"Hur många pojkar simmar?"
Translation:How many boys are swimming?
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Tack. And are there other contexts where the "s" sounds the same way, or where other letters are influenced by their neighbors in a similar way?
This will happen in most words where you have a cluster of R + those consonants. The R will influence and merge with following S, N, T and/or D, and for some dialects L too (although that's rare). That's why the part of Stockholm called Hornstull will in fact have all of its middle cluster of consonants retroflexed by the R into /ɳʂʈ/, if phonology is your thing.
Also this does not happen in Southern Sweden that uses a ”French” /r/ and not really in Finland either.
I'm looking to reply to Lundgren8's comment "Also this does not happen in Southern Sweden that uses a ”French” /r/ and not really in Finland either," but I don't see a "reply" for that button - so, is that Southern Swedish "French" /r/ like the Danish "r"?
yes! The Southern Swedish and the Danish / French / German /r/ are quite similar! Check out the different "Skånska" / Scanian dialects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc3-AyPLa6I
The Finnish and the Standard Swedish /r/ are the same but in the Finnish variant, you do not merge /r/ with /s/ (nor any other consonant).
The TTS was changed, this was one of the few things the old TTS did better. Actually, most Swedes would make the r and s in pojkar simmar melt together into a retroflex, sh-like sound, so you should have heard it here… but the new Voice swallows the r instead.
Since this sentence could be interpreted as either "how many boys are swimming?" or "how many boys swim?", is there a way to distinguish the two in Swedish?
Does många always refer to people, or could you say e.g. "Jag äter många äpplen"?
Does "många" sounds like monga with a very light g? Or sounds like monya where G sounds as "ya"?
"Ng" together is a special sound, the same as the English "ng" in "sing.
mycket is used for uncountable nouns: mycket vatten
många is used for countable nouns: många katter
mycket can also be an adverb:
han är mycket glad - he is very happy
Många is a verb? Many is an adjective in English. I thought a verb follows the interrogative word.
No, it's not a verb. The verb follows the interrogative phrase, which sometimes consists of one word - or, like here, of several.
I understand that it's not a verb. I thought that question word order was (Verb, Subject or Interrogative, Verb, Subject) why is ge verb simmar, last?
Your question was "Många is a verb?" so I thought you were asking if många is a verb.
The question word order is verb - subject - order, as you say, and interrogative - verb - subject - order if there is an interrogative.
But the interrogative doesn't have to be a single word. In this case, the entire phrase hur många pojkar is the interrogative, and the verb simmar comes after it.
