"Drengen har nederdelen på."
Translation:The boy is wearing the skirt.
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Why is it so hard to pronounce the words? :( nederdelen sounds like new latte in for me.
Yup, it's because "nederdelen" is made up of "neder" and "del", and as we have learned, the d is never soft in the beginning of a word. That rule remains intact for compound words!
Sorry, where have we learned that? I cannot seem to find any phonetic notes in the course...
neder comes from ned (down) and del means part. It basically means "the downward part (of your clothes)". Something you put on to cover your nether regions, basically. In German, you can say "Unterteil" which is constructed the same way (unter = down/under & Teil = part); if you'd use that in a clothes context, it can describe anything from a skirt to pants.
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A side note on MantisObscura's comment: I would not use "Unterteil" in German to refer to clothing - only "Oberteil", meaning "top".
But maybe that is something even German native speakers disagree about.
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Yes, you would use it if you wanted the exact shape (e.g. skirt or pants) unspecified: "Du brauchst ein anderes Unterteil zu der Bluse."
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?@ BorgPrincess: Maybe you would - I wouldn't. ;-)
Wiktionary does not have an entry on "Unterteil" and the entry on "Oberteil" only mentions "Unterteil" as the opposite of the meaning not related to clothes. Duden has an entry on "Unterteil", but it does not mention any relation to clothes, whereas its entry on "Oberteil" does.
I'm not stating said use of "Unterteil" is wrong, but I'd like to point out it's not universal. :-)
Yes, Unterteil is not used in German language, and sounds like Hinterteil to me...
to say the first "d" you need to think about pronuncing an "L" but you push the tip of your tongue against the lower teeth... which is easier said than done, I still get it all messed up
Although English ‘skirt’ derives from Danish ‘skjorte’ (or whatever it was in Old Norse). Which is still cognate to English ‘shirt’, of course.
How is nederdelen pronounced phonetically. I am really struggling to pick the sounds out for some reason
It is "technically" /neðɐdelə/ which should mean "naytha dayluh" more or less but the IPA doesn't really have a good symbol for Danish soft D, so they just cheap out and use a ð. If you say naythadayluh people will know what you're talking about but you'll sound funny and people will almost certainly ask you to say "rød grød med fløde" in which every word has a soft D.
A Danish soft D is more like saying an L with the tongue on the bottom teeth instead of the top ones.
Does this not directly translate to "The boy has the skirt on."? I'm a bit thrown off as to why it would translate it this way.
I would say the literal translation sounds a little weird to some people and so they translate it as is wearing in stead. I don't know this for sure, but maybe Danish doesn't have a word for wear as in to wear clothes and so this is duolingo way of getting that across. Just a guess though. Feel free to correct me in the comments if I got something wrong.
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Not a native English speaker here : Why can't I say: 'the boy wears the skirt?'
You can, it is accepted as an alternative. Maybe something else went wrong with your sentence?
Okay, that's possible. I really was wondering, but perhaps Autocorrect changed 'skirt' again to 'shirt' - that has happened before. Thank you for clearing it up. :)
So hard to get my tongue to do this word... uggg. Im a danish descendant for gods sake.
In Danish, nothing.
In English, "is wearing" is more immediate. "Wears" is a common action, like he wears one regularly.
"He often wears a skirt. In fact, he is wearing one right now!"
The voice is silent on the en in drengen. It cannot be heard leaving the listener guessing.