inspirerades

Inspirerades is a Swedish verb form used to indicate that someone or something was inspired in the past. It is the past passive form of the verb inspirera, which means to inspire. In Swedish, passive past forms are created with an -des ending, so inspirerades functions as the voice-marked, past-tense version of inspire in narrative and descriptive writing. It is not a standalone noun or a separate concept; rather, it is a conjugated form of a common verb.

Usage and examples

In normal prose, inspirerades appears when describing how inspiration affected a subject in the past. For example: Publiken inspirerades av konserten. (The audience was inspired by the concert.) Föreläsningen inspirerades av talarens entusiasm. (The lecture was inspired by the speaker’s enthusiasm.) Distinctions with the active form are important: the active past tense inspirerade means “inspired” as the subject performed the action (e.g., Talaren inspirerade publiken), while inspirerades marks the recipient of inspiration in the past.

Etymology and related forms

Inspirerades derives from inspirera, itself from the Latin inspirare “to breathe into” via the long history of the word in Swedish and other European languages. Related forms include inspirerar (present tense, active), inspirerade (past tense, active), and inspirerats (past participle, passive). The past passive is a common feature in Swedish verb conjugation, used to shift focus from the agent to the recipient of the action.

See also

Inspirera, Swedish grammar, passive voice, tense and aspect in Swedish.