"It is the cats' food."

Translation: Det är katternas mat.

[karin484473]

One cat possessive is cat's, plural possessive cats is cats'. Tricky little apostrophe!

[sarah298505]

Screw this nitpicky stuff, i'll just stick with english! (Joke)

[Saturnize]

Good catch. I though there was an error in the lesson...

[dyujgfedc]

>Det är katternas knivarna.
>Det är katternas vegetarian.
Those are some badass controlling cats.

[wotintarnations]

You don't own the cat, the cat owns you. :)

Also PS, "knivarna" is "the knives", "knivar" would be just the plural "knives", without the definite article!

[DrMicroChem]

So true! Dogs have owners; cats have staff! ;-)

[qixyl]

I came across this variant: "Män är katternas mat." Жесткач. %))

[olls3]

What would, "It is the cat's food" translate to? As in, if there was only one cat.

[kaiser899156]

Det är kattens mat, I think.

[Zmrzlina]

Yes.

[Tlenzen76]

Why can we not use De intead of Det in this case? I thought it was for en- and ett- words respectively.

[Zmrzlina]

"De" is a plural pronoun. I think you mean "den". However, none of these apply here. Whenever what you're talking about is very general or not introduced yet, it defaults to "det".

[annethony]

It is a poor sentence. Cats' can be singular or plural in english. Why only allow the plural translation?

[devalanteriel]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean - cat's is singular and cats' is plural in English. Since the Swedish katternas is in the plural, it needs to be cats'.

[Metty]

Why does it go from Katten to Katterna instead of Katteren?

Or am I wrong somewhere?

Is that just what the language does in all cases?

[devalanteriel]

• en katt = a cat
• katten = the cat
• katter = cats
• katterna = the cats

[coral199625]

I understand . I counsidered the cat as singular so did not type katternas. I did not reakise the apostrophe after the (s) makes the noun katt made it plural.
Tack sa mycket .

[NeoTubNinja]

Indeed.

Cat's represents the possessive of a single cat whereas cats' represents the possessive of multiple cats. It's just how we handle possessives in English. However, sometimes you'll also see proper names with just the apostrophe at the end and those are definitely singular most of the time (i.e. Jesus' sandals).

[cliftonisms]

Why not, "den är kattens mat?"

Aren't katt and mat "en" words?

[devalanteriel]

They are, but Swedish defaults to the neuter gender for the general "it" before the noun has been introduced. I wrote a little more about it e.g. here, towards the bottom: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/26420394

[SierraMoo]

Is it saying that there are several cats and its their food or is it one cat whise food it is?

[devalanteriel]

There are multiple cats and they have food.

[anupsinghc]

why not kattens? always get confuse with -en and -nas

[devalanteriel]

• -en is a definite singular suffix
• -na is a definite plural suffix

Hence:

• kattens = the cat's
• katternas = the cats'

[Chrisbilljohn]

This lesson has been totally corrupted, and is mostly gibberish. Swedish and English all jumbles together.

[devalanteriel]

I take it you're not referring to the bug with apostrophes, then?

[Chrisbilljohn]

No, the sentences in both the original and the translation - Swedish/English & English Swedish - were mixed together and some words were not available for the selection offered. This may have been a temporary glitch..? Some even said translate form Swedish, but the sentence was already in English.

[devalanteriel]

Oh, yeah, that sounds really weird - must have been a bug. Sorry, I thought you meant that the course was bad and I couldn't figure out the reason. :)

[nana315067]

This one threw me, is this really correct? Katternas? I thought it was kattens, it corrected, but... whaaaa.. cat's....cats.. hmmm

[NeoTubNinja]

This one threw me, is this really correct? Katternas?

Yes. It's both plural AND possessive.

Singular:

• katt = cat
• en katt = a cat
• katten = the cat

Singular & Possessive:

• kattens = the cat's
• en katts = a cat's

Plural

• katter = cats
• katterna = the cats

Plural & Possessive:

• katternas = the cats'