Swedish pronoun · determiner· top 100 most common

de

they/dɔm/

de as a pronoun

Meaning

they

de as a determiner

Meaning

the, a definite article used in the beginning of noun phrases containing attributive adjectives and nouns in the plural. This article is used together with the definite suffix of the noun to indicate the definiteness of the noun phrase.

Practise de

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What does de mean?

de in a sentence

  • De bor i Stockholm.
    They live in Stockholm.
  • De jobbar på kontoret varje dag.
    They work in the office every day.
  • I kväll ska de gå och äta tillsammans.
    Tonight they’re going to eat together.
  • De ser dem
    They see them
  • de gröna bilarna
    the green cars

Questions

What does de mean in English?

de means “they”.

Similar words

dom

Where the course teaches it

Origin

From Old Norse þeir, from Proto-Germanic *þai (with noun ending -r).

Nearby common words

de is number 27 in our frequency list. These words come just before and after it.

  • 23så so, thus
  • 24den it, he, she, that
  • 25till to, until
  • 26kan can
  • 28men but
  • 29göra do, make
  • 30ni you
  • 31ska will, be going to, (except not formal in tone, but a literal match for meaning) shall, is to; (in the past tense "skulle") were to; was to (Usually not sensible translations, but will provide the right intuition in some tricky cases – see below.)
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Sources: Folkets lexikon (CC BY-SA 2.5) and Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0), edited by Lingolib. Recording: Wikimedia Commons. Browse the dictionary