62 Comments
I love the difference between this thread and the matching one in Français: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/625176
Here, we're talking about grammar and sentence structure... there they're making silly jokes about milkshakes ^_^
I was literally about to make the milkshake joke. Then I read your post. ;)
Why is it "ditt kaffe" if it's "en kaffe"? Swedish gender doesn't seem to be as consistent as gender in other languages.. :(
Well, actually it could be both. Kind of.
The thing is that when you say en kaffe, you're talking about a cup of coffee (en kaffe = en kopp kaffe). However when you're talking about anything else regarding coffee, it's ett kaffe. For example if you're drinking coffee at a friends house and say "det här var ett gott kaffe!" (this was a good coffee!) you're talking about the brew or type of coffee itself. However if you're saying "det här var en god kaffe! (this was a good coffee!)" it means the same as "det här var en god KOPP kaffe" (this was a good CUP OF coffee!).
So basically, I think (not sure) that "en kaffe" is an abbreviation of "en kopp kaffe" and thus technically incorrect. However no swede (at least where I'm from) would even blink.
The same goes for tea by the way. "En kopp te" (a cup of tea), but "ett te" (a [kind of/pot of] tea).
Yeah this is pretty much it. en kaffe refers to the unit of coffee with ett kaffe refers to the liquid itself. It's also the same for beer (you order "en öl" but the drink itself is "ett öl")
Good to know! Now I feel less embarrassed by the two months I spent in Sweden ordering "ett öl" before learning that öl was an en-noun.. Guess I could have avoided the whole situation if I'd just ordered two
I thought this was really weird, but then I thought about it and it's actually the same as in Dutch... "de koffie" and "een (kopje) koffie". Makes you think about your own language, too. The same as it's strange to translate 'like' with 'tycker om' - but in Dutch it would be 'leuk vinden' which is also two words, I just don't think about it when I'm thinking in English..
It's even worse in Danish, where I like = "jeg kan godt lide". To me it sounds like "I might as well suffer" (lide = suffer). Weird :).
Well, it /is/ a language where they use the word "gift" for both marriage and poison, so… :p
well, gifts can be poisonous as well. TIMEO DANAOS ET DONA FERENTES ( Latin) which means i am afraid of the Greeks even when they bring gifts. This refers to the TROYAN HORSE story. What worse gift could there have been other than that one?
i never even thought about it that way! pretty masochistic :D you really made my day, here is a lingot for you :)
The tycker om suddenly made sense to me the other day, with the statement jag tycker om, as in I'm thinking of (you) which is sort of well I'm thinking of you therefore I'm liking you...
So in this particular sentence should be "Din kaffe" i guess , since it's refering to his cup of coffee , he says that he drinks his cup of coffee... if i understand right...
You could refer to either. If you say "ditt kaffe" I would interpret it as meaning that the person you're talking to usually makes coffee (i.e. "you make good coffee") or that you've tasted their cup and said it (sort of like "hey, yours is better than mine!").
I think ditt kaffe sounds better since it's referring to the beverage within the cup, but a native could be caught using either one and no one would care. So it's not black and white.
Ahh - I see! I like how Swedish can be a little more precise in the meaning :D
If "kaffe" is an ett-word, I don't understand why to say "en kaffe". I am ok with "en kopp kaffe", because "kopp" is an en-word, but if I don't use the word "kopp", I would say for example "Jag skulle vilja ha kaffe" (without the article), or "Vill du ha kaffe?", or "Tack för kaffet". In Italian "caffè" is a word of masculine gender: "a coffee" is "un caffè". "A cup of coffee" is "una tazza di caffè" (actually we say "una tazzina" = "a small cup"), because "tazza" is a word of feminine gender, but we don't say "vorrei una caffè" (I would like a coffee) at all! We can only say "un caffè" or "una tazza/tazzina di caffè" (not "una caffè"). So Swedish works differently, is that right?
"Kaffe" is a mass noun, but it still makes sense to talk about the coffee, which is "kaffet" in Swedish, so you are right, it is a neuter noun.
With "ett kaffe", you refer to one sort of coffee. "Jag skulle vilja ha kaffe" (without the article), or "Vill du ha kaffe?" are perfectly normal sentences. I guess you ask for "en kaffe" to stress that you want one cup only.
Some fun facts are that "en latte" does not mean a glass of milk, but a cup of "caffè latte" and that we say en cappuccino - två cappuccino :).
