Word
Han hittade boken av en slump.
Meaning
He found the book by chance.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Han hittade boken av en slump.
Why is the preposition av used to mean 'by' in av en slump?
In Swedish, av is often used in fixed expressions to indicate the cause or nature of an event, similar to 'out of' or 'by' in English. The phrase av en slump is a set idiom meaning 'by coincidence' or 'by chance,' and you cannot swap av for other prepositions like med or genom here.
Can I use the Swedish word chans instead of slump to say 'by chance'?
No, and this is a common trap for English speakers! In Swedish, en chans means an opportunity or a possibility to succeed (like 'a chance to win'). When you mean that something happened randomly or by coincidence, you must use en slump. So 'by chance' is always av en slump.
Both hittade and fann mean 'found'. Could I say Han fann boken av en slump?
Yes, you could, but fann (from the verb finna) sounds slightly more formal or literary. In everyday spoken and written Swedish, hittade (from hitta) is the standard, natural choice for finding a physical object like a book.
How do I use slump to say that something is 'random' or happened 'randomly'?