37 Comments
Could it be possible to say Enligt henne hästen är vit.? Or the words order is exactly like that?
really? because that makes so much more logical sense to me, thanks, you've made my day
Yes!
- Enligt henne är hästen vit
- Hästen är vit enligt henne
- Hästen är enligt henne vit
- Vit är hästen, enligt henne (beginning to sound awkward)
So engelska would be: According to her, the horse is white The horse is white according to her The horse is, according to her, white White is the horse, according to her (I'd imagine in both languages this would only be used in poetry).
no, the verb always must be in second position (like in German). So [enligt henne] is one phrase, and if there's any phrase at the beginning of the sentence the verb must come immediately after.
"Är hästen vit?" Yeah. It's the same as here. If you just said "The horse is white", it would be "Hästen är vit." The "Enligt henne" affects the word order of the sentence. If you are confused by it, try to think of it as "Only because something happened could something else happen" and not "Only because something happened something else could happen. It's the way it works.
Re-recording
The voice is not quite perfect on this sentence, as of August 11th, 2017, so I've taken the liberty of re-recording it.
The stress should be on henne, and that word shouldn't merge with är as happens currently.
Please find a correct recording on http://duolingo.vydea.io/239b388ab9f640379e0bc23e93f07f33.mp3
For more info on re-recordings, please check the info thread: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/23723515
Thanks for listening. Ha en bra dag! :)
”Vita” is also the definite form of ”vit”. Since you have ”den” and ”hästen”, the adjective also has to be definite.
I see. There are a lot of rules to remember, but it's been fun so far. Tack! :D
Because this is not a correct English sentence. The word order changes in Swedish, but it doesn't in English.
This sentence lacks the verb "är" (is), so this is not a correct sentence.
Thank you. The word order feels so strange to me! (Native English speaker.) The Swedish mods on this site are really active and it's very much appreciated. (:
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"Är hästen vit, enligt henne?" is the possible way to have it as an unambiguous question.
I really don't understand how the current phrase is not already a question...? "Enligt henne är hästen vit?". The verb "är" is before the noun "hästen"... this is really confusing if it doesn't work...
No, Swedish makes a difference between predicative and attributive adjectives, meaning that even though hästen is in the definite, the adjective isn't here.
I've written about it briefly several times in these forums, e.g. here: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/26420394/Answers-to-some-common-questions-on-grammar-that-beginners-have (under "How many definites do I need when I have an adjective describing a noun?")
English isn't a v2 language, so the verb doesn't move from "the horse is" to "is the horse" when putting the subclause first.
That's really not a very idiomatic English word order, so it shouldn't be accepted.
