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- "He is a man."
"He is a man."
Translation:Han är en man.
14 Comments
I'm getting a little confued why 'man' is accepted as 'man' and 'one', but there is also a more common word for 'one'.
Would translating a man as "en karl" also be accepted here or is the meaning different?
Yes it basically is the same thing. But "karl" is a very old way of saying it and nobody really uses the word any more.
It is still used both in speech and writing, to inject flavour, imply familiarity or sometimes to emphasise masculinity. If ever in doubt, stick to "man" as that will almost never sound out of place.
Examples:
Han är en stor stark karl! - He is a big strong man!
Han är min karl.- He is my man. Not specifically husband, it can refer to any man you're in a relationship with. "Min man" does specifically mean "my husband", however.
Found this on wiktionary "From Old Norse Karl, from karl (“free man”), originally a nickname. Popularized by the fame of Charlemagne (Karl in Danish),"
It is in Norwegian. But Swedish generally doesn't like to double M and N at the end of words.
"Karl" is an old version of "man." It's solemnly used anymore. Sometimes "karl" is simply used to enunciate masculinity, as skalpadda said previously. It'd stick to using "man."
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"är" means "is" and other forms of "to be." It might help to think of "are," which sounds similar.
"ett" means "a" (as does "en." You have to just memorize whether a noun takes "en" or "ett")
