structure is highly common in Swedish news and historical reporting.
Learn Sjukdomen dödade många människor and more in Swedish
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free