"Hon är skådespelerska."
Translation:She is an actress.
24 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
1389
But almost fascinating to say out loud (I can't stop repeating the word like a mantra)!!
In English, most professions used to have a male/neuter and feminine form (policeman/policewoman, actor/actress, author/authoress) but nowadays at least some people see the feminine forms as patronising or archaic. (It seems to vary a bit- Almost everyone says waiter and waitress, but referring to a female pilot as an aviatrix makes you sound like C. Montgomery Burns and every female comedian I've known hates the word comedienne).
Does Swedish have the same dynamic? Is "Hon är skådespelare" an acceptable sentence, or does it just sound like a mistake?
Edit: Having tried it, DL does accept "Hon är skådespelare", and the comments on "Min syster är brandman" suggests that the traditionally male form can apply to any gender, at least in some cases.
You can use either form in Swedish for female actors – basically if you would use 'actress' in English, you should go with skådespelerska in Swedish, and if the English sentence has 'actor' you should go with skådespelare.
We also used to have a lot of gendered words for professions but most of them aren't used anymore. Skådespelerska is one of the few that are still used pretty widely, so we wanted to include it in the course for that reason.
- 1932
So if translating for the Oscars, the categories would be 'Bästa Skådespelare' and 'Bästa Skådespelare,' but if I was talking about my female acting professor who uses 'actor' to describe herself, 'hon är skådespelare' would be preferable? Good to know.
I think you meant bästa skådespelerska for the second one, but otherwise yup, that's technically correct.
We actually have names for the Oscars categories, though:
- bästa manliga huvudroll = best actor
- bästa kvinnliga huvudroll = best actress
- bästa manliga biroll = best supporting actor
- bästa kvinnliga biroll = best supporting actress
I don't know why, but I feel like this is a compound word. Does skådespelerska come from two or more smaller words?
Yes. skåde = theater, spela = to play, -ska = ending often used with professions
Well, there isn't actually a word skåde = "theatre" in Swedish -- although there is skåda (meaning "see, behold"). Skådespelerska is simply a feminine version of skådespelare, a direct calque (loan-translation) of the German word Schauspieler.
In the first 'Verbs' unit, it says that leker means 'play(s)' or 'am/are/is playing.' Is leker used with games, and spela with acting?
leka is usually applied to children playing, while spela is used for games and sports.
I love how I actually really managed to say it after a while. You really just have to keep going. Never give up.
Apart from what HelloMiners said, skådespelerska is an en word so it's never used with ett.
Sorry, little late here, but in Swedish (like French), they omit the article. So there will be no "ett skådespelerska", it will be just "Hon är skådespelerska". Convenient, am I right?
actress = skådespelerska
actresses = skådespelerskor
the actress = skådespelerskan
the actresses = skådespelerskorna
turtle = sköldpadda
turtles = sköldpaddor
the turtle = sköldpaddan
the turtles = sköldpaddorna
Mnemonic: My turtle is an actress.
Note: In Swedish, the words for actress and turtle are both Class 1 nouns (plural in -or), but the word for actor (skådespelare) is a Class 6 noun (singular and plural the same):
actor = skådespelare
actors = skådespelare
the actor = skådespelaren
the actors = skådespelarna
Note the difference in spelling:
spelErska
spelAre
Why is that, I wonder?
aktör about actors sounds old fashioned, I rarely hear it. The feminine form aktris seems to be a little more common, though still not used a lot. The word aktör is more often used about what you can call an 'agent' or 'actor' in economics, a decision maker.