66 Comments
Lol. That reminds me of the famous video "Mera kött!" from 1985. (Royal kids making sausages).
There is actually a Swedish word "kitt" (putty, cement) that is pronounced exactly like "❤❤❤❤".
To be technical, the initial sound is slightly different. Swedish kitt is [ɕɪt:], while English shit is [ʃɪt]. The Swedish sound is pronounced further to the front of the mouth (at the position of an [s]).
Ok, you really seem to know these things :). I can hear the difference if I concentrate, but they are very close at least.
I am going OT now, but I really want to know: Is the English "sh" the same as the German "sch" (as in Englisch)? And is that the way northern Swedes pronounce the sje-ljud?
oh, that's upset my fragile understanding about when 'k' is hard or soft. I thought that before an 'i' it would be hard, as in kille and Kiruna. darn.
In general, "k" is soft before front vowels (e i y ä ö) and hard before back vowels (a o u). It's similar to English "c".
Thanks! I guess 'kille' is an exception then. Since I wrote my comment I've thought of other words, like 'kista' and 'kinesiska' that have the soft 'k'.
1657
Because people tend to see and hear things that are already on their minds.
I read "kött" out to someone and they told me to watch the pronunciation on it. Took me a second of testing to see what she meant. XD
I've been told numerous times that 'g' before a soft vowel is pronounced as [j] (as in 'göra' or 'ingen' for example). So why in some words it's pronounced before the letter 'e' as [g]?
I heard a French person said "yii fo ne" for iPhone, they are apparently being more resistant.
This only happens initially, and as Arnauti says, many loanwords are exempt. "Ingen" is not pronounced with a soft g, but rather with a 'ng' combination (as in English 'ring'). Compare "ge" [je:] give with "stege" [ste:gə] ladder. The former has initial softening, the latter doesn't, because the /g/ is not initial.
Before "i e y ä ö", at the beginning of words, k is pronounced as [ɕ] (except in loanwords). This is a sound similar to the 'sh' in English, but it's pronounced further to the front of the mouth, at the same place you'd say an [s]. It's the same sound as Mandarin (pinyin) 'x', Japanese 'sh', Polish 'ś' and Russian 'щ'. If that doesn't help it's like mashing s+y together, as if you say "miss you" really fast.
- 1657
I think it's also pretty much the [ch] sound in the German word "ich", right?
Almost, but not quite. The German ich-Laut is [ç], which is very similar to [ɕ] (the Swedish tj/soft k), but still a different sound. The Swedish sound is, once again, made further to the front of the mouth. The German sound is made the same way you'd make a [j] (English y).
It's pronounced something like a "sh" sound (it's not the same as the English "sh" but it's close enough) before the vowels e, i, y, ä, and ö (which are called soft vowels, as opposed to the hard vowels a, o, u, and å). The only exception to this in loanwords, like pojke (which is Finnish in origin).
It only happens initially, that’s why pojke is an exception, rather than being a loanword. You also have native words where this happen like, fisken or stege which isn’t usually pronounced fistjen or steje. Better examples of exceptions would be kille or kisse. Or loanwords like kö and kör.
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Du menar väl att pojke inte är ett undantag, eller missar jag poängen helt?
The g- is syllable initial in eˈgentligen, and I think the second -g- is more likely historically silent than a -j-, similar to rolit for roligt etc. If there’s a -j- I think it’s been added afterwards because of the vowel hiatus.
In ste-ge or la-gen the g is also syllable initial, but it is not yoticized. Similarly, in poj-ke or bo-ken the k is also syllable initial, but does not undergo any changes. However, in all of these cases, g/k is the initial sound of an unstressed syllable.
The only way I can see all of this coming together into a sensible rule then would be that the soft g/k occurs in a syllable initial position when followed by a stressed e, i, y, ä, or ö, with some obvious exceptions.
One of the pronunciation samples on Forvo for "egentligen" is actually "ejentligen", and it is rated higher than the other one. This would follow the logic above.
Sadly, I don't know enough Swedish vocabulary to investigate it further.
- 604
The Swedish message boards are so linguistic. I love it! Where else could you find recreational morphophonology?!
Do you mean that "i" tends to be pronounced as "ij"? If so, I understand what you mean :). I guess that the "proper way" is to pronounce the first "g" as "j" and the second one as "g".
Thinking about how to pronounce "g" before "e" makes me all dizzy. We have for example
regera = rule, reign, govern where the second syllable (ge) is stressed and "g" is pronounced "j"
agera = act where the second syllable (ge) is stressed and "g" is pronounced "g"
I translated "A vegan does not eat meat" but Duolingo said it's a mistake, then how big is the difference in swedish between vegetarian and vegan?
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The difference is exactly the same as in English – 'a vegetarian' is en vegetarian and 'a vegan' is en vegan :)
En vegetarian äter inte kött. A vegetarian eats no meat. Is it a good tranalation? Or there is some difference.
In answer to Fealoce, I wrote that also and DL marked it wrong so I have reported it, as in English it has the same meaning. A vegetarian does not eat meat & A vegetarian eats no meat. Both work and mean the same thing (in English).
But "doesn't eat meat" = "äter inte kött" and "eats no meat" = "äter inget kött" :).
vegetarisk describes a food, vegetarian is what a person is :) they would both translate to "vegetarian" in english though!
Question about placement of the "Jag." Could I say, "Jag ar vegetarian. Ater inte kott." Or do I have to use to "Jag," to indicate that I do not eat meat, "Jag ater inte kott."
I don't know for sure but it seems to me that verbs in Swedish don't conjugate for person so having jag is necessary. Like in English
- 1657
"Äter inte kött" doesn't sound like a complete sentence to me. Maybe "Jag är vegetarian och äter inte kött".
The second ''a'' of ''vegetarian'' is pronounced like ''å'' (between ''u'' from ''cut'' and ''a'' from ''ball'')?
See, this is funny, because ordinarily I have a pretty filthy mind, but I can't not hear it as just being between "shut" and "shot." I mean, I can see how it would sound like "❤❤❤❤" to someone else, but it doesn't to me.
why is it "a vegetarian does not eat meat" but not "a vegetarian eats no meat"? how does "inte" work? does it affect only verbs?
- inte = not
- ingen/inget/inga = no [amount of something]
Hence: äter inte kött = doesn't eat meat äter inget kött = eats no meat
Lots of comments here but none like mine... I submitted a translation of "A vegetarian eats not meat" and got it wrong. What's the deal?.. That makes perfect sense in English... What DOESN'T make sense is that we have to put the act of "doing" before the verb "eat" to have the verb make sense in the negative... why?
We ask you to stick to the standard do-support which is the most common option in English. Wikipedia puts it well:
In the second sentence [She laughs. → She does not laugh], do-support is required because Modern Idiomatic English does not allow forms like *She laughs not.
This has exactly the same meaning as "A vegetarian eats no meat", but was marked incorrect - unless I'm misunderstanding something. Could I hear from someone on this?
I think, the answer: "A vegetarian eats no meat" is correct, and should be accepted by Duolingo. No, it hasn't been accepted because of some "democratic" computer rules. Ridiculous!
So while trying to repeat this phrase aloud, to practice pronunciation, the word "meat" keeps coming out as an English vulgarity. I cant wait to go to Sweden and try to say it! -_-
vegan = "vegan" in Swedish (a vegan excludes everything from animals like eggs and milk etc)
