"Han läser sin bok."
Translation:He reads his book.
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Would this mean "his book" in the sense that it belongs to him, or that he himself wrote it? Or are both interpretations correct?
I think a lot of people don't know what is mean't by en words and ett words at this stage and how to determine them.
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Unfortunately the genders in Swedish are pretty unpredictable. Here's a link to a post that mentions some tendencies, but basically your best bet is just to learn the gender along with each new word.
One thing I've found that really helps me with this is to try to learn the word in the definite form, rather than in the indefinite form. For example: flicka (girl) - I learn it as 'flickan' (the girl) ... or ... hus (house) - I learn it as 'huset' (the house)
That helps me to get the gender and endings thoroughly attached to the word.
When you learn a new noun, make sure you learn the gender of it as well.
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Is pronouncing the 's' in 'sin' suppose to sound like 'sh'? And if so, is there a rule to determine when it's suppose to be pronounced like that?
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The s sort of melts together with the final r of the previous word to produce this sound. This happens a lot, depending on how quickly or how carefully people speak.
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I don't know what to really do, my native swede friends say that "rs" is "sh" but doesn't happen across words. How am I supposed to go on to pronounce these sentences? If it just "blends together in speech" are we supposed to be learning "colloquial" or "slang" speech versus proper enunciation? What's the true goal of this course then?
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I guess I'm a pretty normal speaker and I need to speak very slowly, maybe even make a pause between words, for this not to happen at all. It's definitely not a slang thing. The speaker sounds very Standard Swedish here. There is regional variation however. If you're from Finland or Scania, for instance, it will not happen. There is also this phenomenon that speakers often overestimate how much their speech resembles the way the language is written. Having said that though, what you should do is to make a weak sh sound here. As a foreign speaker, it is better to do too little than too much of this.
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So it's alright to speak with an "open" i like the English word weak in stead of the Swedish "L"-sounding i? I can say this Swedish i sound when I say L with a very wide smile :D but not in a word. Can I stop practicing the i sound or will I always sound like a foreigner if I don't "close" my i's?
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It is completely normal and most people do it all the time (also across words) even if some are not even aware of it.
Assimilation is very common in other languages too. For example, when I studied Spanish, you had to assimilate or else you wouldn't pass the oral exam.
When you hover over a word, all translations of it will be shown. That doesn't mean all of them will be correct in the given sentence. Sin must refer back to the subject, so above it can only mean his.
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is the swedish /r/ near retroflex, or maybe post-alveolar, considering that it triggers palatalisation of /s/?
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Han läser sin bok - He reads his book (his own)
Han läser hans bok - He reads his book (someone else's)
Han läser hennes bok - He reads her book
Hon läser sin bok - She reads her book (her own)
Hon läser hennes bok - She reads her book (someone else's)
Hon läser hans bok - She reads his book
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Yes, definitely because it depends on the object. In this case Böcker is plural so it is correct :)
Can somebody explain to me the differences between sin sina and sitt. I'm very confused
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You use "sin" för en-nouns, "sitt" for ett-nouns and "sina" for plural.
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It's "sitt" before ett-nouns and "sin" before en-nouns:
Han läser sitt CV (ett CV)
Han läser sin bok (en bok)
So what ive gathered so far is that ending in "n" goes with "en" words ends in "t" goes with "ett" words. Is this correct?
My mind is officially blown! I would kindly ask for an explanation: what the heck are sin/sitt/sina now >.< in last lessons it has ben said that, for example, 'han' uses 'hans', 'de' uses 'din/dit/dina'.... so while reading comments I came to conclusion that difference in sin/sit/sina and all the others from past 2 lessons (min/mitt/mina/din/dit/dina/vår/vårt/våra/er/ert/era/deras/hans/hennes) is in that: sin/sitt/sina 1. Can go with either jag/du/ni/vi/de/det 2. Mean that subject posses THEIR OWN stuff; and all the rest from past 2 lessons: 1. Go with each of these things (example: jag-min/mitt, de-ditt/dina...) 2. mean that subject has somebody else's possesion??? Am I right? And if i'm not, can any1 PLEASE clear this out for me <3 P.s. sorry for bad english.
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Why the translation could not be: he reads her book? I understood that "sin" means "her" too.
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This is incorrect! Search up 'Swedish to English' then type "sin". It will show up has 'It's' NOT 'his'
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sin can mean 'his', 'hers', 'its', or 'theirs', depending on the subject. sin is a reflexive possessive pronoun that refers back to a subject in the third person:
han läser sin bok = 'he reads his (own) book'
hon läser sin bok = 'she reads her (own) book'
roboten läser sin bok = 'the robot reads its (own) book'
de läser sina böcker = 'they are reading their (own) books'
Don't rely on online translating services for languages, the interface doesn't understand context so it will come out as the constant or the generic term without looking at the words around it or applying it to a phrase, changing the meaning of the words/phrase and the words used