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- Topic: Swedish >
- "De äter sköldpaddor."
86 Comments
1428
Turtle soup used to be a very expensive delicacy (too expensive for most Swedish people in those days), but since the turtle population declined and they became protected, they are no longer used in cooking - at least not in Sweden.
1489
The TTS sounds right on this word. It's not an h sound, but it's a special sound that might take you a while to get used to. Read more here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sj-sound
193
Close, I think. Educated speakers of British English used to pronounce many words that started wh- as hw-. My father certainly did so, and you can hear it in old films from the thirties, forties and fifties. "Just hwat do you think you're doing, old boy?". Just purse your lips and make a soundless whistle, and you have it..
Yeah, there are some dialects of Swedish where it is pronounced as an "sh" sound. I've heard it pronounced that way on a Linköping radio station.
This pronunciation, though, sounds to me like more of an English "wh" sound, but pronounced further back in the mouth.
I first noticed this pronunciation while watching some Swedish television shows, such as "Bron" and "Wallander" (Swedish version)
Words like "själv" sounded more like "whelv"
When you're not sure about TTS you can check the word on forvo: http://www.forvo.com/search/sk%C3%B6ldpadda/
Katrin Berndt is a swedish youtuber and in this video she (in english) talks about how to pronounce certain words, it really helped me! https://youtu.be/_vjUSm9GUu8
407
My confusion is plurals with or without "the" as in they eat turtles as opposed to the turtles. How do you know?
1489
No, it's a [ɧ] sound. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sj-sound There are some great videos about it by course contributor Blehg that you can find here: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/6502614
880
About the "type what you hear" excercises: I think it is correct that Duo only accepts "de". My goal is to learn proper Swedish, not Swedish in colloquial spelling.
880
En-words ending on -a get -or in the plural, and -e becomes -ar. You can find more explanation about the plural forms in the Tips and Notes of chapter "Plurals" (website).