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- "Hans hund äter inte kött."
44 Comments
764
I quote from "From Paris To New York By Land", written by Harry de Windt. "Another sled was packed with dog food, consisting of inferior salt-fish, which we were also compelled to share with the teams before Tchaun Bay was reached."
In English, the following sentences mean two very different things:
His dog is not eating meat. His dog does not eat meat.
However, it seems that in Swedish this sentence is used for both meanings. If I were reading a book in Swedish and came across the sentence, "Hans hund äter inte kött," am I to understand that his dog is a vegetarian, or just that his dog is not actively eating meat? Does the Swedish language rely on context clues for the distinction?
It depends on context clues.
(I am a native Swedish speaker) In this case I read "Hans hund äter inte kött" as "His dog does not eat meat", though I suppose it could be taken the other way.
If I want to be really clear that the dog is not eating the meat that's currently in his food bowl, I might say "Hans hund äter inte köttet." ("His dog is not eating the meat.")
1448
sin only refers back to the subject in the same sentence, and the owner of the dog is not the subject of this sentence.
In Norwegian, both forms "min hund" and "hunden min" are accepted. "Hunden min" is the most common form, while "min hund" is stressed on "min" and emphasises the fact that the dog we are talking about is mine. Is this true for Swedish too, or is "min hund" the only correct form (or the most common)?
1448
In Swedish, hunden min is possible, but very much more colloquial/dialectal or even emotionally charged, so we're not accepting it here in order not to make people think it's interchangeable with min hund. You should use hunden min only under very special circumstances.
410
'His dog eats no meat' is not accepted. I should say that that's a proper English sentence and should be accepted. Also to be noted is that Duolingo accepts that in the German version.
1448
We'd answer that it has a better translation into Swedish as Hans hund äter inget kött. The negation in Swedish is much more similar to English than that of German is, so while they can't really differentiate between eats no and does not eat, we can and do.
So the negation of the object versus the negation of the predicate matters in Swedish? I would contend that the difference is so subtle that it doesn't really matter, at least to a speaker of American English. The difference is in the emphasis alone. The underlying meaning remains the same. Unless the meaning of this particular sentence is limited to the immediate present, as in "His dog is not eating meat right now," but it might eat meat at some other time. In which case, "His dog does not eat meat" is a false translation, because "His dog does not eat meat" actually means that the dog never eats meat. Ever, in its entire life.
696
This could also mean "His dog isn't eating meat" right? Also, is it correct to assume this sentence is implying the dog doesn't ever eat meat?