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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!
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.
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.