"Det er mine kaniner."

Translation: They are my rabbits.

[SeanChester]

Why is the original sentence not "De er mine kaniner"?

[friswing]

'Det er' must be more like an impersonal phrase, (we have this in Swedish), so it is not conjugated; probably because the verb is never conjugated according to person/plural, so the connection diminishes. But in English, of course, it still has to be 'They are'. -- I suppose your sentence is not wrong, but another alternative. But in Swedish it would not sound as idiomatic, we prefer 'Det er', maybe the Danish do the same.

[runem]

Yep!

[webgenie]

Thanks! that's very helpful. I thought they might have made a mistake or something until I read your post. That ended my confusion.

I'm also curious how learning Danish is for someone from Sweden (as I was surprised to find it's close enough I can read Swedish recipes to my wife. This was an added benefit I wasn't expecting:) There is a huge amount of similar vocabulary.

[lovettaloca]

It should be 'They are my rabbits', no one would say, ' It is my rabbits'. Unless someone asked, 'What's that noise?' Then I would say,'It's my rabbits.' But that is refering to the noise.

[sumuenkeli]

In english it might not be used, but there's several other languages who do! Danish, german, swedish, french too, I think, and there's more :) It's just a fixed expression quite commonly used

[runem]

I have changed the "Best Translation" to "They are my rabbits."

[RianneWies]

Exactly!!
I'm Dutch, and learning Danish in this course.
Not a native English speaker, but I am happy you helped me out here.
Started to question myself, 'cause I could have been all wrong

[Rhapsodyja]

Could also be an answer. What did this mess? It is my rabbits

[LilMaschino]

Off topic but Maaaaaaaads

[saralloyd76]

It is always hard to understand when a direct translation results in a grammatically incorrect sentence in the language which is being translated into. Word order is one thing, but in instances like this I hope Duolingo will --as they move out of beta-- find a way to let people know when this type of sentence is being offered. :)

[Ben.Hansen]

Are the words "det" and "de" pronounced differently?

[Jason_Ogden]

To an english speaker, "det" sounds like (deh) as in "(de)ntist". "de" sounds like (dee) as in "(De)troit"

[Vibeke560719]

My mormor pronounces "det" like "deet." Perhaps different regions pronounce it differently?

[terry415]

But I pronounce the "de" in "detroit" as "duh"...>

[Patsy536249]

In Nebraska we say deetroit quckly on the dee

[RianneWies]

It's just very confusing. When the word 'that' is used it seems to be a single form.
"That is my rabbits " is just not proper English.
Very strange.

[Nicbeth]

And why is the translation "These are my rabbits" wrong?
I'm not a native English speaker.

[miaash1]

Some 10 months ago, I had the same confusion about this sentence as you are experiencing now!

[neinerbrown]

Why not 'den er'?

[friswing]

If you where talking about 1 rabbit, pointing at it, then you say 'Den er min'. In this sentence there are several rabbits. It could be 'De er mine', but in this case the neutral beginning is used "Det er ... ", we have it in Swedish as well, without reference to the specific noun that follows. Other languages has to conjugate, where we don't.

[webgenie]

Thanks. Another question then. Could det be used for the singular too without reference to the word that follows or would that sound wrong?

[hl191hlf]

Shouldn't ' that are my rabbits' also be ok?