"The cat does not eat the dog's food."
Translation:Katten spiser ikke hundens mat.
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'Katten spiser ei hundens mat' was one of the correct answers.. I don't understand that. Is 'ei' some kind of negative?
Second thing, I haven't reached the 'negations' lesson yet (if there is one) and I'm trying to learn the rules myself. I wrote 'katten spiser hundens mat ikke', which is obviously wrong (felt right tho), however my second question is - does the negation always follow the verb or is that kind of positioning alowed in some cases? thank you
Okay, so there's a lot to address here:
First ei is an old synonym for *ikke. You can generally avoid it altogether, though its good to be aware of its existence.
Now, when you have a negator with an object of the sentence, the word order will vary based on whether the object is a noun or a pronoun. If it's a noun, the negator precedes the object:
Jeg drikker ikke mjølk.
When it's a pronoun, it follows the pronoun:
Vi liker han ikke.
I will note that you can put ikke in front of the pronoun, but that is only when you are trying to emphasize the pronoun as opposed to another:
Vi liker ikke him. - "We don't like him [but we do like somebody else].
So in this case, you want Katten spiser ikke hundens mat. because hundens mat is a noun.
Bonus word order fact: a negator will precede an adverb:
Jeg snakker ikke raskt.