"Pojkarna läser breven."

Translation: The boys are reading the letters.

[Willowfae]

how do you know it is the letters and not the letter?

[Carnaedy]

The letter (singular) is "brevet".

All -et words that end in a consonant follow the following declension pattern:

• ett [brev] -- a letter
• [brev]et -- the letter
• [brev] -- letters
• [brev]en -- the letters

[leonardinh1]

that's a great example!

[deactivated user]

thank you soo much have a lingot

[francesrainbow]

So just checking: 'the letters' is 'breven' - Would 'letters' (just letters in general, not specific letters) be 'brev'?

[Plugghest]

Yep.

[Ramn958636]

And what about apples? Is the pattern different or what?

[Plugghest]

The general pattern for ett words is different if it ends in a vowel.

Ends in a consonant:
a letter: ett brev
several letters: flera brev (the same)
the letter: brevet (-et)
the letters: breven (-en)

Ends in a vowel:
an apple: ett äpple
several apples: flera äpplen (-n)
the apple: äpplet (-t)
the apples: äpplena (-na)

[francesrainbow]

Sorry for the late reply - thank you for your help!

[HoroTanuki]

Why can't the translation be "boys read letters?", letters being indefinite plural here?

[lydiaoxenstierna]

Most definite plural endings (I think for most en-words) have -na on the end, so it goes:
pojke- boy
pojkar- boys
pojkarna- the boys

[S.M.94]

how do we make the plural definite :(

[thorr18]

Just add "en".
That makes the plural definite for all 'ett' words that end in a consonant. (ett brev, brev, brevet, breven)

[MaryBeth378619]

Breven - the letters. Brevet - the letter.

[dreacoco]

please can you fix the audio? I'm losing lots of points because it doesn't work and I have to click skip to go ahead! :(

[mefoley]

Interesting you should say that; I got an error message here saying that my Flash had a problem or something, and suggesting that I reload the page. Reloading the page took care of it. But maybe, if you're having problems here, too, it's a bug. If you haven't managed to get the audio to work, you can send a bug report.

[KylCes]

it sounds like she's saying poykana. in norwegian they seem to emphasize the r roll but not swedish? is it poykarrna or poykana

[CaliforniaNorma]

Yes. This tripped me up.

[thorr18]

There's even less r in this version:
http://forvo.com/search/Pojkarna/sv/

[Bryony632359]

When I've typed something wrong, the red correction covers what I've typed so I can't see where I've gone wrong...

[carey911086]

Yes. It seems sometimes it shows me the right answer but not always I agree. Then you cannot learn from the mistake.