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- "Hennes barn äter frukost."
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Is there any way to tell for sure whether this means "Her children eat breakfast" as opposed to "Her child eats breakfast?"
Some words in Swedish are the same in singular and plural, but in most sentences you will be able to tell from the other words used which it is. For example, 'Hon äter frukost med sin barn' would indicate one child. 'Hon äter frukost med sina barn' would indicate multiple children. Likewise 'Vem är din barn?' would indicate one child, 'Vilken är dina barn?' would indicate more than one child. Hope that helps!
In general it helps. But in the case given neither "hennes" nor "barn" are clear in that question. Both can be singular and plural. (or did I misunderstand anything?)
Miriam, the Swedish we are given here is ambiguous. It can mean either of the following:
1. Her children eat breakfast.
2. Her child eats breakfast.
Compare the following English sentence, which is similarly ambiguous for similar reasons:
Her deer ate breakfast.
How many deer? We do not know from the noun, and the verb here does not tell us either.
Barn is an ett-word, so it should be: "Hon äter frukost med sitt barn", "Vilket är ditt barn" and "Vilka är dina barn".
I like the word "frukost" because it's kind of like in German, where we say "Frühstück", literally meaning "earlypiece".
Is this the child-ren of the speaker, or is it a third party from the point of view of the speaker? (sin or hennes)
Pipsee, these are not the children of the speaker. If that were so, the speaker would say either "mitt barn" (singular) or "mina barn" (plural).
The Swedish word "sin" would not be used here, no matter whose children were involved. The word "sin" is used only in the third person, and only to refer to a subject that has previously been established, not to modify the subject itself for the first time.
yes, except henne refers to an object. For example, "Han tycker om henne." which means He likes her. The pronoun, her, does not own anything, so it is just a regular pronoun. Hennes is a possessive pronoun. For example, "Det ar hennes hund." Which means It is her dog. The pronoun, her, owns the dog, so it is possessive.
I wrote "their children eat breakfast". Why is this wrong? Isn't Hennes also the plural of "her" and since we do not have an only feminine plural of "her", we can type "their", right?
David, "hennes" can be "plural" only in the sense that it can be used before either a singular or a plural noun. Compare the English:
her car
her cars
In the example just given, there may be more than one car, but there is only one person, namely, her, and her does not equal their.
Hmm, I answered the Swedish to English version of this question as: Her child eats breakfast. Should that be marked wrong?
Maleen, I think that hon means she and hennes means her when the her is not referring to the subject.
hennes is "her" for en-words , it-words and for plural. barn - "child" and "children". Why it does not accept :Her child eat breakfast. ?
thank you :-). I see. So Her child eats breakfast. and Her children eat breakfast. in Swedish be the same: "Hennes barn äter frukost." ?
International Phonetic Alphabet, where ɳ is used for the sound spelled RN in Swedish.
