"Kona mi elsker meg ikke."
Translation:My wife doesn't love me.
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Whoever made up those sentences, probably has some personal issues. Head up!
I can assure you I have no wife... and I don't want one... because she'll never love me... cries into pillow
What an interesting sentence. Can anyone explain me the difference between mitt/min/mi? Is it somehow related to indefinite vs. definite?
It's related to the grammatical gender of the noun:
mi (feminine)
min (masculine, but can also be used for feminine nouns)
mitt (neuter)
I can only assume he was the guy who cried on the floor while eating an apple.
When dealing with personal pronouns, the negation may be placed either directly after the verb, or after the following pronoun. Beware that there is a difference in meaning between the two:
"Kona mi elsker meg ikke" = "My wife doesn't love me." - her feelings changed/were never there.
"Kona mi elsker ikke meg" = "My wife doesn't love me." - but she does love somebody else.
It's the difference between your wife not feeling any love for you, and your wife loving someone else instead of you.
Try reading the two English sentences out loud, and stressing the bolded word each time. See if the meaning changes for you.
These things are much easier to grasp in context than they are in short Duolingo sentences, so don't worry too much about it if it still doesn't click.
You can say either "mi kone" or "kona mi".
When the noun precedes the possessive, it needs to be in its definite form.
This is no longer considered grammatical in English. Maybe 300 years ago, but not today.
Someone posted the answer earlier in this thread. Their name is Deliciae. They said:
"It's related to the grammatical gender of the noun: mi (feminine) min (masculine, but can also be used for feminine nouns) mitt (neuter)"
Absolutely.
NB: This will not be the case for the listening exercise of this sentence, as the voice says "kona".
That's perfectly grammatical, but it may sound weird to some Norwegians who think of "wife" as being a quintessentially feminine noun.
I'm confused becaue 'kona' means 'the wife', so it sounds funny to say 'the my wife' (kona mi elsker...) instead of 'kone mi elsker...'
The possessive follows the gender of the noun, so it's either "kona mi" (f) or "konen min" (m).
'Min kone' is fine, but the V.2 rule argues against that placement of 'ikke.' Now, you could say 'Min kone, ikke elsk meg!' but it would have a very different meaning.
Thank you.
How about, 'Min kone elsker meg ikke'? Or, 'Min kone elsker ikke meg'?
