"What is your uncle's name?"
Translation:Vad heter din farbror?
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12
What is the proper question if you don't know if the uncle is their father or mother's brother?
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
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?
1409
I'm surprised that the Swedish language uses "vad". I expected "hur". Is "hur heter din farbror?" very wrong Swedish?
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