25 Comments
626
Boy, those umlauts! "Nötkött" sounds like "natshöt" to me. Where did the k go?
There are two types of vowels in Sweden. Hard and soft vowels. e, i, y, ä, ö = soft vowels a, o, u, å = hard vowels.
Certain consonants change in pronunciation depending on the vowel following. So, as in nötkött, ö is a soft vowel, hence the 'sh' sound.
also, ö is a more similar sound to that produced by 'er' in english, like in perfect. This link may help. http://blogs.transparent.com/swedish/swedish-pronunciation-hard-and-soft-vowels/.
Also: I used to have a Swedish tutor so ignore the fact I am currently on level 2, I am brushing up on my skills :)
Here's the Forvo link, to verify pronunciation.
I'm obviously only on level 2, but I would guess that sometimes a k inside a word has more of a /s/ sound. Like how English has hard C and soft C depending.
The only word with a k in the middle that I've come across so far is dricker, which definitely has a vocalized K.
K before i, e, ö and ä is read like sh/ch, for example köpa (to buy) = /choo-pa/ "ck" is a different thing, it's always read "k" regardless of the letters after, like in dricker, tack, flicka, etc.
How is it that "this" is never accepted and "that" or "it" always is ? If I'm not mistaking "this" is used the same as and more often than "that" in english…
- 829
this is det här or detta (or den här/denna) in Swedish, but det and det där can mean that.
What I was trying to say is when I try to translate the sentence we have here, my first instinct is to type "this is beef" because that's how I'd normally tell the sentence, but my translation gets rejected if I use "this" instead of the word "that". But in english, you can use "this" the same as "that" so I don't understand why my translation gets rejected every time I use the word "this"… If there is such a difference in Swedish, they should make a lesson to explain because I never got the tip about it ;) Also, you say that "this" is "det här" and "that" is "det där", but here we have "det är" which is neither of your propositions, so what should we do about it ? Thanks for taking the time to answer me ;)
- 107
"This" and "that" are not identical in English. There are times when either can be used, but they are not perfectly interchangeable.
For example, if I am holding up a piece of beef, I would say "This is beef." If I used "that" instead, the person I'm talking to would probably look around to see what I'm referring to.
On the other hand, if the beef is on a table across the room, I'd say "That is beef." It would be very strange to say "this" in such a case.
So it makes sense for duolingo to reject one if it should be translated as the other.
- 829
This is beef would be Det här är nötkött (or Detta är nötkött). Det är could be either It is or That is, depending on how you stress it, but the recommended translation is It is beef.
Det där är nötkött always means 'That is beef'.
I'm sorry we don't have a specific lesson about this, but it returns throughout the course so you'll get a lot of practice anyway.
I figure that här kinda indicates here and där kinda indicates there. So this (here) and that (there.)
Is the 't' from det never pronounced, or is it just the audio that's having a go with me?
is there a different way to say beef. I think I saw it in a translation somewhere.
Sometimes we just say Nöt instead of Nötkött if it's in a situation where it's understood that you're taking about the meat. (Kött means meat).
I wrote "it is meat" and got it wrong, because it was not clear the distinction between meat and beef.
Yes. The distinction is important to keep in the translation, as just "meat" is too general.
"beef" in the sense of bovine meat is generally uncountable in English.
