"Enligt honom är skärpet grönt."

Translation: According to him, the belt is green.

[sdfdsv]

Why "är skärpet grönt." and not "skärpet är grönt."?

[KeesKiwi]

Swedish's word order is often described as subject-verb-object (like english) but maybe a more accurate way to put is is "verb second". That means when you begin a sentence with things that aren't the subject (such as enligt honom), the verb takes the second "slot" in the sentence after the initial clause.

You can see this in a few other sentences too, such as...

-"Där är hon!" Literally "there is she!", because där is at the beginning. For regular word order you would say "Hon är där."

-"Idag äter jag." "Today eat I". In contrast to "Jag äter idag."

Usually swedish does this to emphasize a different part of the sentence, like saying I eat TODAY.

This page http://www.thelocal.se/blogs/theswedishteacher/2010/03/17/word-order-part-1/ talks about word order a little more in-depth.

[sdfdsv]

Cool! Thanks for the very detailed and clear answer

[KeesKiwi]

No problem! Hope it helps (:

[LaurenNoi]

You managed to answer this question exactly the way my brain needed, thank you. However, the link appears to be broken!

[Raphael972271]

Why is är before the belt

[4oYBIxtO]

See comment above

[Tobi582858]

Hello everybody, what is about the english translation:

According to him is the belt green.

Is this somehow bad English? :)

Thanks!

[Will709432]

Yes, it's bad. You can't say according to him is the belt green unless it's a question. In English, you'd say according to him, the belt is green. Otherwise it's a question the way you arranged it. According to him, is the belt green? Note the comma.

[Kati700546]

I have problems to understand this sentence. can i translate "enligt honom" in german with "laut ihm/laut seiner Aussage"?

[Alouwan1]

As I understood it, you can.

[vaskarmukh]

Why not "Enligt honom är det skärpet grönt"? May be I am confused. I had an example before where definite article such as det or den should be used even if the object is in the definite form. I thought the same should be applied here as well!! Could you please explain? Thanks

[Nihil.77swe]

Are "skärp" and "bälte" synonyms?

[haxkvinna]

yes and no. both can mean clothing belt, but one (cant remember which) is only for clothing belt, the other is for a belt on a machine, a car belt, etc

[Aryan1337]

Is sk pronountiated as f?

[Gav134170]

The word belt is baltet?

[tedroos]

That's the definite. So, singular 'belt' is 'bälte', and definite 'belt' (like 'the belt') is 'bältet.'

I hope I helped.

[4oYBIxtO]

Bälte

[Szasmine]

Funny how in Polish "skarpeta" means a sock