"Where is the animal?"
Translation:Var är djuret?
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Var is used for position and vart for direction. So if you want to ask where something is you would use "var", but if you want to ask where something is moving, you would use "vart".
Var är du? - Where are you?
Vart går du? - Where are you going?
Is it almost like saying "Where to" rather than "where"?.. helps me remembers.
...but if you want to sound like a native you should intentionally mix them up. "Vart är du? Kom här!" ;-)
As a sentence on its own, it's just wrong.
That word order would however be used in a subclause. Long explanation about Swedish word order here: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/8970470
None really, but it's more idiomatic to say var då. If you just ask var, it may sound a bit abrupt and/or childish.
On the other hand we don't use var då in longer questions, like here, there's no way to add a då to this sentence. So basically it's added to avoid saying simply Var? as a one-word sentence.
Probably because ligger means to lie (down), which may be too specific for a generic animal.
Yeah, "Where does the city of Gothenburg lie?" seems like a reasonable thing to say but "Where does the animal lie?" makes it sound like you're asking where the animal is lying down in English, so maybe it's the same in Swedish.