Tack för ditt svar. "En latte" betyder "un caffellatte" (inte "latte" = "mjölk") och man säger "En cappuccino; två cappuccino". Det är intressant! På italienska säger man "un cappuccino; due cappuccini". I've noticed that foreign people don't inflect Italian words (when they are linguistic loans). For example they say "bravo" (a masculine singular adjective in Italian) even referring to a woman or a group of people (instead of "brava" and "bravi"). "Jag skulle vilja ha kaffe" (without the article) in Italian literally means "vorrei del caffè" (as an uncountable noun), whereas "ett kaffe" means "un caffè" (one coffee), but the difference is quite subtle. :-)
Kind of related but is gott/god used depending on if the noun is ett or en?
And when to use ert vs din?
Yep, "gott" is for ett-words and "god" is for ett-words.
"Ert" is for singular ett-words belonging to multiple people, "din" is for singular en-words belonging to one person.
I think it should be, but it's never used. See en kaffe refers to a cup of coffee, and ett kaffe refers to a brew/batch/type/way of making it (the liquid or the powder, to put it short), however we'd never talk about the cups in plural like that.
If you explicitly need to pluralize the cups of coffee, you would say "kaffekopparna" or "kopparna" (which actually means the cups the coffee is in rather than the cups of coffee)".
Say you're moving from one table to another though. You could either ask your friends to bring all the cups, or just "ta med kaffet".
833
I don't think so. en kaffe, yes, but kaffen, no. kaminix is right, it is possible to say 'kaffen', but we hardly ever do.
This is another situation where there is great discrepancy between Swedish and Danish or Norwegian. When the Swedes say "kaffet" and the Danes say "kaffen" how can they understand each other?? ;)
I accept hardly ever. But you do say things like "Kaffen är stark/bra/god/dålig/sur/gammal/svag", right?
How do you know when to use er, ert, ditt, din or dina. So many choices for saying 'your'!! Whats the rule, is one for singular nouns, another plural, another possessive?
din/ditt - singular item belonging to one person. dina - multiple items belonging to one person. er/ert - singular item belonging to a group of people. era - multiple items belonging to a group of people.
din and er are used with en-words. For example you'd say "din sko". ditt and ert are used with ett-words. For example you'd say "ditt hus".
dina/era can be used with both en- and ett-words, but only in their plural forms.
Hope that explained all the differences in a clear way!
In my experience this would get you thrown out of Sweden. boy, they love their coffee
What if "your" refers to a shop and you're saying something along the lines of "You guys are fantastic, I drink your coffee everyday because it is so good"
you - one person:
en hund - din hund
ett hus - ditt hus
flera katter - dina katter
you - more than one person:
en hund - er hund
ett hus - ert hus
flera katter - era katter
And assuming you mean "Hey!" as an interjection here, a more natural translation would be "hörru!" eller "hallå!". "Hej" is mostly if not only used as a greeting (or sometimes as a goodbye, though that's slightly informal).
Ditt = used for singular ett-words
Din = used for singular en-words
Dina = used for all plurals.
Din stol, ditt äpple och dina barn = Your chair, your apple and your children.
Din/ditt/dina = your/yours (singular you) for en/ett/plurals respectively
Er/ert/era = your/yours (plural you) for en/ett/plurals respectively
ditt kaffe och ditt äpple = your coffee and your apple (singular you)
ert kaffe och ert äpple = your coffee and your apple (plural you)
I am bit confused about the words "ditt" and "ert" .. The meaning of both seems same to me -- "your" ... Is there any difference? Kindly help me.
For eTT-words use -T possessive pronouns: mitt får, ditt bi, vårt barn, ert fel
For eN - nouns use -N or -R possessives: min hund, din katt, vår ko, er häst
hans, hennes and deras do not change with the noun
Besides what kirakrakra already mentioned, ditt/din/dina is used when the thing you're talking about only belongs to one person, ert/er/era when it belongs to multiple people.
So, I like a little humor. First you eat my lemon then you drink my coffee? Thanks a lot! Laughter is good for, not only your health but your soul So laugh! : ~ )
Again a slightly clumsy translation to English (pretty rare in this app I must say) it shouldn't end up "I drink your coffee" but either "I drank your coffee" (past tense). Or "I will drink your coffee" (statement imperative). The answer could be a sort of question but again it's clumsy. Hope this helps and follows on from eating the dogs food.
This is not clumsy or a mistranslation, "jag dricker ditt kaffe" does mean "I drink your coffee".
"I drank your coffee" would translate to "Jag drack ditt kaffe".
"I will drink your coffee" (which I believe is future tense, not imperative? Isn't imperative used for commands?) is "Jag kommer (att) dricka ditt kaffe".
If the sentence was changed to a question, it would be "Dricker jag ditt kaffe?" or "Do I drink/Am I drinking your coffee?"
