Breakdown of De delade med sig av maten till grannarna.
de
they
maten
the food
till
to (direction, destination)
grannen
the neighbor
dela med sig av
to share
Questions & Answers about De delade med sig av maten till grannarna.
Why is it delade med sig av instead of just using delade?
Why do we need the preposition av before maten?
The full expression is dela med sig av something. You need av to connect the sharing action to the specific thing being shared, which here is maten.
The English translation says with the neighbours, so why does the Swedish sentence use till instead of med?
Because the word med is already part of the phrasal verb delade med sig, using it again for the recipients would be repetitive. Swedish frames this action as giving a share to the neighbors, so it uses till grannarna.
Isn't sig singular? Why is it used here with the plural subject De?
The reflexive pronoun sig applies to the third person in both the singular (he, she, it) and the plural (they). Since the subject is De, the matching reflexive pronoun is still sig.
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