Question 1

Why do we use sitt instead of dess for "its" here?

Accepted Answer

In Swedish, the reflexive possessive pronouns sin, sitt, and sina are used when the subject of the clause owns the object, even if the subject is a non-human thing like kulan (the bullet). Since the bullet missed its own target, and mål is an ett-word, we use sitt. If you used dess, it would grammatically imply that the bullet hit a target belonging to something else.

Question 2

I usually see träffa used to mean "meet". Does it mean "hit" in contexts like this?

Accepted Answer

Yes! While you often first learn träffa as "to meet" (a person), its literal physical meaning is "to strike" or "to hit" a target. You will also see this in related words like the noun en fullträff (a direct hit or bullseye).

Question 3

Does kulan only translate to "the bullet"?

Accepted Answer

Not at all. En kula is a versatile word for many small, spherical objects. Depending on the context, it can mean a bullet, a marble, a ball (like a billiard ball or shot put), or even a scoop of ice cream (en kula glass). Here, the context of hitting a target (träffade sitt mål) makes "bullet" the most logical translation.

Question 4

Could I put aldrig at the beginning of the sentence to emphasize that it never hit the target?

Accepted Answer

You can, but it changes the word order. Because Swedish requires the verb to come in the second position (the V2 rule), moving the adverb to the front forces the subject and verb to swap places: Aldrig träffade kulan sitt mål. This phrasing sounds quite dramatic or literary, so the standard word order shown in the main sentence is much more common.

Kulan träffade aldrig sitt mål.

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