"The girl reads a letter."

Translation: Flickan läser ett brev.

[zaalzida]

Difference between en and ett?

[Zmrzlina]

Every Swedish noun is either an en-word or an ett-word. You will have to learn which is which word by word. It's comparable to how French has le and la words, for example.

[AmandaVarner]

it's comparable but not a masculine/feminine situation?

[Arnauti]

Exactly. We used to have 3 genders historically: masculine, feminine and neuter. (long ago) But then the masculine and feminine melted together and formed what is now the common gender (the en words).

[AmandaVarner]

interesting, thank you

[plank_]

And I can just think: why not everything neuter?

[Ryn-Garingaroses]

Thank you, I was really confused about that too!

[SuperNova1353]

All Swedish words are divided into two groups: en-words (or utrum) and ett-words (or neutrum). Unfortunately, you cannot know to which group a certain word belongs but there are some tips to have a greater chance of guessing right.

Most words are en-words
Most words designating a person are en-words ¹
Have a look at the ending, many endings take the same article (e.g. –a² , –ing and –het are always en-words)
¹ One common exception is ett barn a child
² The only exceptions are ett öga, ett öra and ett hjärta.

[NicoClone]

Ett öga, öra, hjärta... what do they mean?

[SuperNova1353]

An eye , ear , heart

[Alienm00se]

What the difference between brev and bokstav? The first time I did this one it told me I was wrong for using brev.

[Suicidexempt]

Apparently bokstav is a letter in the alphabet, whilst brev is a letter you send. Googled it but ran into same issue.

[lunablek]

Thank you !

[Jathiya1]

Why tjejen for 'girl' and not flickor?

[mika48128]

Why doesn't this accept it when i write tjejen instead of flickan?

[domi_zzz]

Difference between flickan and flicka?

[Arnauti]

'the girl' vs 'girl'

[Dodo371751]

Cannot find tjejen in the Swedish dictionary

[IvnVjar]

I only know the word brev for letter. No clue what bookstav is...

[UrMim3]

So when I did this I put Dricker also stands for is drinking too!

[MarcieElaina]

I'm having a really hard time saying "läser". I'm trying to say the english word "laser" (lahyz-er)but with an s sound instead of a z sound. Is that more or less correct? I feel like its wrong...

[Sarah.Lochhead]

Im told (by my swedish boyfriend) that its more like LEY-SEHR

[XuBradleyD]

Hmm why is it flickan not flickor? Whats the difference?

[rachelcarmel18]

In this sentence, they say "the girl reads a letter". Flickan means "the girl" and flickor means "girls".

[mdn28]

So ett-noun and en-noun need to learn word by word? Any rules like la (feminine) or le (masculine) in Frend?

[daryscavies]

How do I properly pronounce brev? Is it "bree-ef"?