48 Comments
"She speaks no English" is not a correct translation for "Hon talar inte engelska" since this sentence could mean two things.
Either "she" can't speak English, or she is simply not speaking English at the moment. Since it could be interpreted in both ways we only accept "She does not speak English".
"Hon talar ingen engelska" would be a perfect translation for "She speaks no English".
A fine point, but as a native British English speaker, I would say that 'She speaks no English' and 'She does not speak English' are interchangeable in common usage. If wishing to convey that she is not speaking English at the moment, 'She is not speaking (in) English' would be used.
because it does not sound good. It sounds better as "She does not speak English".
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In English, third person singular (he, she, it) subjects get a special verb form ending with -s. Like, I read, you read, they read but She reads. For do, that form is does. I do, you do, we do, they do but he, she, it does.
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And other users, please don't keep downvoting this when it's already at the bottom of the page! A lot of our users aren't native speakers of English and I think we might as well have explanations about things in English grammar too. Why not learn two languages at the same time?
This is the most useful way of learning with Duolingo, perhaps. You choose the course of your target language and learn the language that's also used in the country where this language is from (the language that you also need/want to learn)
1-What's the difference among Ingen / Inget / Inga? 2- When inte comes before or after the verb? 3- Talar or tala?
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ingen is for en words, inget for ett words, and inga for plural, regardless of gender.
ingen bok 'no book', inget hus 'no house', inga barn 'no children'.
In a normal Swedish sentence (a main clause that is not a question) the verb always comes in second place, and since it would be odd to start a sentence with inte, it will come after the verb. But in subclauses, inte goes before the verb.
tala is the infinitive, but talar is present tense (used for all persons: jag talar, du talar, hon talar …). The infinitive is not used directly with a subject. It is either used with another verb, like jag tycker om att läsa 'I like to read' (att läsa/to read are infinitives) or to speak about the verb action itself: det är roligt att läsa 'it is fun to read'.
In pronouncing TALAR the stressed syllable is 'ta' (second-to-last), in pronouncing ENGELSKA the stressed syllable is 'ska' (last), is there a tip that would let me know when I should stress the last or second-to-last?, or do I just have to "remember"
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The stressed syllable in engelska is the first, e. Generally Swedish nouns have the stress on the first or second to last syllable, (and in compound words, secondary stress on the other part of the word) but there is no hard and fast rule. If it's on the last, the word is usually a (French) loan word.
Blehg has made some very helpful videos about Swedish pronunciation that you may want to check out: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/6502614
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If you put exactly she doesnt speak English, you should just be told you have a typo. If you put she doesn't speak English, it shouldn't complain at all. So I'm not sure what might have happened.
What does the 'talar inte' actually mean; is it a phrase in itself, because I presumed 'inte' was like 'in', so I translated ''She doesn't speak in English''. Can anyone help?
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Literally, it means 'She speaks not English', but in English you use the construction with the verb do with negations, instead of just adding the negation like we do in Swedish. So you say She does not speak English instead.
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It's actually spelled literally with just one t and I chose that word order because of the contrast with what follows: literally it means that, but... Maybe I should add a comma though.
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Both ways are fine, there's just a small difference in meaning – they fit in different contexts. :)
It might just be how you say it... I would userly say "it literaly means" but you say it the other way around with "literaly it means" :) and lol i spelled it wrong 2 times in a row....
Is "inte" like "not" and/or "no"? Can I use it to answer a yes/no question? I ask that because my native language is portuguese and we only have one word for no or not.
Why does it use the verb talar for speaking rather than pratar which seems a lot more common when you are in Sweden?
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pratar is a more colloquial word but I don't share your impression that it would be more common in this case – the standard way to say you speak a language is to use the word talar, although pratar is also ok.
How are you supposed to recognize the difference between "Hon" for a female vs a male?
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didn't speak is past tense so that would be pratade inte
pratar inte is present tense so that's doesn't speak
Talar and inte can mean she does/ doesn't speak blah blah blah. But how am I able to know in n which way ot uses them??
"talar inte" means "doesn't/don't speak". So "talar" means "speak" and "inte" means "not".
English uses "doesn't" for he, she, and it, and "don't" for everybody else.
