Declension of adjectives (SVFL)

Lina is playing a really important game today. She is fast, strong, and happy. These words describe nouns - in this case the girl or Lina. Words that describe nouns are called adjectives. In Swedish the adjectives change form, decline, to match the noun.

This is called Kongruensböjning Lina is wearing a sweater, a headband and two gloves. The colour of these is green. Green is declined in different ways depending on which noun it refers to. Like this: En grön tröja Ett grönt pannband Två gröna handskar In Swedish, nouns that you put en in front of, are assigned to the gender n-genus. which also is called: Utrum For example: en tröja, en bil, en båt.

When the noun is assigned to this gender the adjective keeps its original form. This often ends with an N, but not always. But nouns that you put ett in front of, are assigned to the gender t-genus. which is also called: Neutrum If the noun is assigned to this gender the adjective always ends with a t. Even when the original form doesn't end in n.

But what is this? Two hamsters? Cute huh? Hamstrarna är gulliga Why is an "a" added to the end of the adjective? Is that because the word for hamsters also ends with an A?

No, as you can see the word for Lina's gloves do not end with an a but the word for the adjective still does. The adjectives end with A:s because the gloves and the hamsters are several; plural. Look at what's happening now. So the ball is green: En grön boll. But it's also Lina's Linas gröna boll.

Why is there an "a" added to the end of green here? It's only one ball. Well, it's about ownership. It's Lina's ball. But what if there were several green balls and Lina needs to choose one of them.

Then the noun changes to the definite form. And the adjective is changed to match this. Den gröna bollen. So an adjective's ending depends on the noun's numbers, gender, ownership and definite or indefinite form. The opposing team is playing foul.

Tommy and Selma are very dissatisfied with the game. They are: Missnöjda. There are two of them, so it's plural so the adjective must end with an "a". But in the newspaper on the following day it says that the audience was missnöjd. What is correct?

Missnöjd or missnöjda? The audience is singular. So it ought to be missnöjd. But the audience is made up of very many people. Doesn't that make it more correct with missnöjda?

In fact, both sentences are correct. This sentence is about the audience as a whole -- singular. And this is about the persons sitting in the audience, and they are several, plural. But now Selma and Tommy don't need to be dissatisfied any longer. Lina saves the final goal and her team wins the game.

The audience is happy. Tommy and Selma are happy. And oh what a happy face on the goalie.