"A lemon, a tomato, and a strawberry."
Translation:En citron, en tomat og et jordbær.
27 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
Unfortunately, you don't. you just have to learn the grammatical gender for each word. I remember reading somewhere that about 70-80% of words use "en", so if in doubt, go with that and just try to remember all the "et"-words over time :)
I was just wondering this. I hope it's regularly used as I'm an avid supporter of its use in English.
I like it in English, but I think it's fine for different languages to have different rules. My native language Dutch does not have it, and so I use it only in English and not in Dutch.
I know Norwegian doesn't, so I suspect Danish wouldn't either, but who knows.
It's not really an Oxford comma in this case, is it? I ask because it has no function here.
I think if we make mistakes for "en"/"et" it should not just count as a typo, it is a grammatical mistake
Perhaps later, but for now, unless you're willing to lookup each new noun outside duolingo, there's no way to know, so typo gives some needed leeway in my opinion.
yeah i agree that it should be considered a grammatical error since it is nearly impossible to know which words use et and en without having some experience before hand
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Because jordbær is an et-word. There isn't really much of a rule, you just have to memorise which words take en and which words take et. [2019/05/14]
"en" is for mixed feminin and masculine gendre while "et" is neutrum. Look at the other abswers for how to use "en" and "et"!
Is there a rule or something to know where is used "et" (eg. "Jordbær"), or "en" (eg. "Citron")?
It depends on the grammatical gender of the word. "common gender" uses en, "neuter gender" uses et. Sadly, there is no system as to which words are what gender. It's something you have to memorize.
Why do the first two fruits have "en" before them and the strawberry has "et"?
Copying myself here: It depends on the grammatical gender of the word. "common gender" uses en, "neuter gender" uses et. Sadly, there is no system as to which words are what gender. It's something you have to memorize.
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since jordbær is a neutral word and takes "et" DUO needs to IMMEDIATELY remove "en" from fir position in the hints.
Hints are not bound to one sentence. They are bound to the word. So the system will show you both, and you will need to remember or look up the gender of the noun that you are translating to know which one is the correct one. It works the same in French for un and une.
Actually, no. Duo does not read the comments, as the comment section is not the place to report problems with the sentences. These are done via the "report" button.
The sentence discussions are here to ask/answer questions about other aspects of the sentences, like grammar, sentence structure or pronunciation.