22 Comments
I feel like I'm listening to GlaDOS having a breakdown, sometimes. I got 'de äter' but could not make out the rest at all. I'm leaking hearts like a sieve here.
And quite possibly because I'm going deaf, I put "min" instead of "din"...
On the plus side, just found out that the Svenska keyboard for ipad has an undo button!!! Can't remember seeing one for the English version...
I have a tad bad hearing, so could you help me out here? I'm sure I hear the voice saying "dom", which I have understood to be a slang word for "de". It still will not accept "dom" as a correct answer. So is there a mistake (the voice saying a word that is not recognised to be correct) or am I just hearing things?
Dom is the pronunciation of "de". As far as I know the spelling "dom" is considered slang and not accepted here.
So just to be clear, it is written "de", but pronounced "dom"? My Swedish teacher usually uses these both when speaking, she usually mentions the two are alternative options.
I've just asked a Swedish native speaker and according to him it can be pronounced both "de" and "dom", but it's always spelled "de". I hope that helps.
It certainly did! I'm still going to ask my Swedish teacher the next time I meet her, and I'm going to tell here what she says about this :)
Please, can you tell me.. what do they do with their TONGUE in the word "din" - the special "-n-" sound?? I try hard to pronounce it with my tongue between both my teeths, it souds like you must have sth with nose or what:D This sound doesn't exist in any Slavic language, neither in English, German, Spanish, Greek...what I know. Similar, for me kinda weard sound is also in the word "bil" - the -l- sound, "måltid" (same) and tidnigan - again the -n-...(sorry for spelling!) Can you give me any advice how to learn those sounds? Please and thank you!:-)
It's a variant of the phone [i] with more friction.
From Wikipedia: "In Central Standard Swedish, the high vowels /iː/, /yː/, /ʉː/ and /uː/ can be phonetically a short vowel followed by the corresponding fricative (also described as approximant) [iʝ], [yɥ̝], [ʏβ̝], and [uw̝] or [ij], [yɥ], [ʏβ̞], and [uw]."
I should have also included this:
"One of the varieties of /iː/ is made with a constriction that is more forward than it is usual. Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson describe this vowel as being pronounced 'by slightly lowering the body of the tongue while simultaneously raising the blade of the tongue (...) Acoustically this pronunciation is characterized by having a very high F3, and an F2 which is lower than that in /eː/.' They suggest that this may be the usual Stockholm pronunciation of /iː/."
If the subject (you), din refers back to were ni and not du, that is to say, plural and not singular, this would be, De äter er mat. Is that right?
In this multiple choice question, the options are, din, ditt, dina. Since mat is a mass noun it is sinigular and since mat is an en word its modifiers must take the gendered (-en) form. Therefore, the only option is din which is singular and gendered. If the sentence were, "They eat their (own) food." I believe the translation would be, "De äter sin mat."?
I understand that the posessive pronoun takes its number (and gender) from its object and not from the subject it refers back to.
Please correct me if I'm wrong. I should know this intuitively by now but I continue to trip over it.
Yes, that is correct.
You are also correct on the use of 'sin'. To answer your question, the possessive pronoun inflects according to "mat" here, the modified or described noun. That is, if it were neuter, e.g., "They eat their (own) apple", then it would be, "De äter SITT äpple", and if it were a plural noun, e.g., "They eat their (own) apples", then it would be, "De äter SINA äpplen."
