"The boy drinks it."

Translation: Pojken dricker den.

[ChristyTs]

Wouldn't 'det' be more preferrable?

[Zmrzlina]

Often, yes. But since it's ambiguous, be accept both den and det.

[wilson_ginny]

In some of the other exercises where you have to match the English words to the Swedish words, it keeps telling me "den" is "the" and only "det" is "it". Am I missing something?

[devalanteriel]

den and det are the same word, just for different grammatical genders. If the boy drinks something that has the common gender en, like mjölk, you use den. And if the boy drinks something that has the neuter gender ett, like kaffe, you use det.

You may find this thread of use: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/26420394

[avovsenemedved]

Would Vatten be an Ett or an En word? (I know the oruginal question doesn't specify the boy's drink.)

[NattKullav1]

Vatten är ett ett-ord (vatten, vattnet).

[avovsenemedved]

Tak sa mycket! :D

[MTAliz]

Tack*

[DionDash]

But if "den" would refer to water (an ett- word) in this sentence, should't it be: "Pojken dricker det"..?

[NattKullav1]

Possibly, he drank wine.

[oOIIIOo]

For "The boy drinks it "
I wrote "Pojken dricker det"
and got it correct
but
the answer states it should be "Pojken dricker den"

[devalanteriel]

"it" in English translates to either den or det in Swedish, depending on the grammatical gender of whatever is being drunk. Hence, we accept it both ways, since it's impossible to tell without context which is intended.