"What is your uncle's name?"
Translation:Vad heter din farbror?
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I'm thinking the word farbror is cut up into two parts, far and bror. If I'm not mistaken, it looks like father's brother, which is essentially what an uncle is. Confirmation?
Yes, uncle can be "farbror" = "father-brother", or "morbror" = "mother-brother". Easy and logical!
Which is why I love Swedish when it comes to family relationships.
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What is the proper question if you don't know if the uncle is their father or mother's brother?
You can always ask Är det/han din farbror eller morbror? Either det or han work, det would be a little more like 'that' in English I guess.
Is there a gender neutral word for uncle/aunt/grandpa/grandma and pronouns like they/them or do you simply use de when reffering to one non-binary individual?
morförälder / farförälder means "maternal / paternal grandparent", but apart from that, not really.
It's hard to imagine a context, assuming the entire conversation is in Swedish, where you'd know someone was their uncle without knowing whether they were their paternal or maternal uncle. After all, in order to know that that person was their uncle, they'd've had to tell you that, so they'd've said either farbror or morbror. The only time I can imagine that being an issue would be if you'd been speaking with the person in English, or another language that doesn't make that distinction, and then switched to Swedish
Uh, I think that, just as in any other language in which you don't know the genre of the subject, you'll take it as a mascline, or, in this case, as the father's brother. Then they will correct you(?) if you were wrong.
It's my guess, anyway. Don't trust me. But people will be keener on correcting me rather than answering you >:D
I think you'd have to try a more general term. In English, you could refer to someone as "family-member", "relation", "relative", or perhaps even "ancestor" in the right context.
"Vad är din farbrors namn?" is correct but more formal. "Vad heter din farbror?" is way more common.
Just had a thought, up to 50% of the time, your uncle is neither the brother of your mother or your father, that is of course when he is the husband of your mother or father's sister. Would you still call your father's sister husband a farbror??
You could call him that, yes. It varies. He could also be "min mosters man". Both are normal ways of saying it.
Oof... I just tried to use onkel. What language am I speaking again?
But following that train of thought, is there a non-specific way to refer to uncles in the broader sense? Like in a context where it doesn't matter whether he's my father's brother or my mother's, just that he's a parent-brother of some kind? Or is that less specific word absent from the Swedish language?
I dunno if they understand onkel or not; it's not in this course, but I bet you could say din förälders syskon or din förälders bror :)
Wth I wrote Vad är ditt farbrors namn It was wrong??? Why?? Namn behöver ditt inte din
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I'm surprised that the Swedish language uses "vad". I expected "hur". Is "hur heter din farbror?" very wrong Swedish?
V2 applies to questions as well, correct? Does that mean that "heter" is a verb?
No, v2 doesn't apply to questions. Direct questions just put the verb in front:
- Du är rosa = You are pink
- Är du rosa? = Are you pink?
And if you have a question word such as "who", "what", "why", etc., you put that in the very front:
- Varför är du rosa? = Why are you pink?
You may find this thread on word order useful: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/8970470
what would be closest translation of "Vad heter din farbror?" to english?
"What is your uncle called", I guess. But then again, Swedish can say Vad kallas din farbror? which is obviously cognate.
Swedish has a verb for being named: heta. So it's basically "what names your uncle?", so to speak. I always found it weird that English doesn't. :)